6 Jun 2007
If ever, in the near or the distant future, any of you get a chance to work with me, especially if it involves something artistic, brain storming and doing something creative, run for your lives. Don’t say that you didn’t know, because you have been warned!
Be it picking curio shelves or picking curtains, I get all crazy. First I come up with a mental image. Then I put it down on paper – I either draw it or photoshop it, then I go around all the shops looking for it. The more I find that what I have in mind is not available anywhere, the more obsessed I get with what I cannot have. Then I come back to the table make some compromises, change the design a bit and go shopping again. After a million trips and a zillion changes, I realize what I have in mind is still not available anywhere. At this point of time, I give up shopping for it and, here comes the real headache, I roll up my sleeves and decide to make it myself. In the process the people around me and the people who interact with me go nuts.
I applied every ounce of my usual craziness to infant’s birthday cake. I was desperately looking for a theme and nothing unique came on to me. Hubby simply couldn’t understand the fuss behind all this. His logic is very simple. Cake = something we eat. So it has to taste great, who cares how it looks. Also he is oblivious to all the theme fundas I put. He noticed that the girls and I wore pink only after his elder sister pointed it out to him and this was about two weeks after the party! So I was on my own in picking the theme.
Suddenly a week before the party, the light in my head went on. Remember how toddler calls herself ‘Toddler Shortcake’ and infant ‘Infant Dumpling’ – after the Strawberry Shortcake and Apple Dumpling? Plus, I really liked the concept of spelling happy birthday with wooden alphabet blocks. This is her first birthday, so there has to be the number 1 some where in the cake. So this would be the rough draft.
To get the theme going I need to have plates, table covers, party caps and balloons to match with the cake. Finding accessories to go with the cake was a challenge. I wasn’t able to find any Strawberry Short Cake stuff. So chances of finding Apple dumpling products was even bleak. After visiting couple of stores and extensive web searching, the only thing I liked was this.
So after I put eveything together, tweaked the cake design a little bit and came up with this. THIS, I decided will be infant’s cake.
Now, if I could get Charm City Cakes to make the cake! (Have you watched their shows? I am a big fan.) I would have made cold calls to 20 different bakeries. Most of the bakers weren’t willing to do it even if I was willing to pay by the hour! Finally, the bakery section of a local grocery store agreed to take up the order out of pity, only because I had put in so much effort. They had couple of conditions. They said they will not draw the picture of Apple dumpling and we both agreed to scan the picture and print it out on edible rice paper and then stick it to the cake. The second condition was that, they cannot gurantee that the cake will look like the picture. I had to go with them as I was running out of time.
This was the final result.
I wasn’t too happy about how it looked, but for what it was worth, it tasted YUM.
Note to self: Get proficient in cake decoration before toddler’s third birthday.
5 Responses for "My cake is dough"
Ahhhh, it’s cute! Not exactly like your design but nice. And lots of color and detail. That’s cool! I know what you mean about Charm City Cakes. But then who has $1-3,000 for a birthday cake? On the other hand, I do some cake decorating. It might be fun to work for them…
Happy Birthday, Infant!
Glenna: May be I can get some pointers abt cake decoration. I have a plan for Charm City Cakes. May be send a detai email about my plans, collages, throw in a sop story and get them to do food nw spl for me!!!! Just a small technical glitch, I just have to get in line with the zillion others who have the same plan as me!
Wow and plus, did your cake really say Infant on it? Oh no stoopid me, you overwrote that in photoshop didn’t ya? Duh.
I get that way about upholstery and general interior decoration. I have been known to unsucessfully sew custom slipcovers for my sofa/loveseat and sand/stain my dresser/coffee table etc to get the perfect grain and finish.
Needless, my efforts NEVER came out looking like that cake. It’s beautiful. Infant will appreciate it when she grows older !
>>did your cake really say Infant on it?
Yo Poppins, I can see that you are a little disoriented after your mom left for US 🙂
Hiii!
Nice to see this post….enjoyed it with your usual brand of point blank humour. You really are somthing else….to be so intricately involved with the designing and doing such a gorgeous job of it….and we have another coincidence….Akhil’s first b’day cake too had blocks on it…check out my latest post when u get a chance.
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