The Birthday Cake - Take 3

If you've been with this blog from the beginning (I think there's me and one other person and possibly an ogre that's got weird stalking problems) you know that come early January I pull out my cake pans, my frosting tips and I make a banana cake for my husband.

The cake part itself is usually quite tasty (don't ask why it always has to be banana, it just does and as everyone knows once something becomes tradition it can never be changed upon pain of catapult) it's the frosting it bit when things start to get a bit interesting and the whole thing hits a wall.

Take two years ago - my first attempt when we were living together back in the apartment I created whatever in the hell this is:

It looks like big bird took a big yellow dump all over a chocolate cake. Also people should really stop feeding gravel to him, it doesn't seem to sit well with his digestion. I have vague memories of yellow frosting left over from the wedding and that's why there are yellow turds all along the thing but truly there is no penance I can pay for this monstrosity.

Fast forward to last year and ashamed of my previous attempt (of course why I shared it with the world lord knows) I worked extra hard to make something decent. Another banana cake, with a few spices added, and the first time I would try cream cheese frosting at home.

I actually had piping tips (which a blind monkey with a hand cramp could use better than I) to scrawl out some sort of writing on top and whatever in the hell is on the side. The turtles were tossed on in the hopes people would only see, awe cute turtles and I could run and hide.

Well, another January 8th is coming close so I bet you all know where this is coming.

I made the cake a bit different this time with the addition of a bit of molasses and some rum. But the big problem came when I realized that all of our cream cheese was moldy so I had to once again make a new untested frosting. We had no powdered sugar, so I looked to a recipe that called for milk, flour, sugar and butter. Big mistake.

Instead of fluffy and white I got goopy and pale yellow. I was adding anything I could think of to bind the sea green slop up into something passable but almost nothing seemed to be working (perhaps the gorilla glue was a bad idea). Tired of looking at it I slopped it onto the cake and called it a day.

May I present my husband's 28th birthday cake:

Note the giant sea green drips all around the bottom - this was the second round of it. It'd already wiped up the mess from round one.

I may be able to do a lot of random creative things but I think it's safe to say that cake decorating is like floral arranging or unicorn taming far out of my range. But this won't stop me from come next January pulling out those baking utensils and making yet another banana cake, except now I know that each cake will be the greatest eyesore to ever grace a cake stand.

After all, it's tradition.