Ever seen on random food blogs or other amusing sites really really bad birthday cakes that are labelled epic cake failure? No? Google it, trust me you'll get a chuckle or two. Well I hereby submit my own entry in the cake failure stakes:
For my husband's 40th birthday on Wednesday I decided to make him a golf themed birthday cake since he's a golf fanatic and clearly I have a little too much time on my hands. Sadly it didn't turn out like the picture I had in my mind, probably because I started with this lumpy lopsided base cake:
I should have just bought a slab cake instead of baking one! Never mind, I slathered it up with buckets of butter icing in a nicely off putting shade of green, with a circle of water based icing for the 'putting green'. Stick on a flag made from a toothpick, a breath mint for a golf ball and some spearmint leaves for shrubbery and you've got yourself one hot creative mess!
I am a stickler for accuracy though, did you notice the smoothed out icing for the fairway surrounded by the rough? That's so my totally out of scale little golfer figurine had somewhere logical to sit of course!
Well I'm clearly not above laughing at myself, so feel free to share some of your epic cake failures please to make me feel better!
And I so apologise to people who have left me questions in the comments from a few posts ago and I have not answered yet! Sorry, here I go:
Carol asked whether I could sit in the grey plaid Burda skirt with the godet I posted here. I found sitting in it ok, although the godet got quite wrinkled after a day of sitting and the skirt did have a tendency to slide up a little so it felt like the waistband was right under my bra! But that could just be me not being used to wearing higher waisted clothes.
prttypnk asked on the same post why I thought dresses are more fun to do. I think I like sewing dresses more than anything else because I like wearing them more than anything else - they usually look great, are so simple to wear and I don't have to think about mixing and matching clothes.
Bodie asked on the same post what tracing paper I use for tracing Burda patterns. I bought some architectural drafting paper from Eckersleys art supplies (which just happen to be down the street from Tessuti's in the city), but it turns out that probably wasn't the best place to purchase it. If you read the comments to this post you'll get some far better ideas of where to source a good supply - my readers know everything!
Gail - I can't wait to see what you've made with your purchases from Bewitched Fabrics. I did see the sale signs in the shop window when I went past on the bus to work last week, but I assumed wrongly that they only sold bridal type fabrics. I will definitely have to check it out now!
I think your cake is adorable, and I bet your husband loved it, too!
ReplyDeleteBefore I learned about leveling the tops of cakes, a few friends and I tried to make a layer cake....well the curved tops made for major structural instability and the top cake split, creating quite a crevasse. So my friends and I made it into a Grand Canyon cake, but then that didn't work either so we made it into a 'mystery' cake and buried a little figurine in the canyon and covered it all up with copious amounts of frosting. In the end, the cake was better for laughs than to eat, given the amount of frosting. It's a funny memory for me, though!
A cake of love! I think it's great. Just because you can find too perfect cakes on the internet doesn't mean yours isn't great. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to disagree with your analysis of this cake as an epic fail.
ReplyDeleteIs it supposed to look like it came from a professional decorator? Those cakes are for show. They aren't "real," they don't have the charm and love and joy of cakes made and decorated at home, imperfections and all.
You made your husband a fun themed cake for his birthday because you love him. It's that love that is supposed to show in the cake, not some plastic, store-bought, magazine, tv perfection.
I see a cake of a hilly and challenging hole of golf, not an epic cake fail. :)
That cake rocks! I want to make one for my hubby now. I think it's perfectly imperfect.
ReplyDeleteI love this cake and think it turned out far better than you think it did. Bet it tasted yummy too.
ReplyDeleteYour cake looks like a high end bakery made it compared to mine. I won't even take a picture of my failures - they're that bad. Yours is rather cute, actually.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't think your cake is that bad! And I'm sure your husband appreciated the thought and effort that went into making it.
ReplyDeleteI've just read all your posts and I'm sorry about your grandfather's passing and the family drama that ensued.
Love your cake! Who ever saw a golf course that was flat and boring?
ReplyDeleteMy failure (of sorts) was my daughters bd cake, baked in a tube pan, I iced it, and put a small vase of flowers in the centre,it looked lovely. When we served it, a bug crawled out of one of the flowers! Expressions were from horror to squeals of laughter!
The bug didn't eat much, and we enjoyed the rest!!
Hey, I've seen worse. Much, much worse. Go read Cake Wrecks. You'll feel better. ;)
ReplyDelete(Seriously, it's not bad at all!)
Is there something wrong with me, because I don't think it is that bad.
ReplyDeleteI find this a cake funny, not a cake fail! Alternately, it could be considered an artistic rendering!
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to answer my query! I'll look into some of the suggestions re tracing.
ReplyDelete(Bet the cake tasted good with all that icing!)
Awesome cake - I once made a toadstool cake - the top part so heavy it required scaffolding for supports!
ReplyDeleteI have the same problem with high waisted clothes, but I think after years of things hanging off our hips, we forget what we wore in the 80's (although you were a child then!). I think your cake is pretty damn impressive! I'm sure your husband liked it.
ReplyDeleteSeems that most of us have had some sort of "cake" experience... my DH tells a story of when he was a kid he baked a cake... (don't know if it was a mix or what) and didn't know that you had to let it cool b/4 frosting it... so he frosted it... the frosting melted right into the cake... so he put on more and more... and when his dad came home from work he had some and thought it was great! I'll bet it was the sweetest cake he ever tasted! Bet your DH loved this one too. By the way... tell him happy belated birthday from Utah!
ReplyDeleteI think the cake is cute! Sadly I think you've missed out on Bewitched. It was a moving sale, finishing today Sunday. She might extend if it is not all sold, but who knows.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your cake is bad either! Maybe the grass "could be a little greener", but other than that, I think it is perfectly adorable!!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure your husband appreciated a cake modelled after a harder course than just the average put-put. Did he tel you what par the cake was?
ReplyDeletejust happened upon your blog while searching for maternity patterns. not the most practical of timing as my baby is now 5 months old! still, we hope to have another before too long, and i just bought a new machine, so... inspiring! i LOVE all the dresses!
ReplyDeleteAw, I think it's adorable. All that really matters is it was baked with love.
ReplyDeleteI'm not creative in the cake dept., but I'll tell a funny one on my mom: Barbie dolls were fairly new when I was a kid. We didn't have extra $, but I guess she'd seen a cake of this sort at a bakery and decided to make an attempt. (I've seen a cake like this recently!) You baked the cake in an inverted bowl and cut a hole in the center for the Barbie to fit down into. Once decorated, it looked like a hoop-skirt on Barbie. You could decorate her upper torso with icing, too. The cake looked great when she first decorated it, but she made it the day before my party. The next morning when we opened the refrigerator (in the middle of August - HOT!), the cake had split apart and "exposed" Barbie! My mom had to glue it back with icing and add toothpick nails to hold it all together. LOL
ReplyDeleteLOL!! You have some very polite responses - but I have to agree it's not the best looking cake. Good to eat no doubt!
ReplyDeleteI think your cake is adorable and I'm sure your husband agrees. I hope you won't give up cake baking though. After all, think of what would have happened had you given up sewing after your first garment.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe I'm the only one who attemped princess seams with panne velvet their first time out. lol
FWIW, most cakes come out oddly lumpy. You can try putting a dip in the middle of the cake. But most people end up leveling it off with a nice after it cools and then flipping it over so you aren't icing the crumby side. Doesn't crumby look weird? lol.
It's not until you tint your own icing that you can truly appreciate(?) how much food coloring goes into those super-saturated frostings on store bought cakes. I've had my share of cakes that look like that, too. Now, I stick to cupcakes. Much more forgiving :)
ReplyDeleteYou know I think the sloped appearance is actually fitting to a golf themed cake. As mentioned, it was made with love, that's what matters.
ReplyDeletei love this cake and it is really very funny & interesting
ReplyDelete