Buttercream Hell

I bake almost daily.  It's something I'm reasonably good at, it's interesting to Pie, and, most importantly, it distracts me.  I generally don't eat the things I bake (unless it's bread!)  It's not because they aren't good, but after looking at them for so long, I'm just ready for them to go away.  I'm weird, I know.  It's okay though, because my neighbors and husband's coworkers love me.

Other than bread, cakes are probably my favorite thing to make.  There are so many fun things you can do with cake.  I mean, there's the batter, then any fillings or mix-ins, and finally, all the different decorating options.  I love baking cakes!  Pie's birthday is in September, and we've already decided on a cake!  I won't spoil it yet (since, you know, anyone other than me actually cares or anything) but it's going to be the most fantastic cake I've ever made.  It's also going to be the most complex cake I've ever made, so I'll probably do a couple trial runs starting in June.  I can't wait, and I'd start now, but that's a lot of cake.  Aw, hell, I'm on a tangent.  But since I'm already there, here's her cake from last year:

And because I tend to go overboard, there were cupcakes, too!

Very fun, but nowhere near the amount of awesome I have in store for this year!

Anyway, I love cakes, but every now and then, I get one that is such a bitch it makes me want never bake anything again.  It's usually something really simple, too.  Like this:

This cake makes me want to kill someone.

I didn't want to make this cake.  I got a phone call from some strange woman yesterday, informing me that my mom said I would make the cake for their boss's birthday.  I usually don't even take paid cakes with less than 48 hour notice, and to be honest, I prefer a week.  That gives me plenty of time to find out exactly what they want and if it's something I can do, and make sure I have all the ingredients and implements necessary.  It also allows me to make my icing or fondant two days before, instead of scrambling to do it all while the cake bakes (which is done the night before.)  Since it was my mom, and it's for her work, I couldn't really say no. Plus, the lady was pretty easy going about what they wanted, specifically asking for a 9" round with white roses.  The rest was up to me.  Simple enough.

Except not, because I forgot something.  I loathe making roses.  I'm terrible at it, so any cake I make them for ends up looking shit and then I just feel bad about myself.  It's pretty depressing.  I can make decent fondant roses.  I can make almost any other flower with buttercream.  Hell, I can make a whole buttercream forest as long as roses don't grow there.  But this is one thing I'm just not good at.  I made about fifty of them before ending up with about ten I was happy with.

Finally!

I'm also horrible at writing on cakes, so if it needs to be done, I tend to start there and decorate around it.  It was a major set back when the lady called me at 11:45 tonight to tell me I'd need to add "Eileen" to the cake as well.  I had already finished the writing and was starting on the rest.  I probably should have scraped it off and started over, but it's a free cake, I have a concussion, and I didn't want to.  Now I feel bad about how obvious it is that Eileen was squeezed in and how bad that makes the cake look.  Still, not bad enough to start over.

It's finally done!  My head hurts and I'm tired and I have to be up really early, but I can't sleep because I'm just pissed off about this cake.  It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to and it bugs me, but I just can't make myself go back and fix it.  Part of me thinks it's because I know if I mess with it, I'll make it worse, but the other part thinks I'm just lazy.  I don't plan to bake anything for the next week.  I wish I'd bought the boxes without the windows, though.

Goodbye, cake from hell!