Look what blogging led me to. So entranced was I by the magnificent rainbow cake posted by
Meredy that I had to give it a whirl for Charly's tenth birthday last weekend. It was a challenge to say the least despite the detailed instructions. There were tears. Birthday cake making is my ritual torture.
First hurdle was to find the recommended gel colouring in this old town of limited shopping opportunity. It required a lunchtime dash to a specialist kitchen store, and then, they didn't have the recomended Lemon Yellow. Grrr. Anyway, that weekend while everyone was out at soccer and I had unfettered run of the kitchen, I got out the Sunbeam hand beaters, the heart-shaped cake pans and the left-over liquid food colouring in the pantry and set to work.
The trick is to fill the pan with the same amount of cake mixture. Meredy did specify one and a half cups and, I confess to skimping on this detail (yep, never skimp the detail) and subsequently ended up with wonky layers. The colours weren't the same shade either as I'd used half gel and half liquid colours (Meredy was right again). The cream cheese frosting slicked on beautifully but, alas, the children didn't entirely enjoy the taste. So I will have to experiment with the butter icing or ganache frosting next time.
Thankfully the overall effect was stupendous. A miraculously high, heart shaped ensemble with ten little candles glowing in front of beaming faces. Charly is having a
Movie Party next weekend and I plan to do a modified four-layer version with equal layers and uniform colours.
Meantime, the Strong, Silent One wryly notes that it would be far simpler to go to
The Cheesecake Shop - a reliable, local purveyor of large and impressive cakes - rather than go through the self-flagellation a second time.
"There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't and that's a wife who can't cook and will." Robert Frost (1847-1963)
