Since my due date is just a few days away from my son's third birthday, we decided to play it safe (aka - get it over with so I don't have to stress about it) and have his birthday party early this year. I would have felt eternally guilty if I had to cancel his party or not be there.
On the way to the party...please notice our outfits. Why? Because he picked them out. Yes folks, he insisted that I wear that purple skirt for his special day. "It looks pretty Mama, I like it" was something I couldn't say no to.
And now for the classic cake shot. Wait, it gets better. This penguin cake has a story. Not the part where he loves penguins and all that boring stuff. No, the disaster part. The part of the story that proves I am a terrible baker but crafty in a pinch at the same time.
He loves cooking, so the night before at about 11:00PM (the only time you can use the oven in our non-air conditioned 90+ degree apartment) we all donned aprons and according to him "And now we're all chefs!" Well, we tried. The cupcakes we're working on here turned out great.
The penguin though? Not so great. It is the popular (at least in my secret circle) Amazon Cake recipe that has been described as foolproof. Not sure what that says about my baking skills. Yes, my pan was deeper so I knew I'd need to lengthen the cooking time a bit longer than the 30-35 minutes suggested. We cooked this bad boy for an hour and forty minutes and did that "stick a toothpick in, comes out clean" trick and everything. We thought we were safe. The edges were burnt to a crisp at this point (we had to trim them off) so we had to have faith and remove it from the oven before it got worse.
When we unmolded it? Hollow. Pure liquid pudding in the center. Shit. So I did what any crafty person would do and allowed myself to panic for about five minutes (thus forgetting to take a photo) and then scooped out the liquid pudding and frantically stuffed the penguin with torn up bits of three cupcakes as shown above. At this point it was past midnight.
When we unmolded it? Hollow. Pure liquid pudding in the center. Shit. So I did what any crafty person would do and allowed myself to panic for about five minutes (thus forgetting to take a photo) and then scooped out the liquid pudding and frantically stuffed the penguin with torn up bits of three cupcakes as shown above. At this point it was past midnight.
So check it out! A fancy schmancy stuffed cake! Why yes, I totally planned that. A few impressed people said, "Oh how did you do that?" Okay, only one person asked that. But still.
It wound up being like a marble cake. And damn tasty too. Phew.
Next year? No cake! I grew up having pumpkin pie for my birthday every year (I'm not a cake fan...perhaps this is why I'm no good at this?) and this year my son, after taking a few bites of the cake, said, "I don't really like cake, Mama." I think we'll get creative next year.
Next year? No cake! I grew up having pumpkin pie for my birthday every year (I'm not a cake fan...perhaps this is why I'm no good at this?) and this year my son, after taking a few bites of the cake, said, "I don't really like cake, Mama." I think we'll get creative next year.
