Hello, Cupcake!

My friends at Mayhem and Moxie are celebrating Francesca’s 35th birthday this week. Like Francesca, I feel no shame in admitting that I am 35 and in fact enjoy it quite a bit. It’s a good age.

In typical Mayhem and Moxie fashion, Francesca and Kacey are going ALL OUT. They are giving away….

• $75 Cupcake Making Kit from Wilton
• $75 Custom Party Package from Le Poppy Design
• Personalized Book from Mama Kat
• AND a most beautiful KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer

And in order to have a chance to win one of these amazing prizes, I am going to tell you one of my own cake wreck stories.

But first, I have to explain. I love to bake, and I am quite famous for my cakes and particularly my homemade frosting. I began making birthday cakes for CandyMan when we were first married, and had quite a bit of success. Why? Because I stuck with the basics. He typically got a spice cake with cream cheese frosting in a 9×13 pan. If I got fancy, it was to spell out Happy Birthday on top of the cake. Naturally, when we added kids to the mix, I did the same for them. Nice, basic 9×13 pan cake with really yummy frosting. The kind of cake you want to eat.

I have to take a step back here. When CandyMan and I were married almost 15 years ago, our wedding cake was gorgeous. We had one of those fancy tiered cakes with roses all over. And it tasted like paper.

And then there was the less-fancy sheet cake for the extra guests at the reception. Delicious.

We’ve always preferred taste over looks in the cake department.

And then AJ turned 2, and I had this silly idea to make car-shaped cakes. Surprisingly, they turned out relatively well, considering. They were not easy, and fancy cakes were not my thing. But I had gotten myself stuck. Necco’s 8th birthday was a few short week’s later, and she HAD to have car cakes at her party.

This time, the cakes didn’t turn out quite so well, though by her smile you’d never be able to tell:

I learned that my yummy butter cream frosting is not an ideal “glue” for fancy cake designs. Before we could cut into the cakes and disperse the slices to the party-goers, the car and truck tops were slipping and sliding. The kids had to be careful to not chomp down on any of the toothpicks I had stuck int the cakes to attempt to hold them together long enough to serve them.

Despite the cake tragedy of Necco’s birthday, the kids fell in love with fancy cakes. I hate to admit it, but I have not gotten any better at decorating, although Wilton has certainly helped in my presentation:

My vote is to stick with cupcakes from now on.

And let the kids decorate their own.

© 2010, Food Fun Family. All rights reserved.

About Lolli

Lolli has written 3740 post in this blog.

I became a mom in 1996, and in 2005 I had my fifth. Yes, 5 kids. In 2007, this blog was born (my 6th baby that will never grow up) and I've been sharing recipes, photography tricks, parenting tips, and everything in between. (Formerly Better in Bulk)

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