Cake Decorating 101

Since my birthday is fast approaching (two days left to send me a present--although I can be convinced to accept late presents) my thoughts have turned, naturally, to my birthday cake. I cannot decide what it should look like as it is almost impossible to top my monster cake from last year. Here are a sampling of cakes Timothy and I have decorated together--although I am not allowed to say he helps in case anyone should then be forced to perceive him as less manly. Lets just say--I can bake a cake and ice it, but Tim can get it to look like what I intended it to be.

Let's also say that Tim designed the dragon cake. Bravo.

A little sad side note--the only major cake flop I have ever experienced was the castle cake for Miriam's fourth birthday. Fortunately, she was only 4 and did not care. Also fortunately, I dumped the remaining yummy mints in the center of the castle and Tim thought to put a king and a few knights around the battlements to protect the treasure at the center, so the kids were wowed and we had a great battle over the mints. Many injuries sustained--all recovered.

Oh yeah, the other cake that requires explanation is the rock-wall cake. It took hours. Many hours. We made it as a grad present for Timothy's little brother, Bryce, who used to do a lot of rock climbing. When Tim suggested it I thought he meant a horizontal cake and thought, cool, that will be easy. But no. He wanted a VERTICAL cake. Keep in mind that climbing walls are NARROWER at the BOTTOM. Not an ideal situation for something made out of flour, milk, and sugar. I must admit--it took many ingenious interventions on Timothy's part to keep it standing until Bryce could see it. But, if you had seen Bryce's face, you would have recognized the cake as one of our greatest triumphs.