Tuesday 25 October 2011

Yet another cake

I figured I would bake the Hubby a cake, not that he cares much for a cake on his birthdays, but the Offspring's entire idea of a birthday is a cake. So much so that when I asked him to wish his father a happy birthday he rushed off, jumped on the bed, said, "happy birthday Appa, come lets get your happy birthday together." We showed him the banana bread in the kitchen that we baked a few days before. But there was no fooling this monkey. But he had to wait almost an entire day.

The cake itself was easy to make, but as usual has a story to go with it (as is the case with a lot of my cooking endevours). I decided to bake an angry bird cake since there was a brief time, when the the iPad had first entered the household, we'd lost Hubby to angry birds. I would even take the Offspring away to leave the man alone to get work done. Imagine my horror when I discovered that it was angry birds he was working on. It left me wondering how many angry wives there were because of these bloody angry birds. Fortunately it was a phase (I hope).

I did my homework, browsed the internet, tried sketching the bird and realized it would be easy once I got the outline on the cake. I also kept in mind some good advise from a dear friend who churns out one fantastic birthday cake after another for her three children. She makes me wish I was her daughters' age (I'd have to be ten and six) just to be at those parties. Anyways, I then got going feeling like I had done enough prep work. Alas that was not the case.

I could not find the no taste red icing colour. So I decided to use Christmas red instead. I know!!!

I had iced the eyes, beak and the neck. And I got to colouring the red, I used up two containers of the colouring and it still was not quite red, and it started to smell a wee bit like chlorine. I tasted it and nearly gagged. As I do with most things these days I rushed to the internet and the first thing you see on the Wilton icing products page is a warning about Christmas red and the nasty taste (not enough prep huh?). Now I had a tonne of red icing that could not be used and an hour and a half left on the clock to get it done.

I called the store to check if they had received any no taste red. Nope. I had to consider an alternative. A trip the grocery store was in order. On my way out a quick check in the mirror startled me, I had very red lips, so I checked my tongue. GOOD GOD! It was all red, so were my teeth. I decided I would just get my stuff, and use self-checkout and not talk (not easy for me to do). So I drove myself to the grocery store (which is within walking distance) to get some instant chocolate icing (I figured a brown bird could still be angry).

While I was on my knees muttering to myself a kind lady walked up and launched into a sales pitch for a credit card. I just kept shaking my head to say no. She was a little too persistent for my likes, so I did something I normally wouldn't do. I stuck my tongue out, and then said, "you see that, I am in trouble, on a deadline, leave me alone, please." The lady walked away very quickly and turned to take a look only when she had reached the end of the aisle. Fortunately no one else spoke to me. The rest was easy. I used the chocolate icing to finish the cake and hid it before the boys got home.

And that's another crazy cake story. I hope they don't all have a story that brings out the nutter in me.