cake!

Saturday was a big day for me. Up early (7) for the cleaning lady, off to book club on Cambridge Street at 10 (I was 30 minutes early, oops), then off to Central to pick up the car (Josh had driven it there to meet friends), Target in Watertown (how did I possibly spend $250 there?) then grocery shopping, then home at 3ish, when I unloaded the car (THAT was fun, let me tell you...) and THEN started baking a cake (we were meeting friends for dinner and dessert at our place after). 

My first from-scratch cake in years and my very first attempt at frosting. The flavor was there, definitely. The cake was wonderful, everything a cake should be. The frosting was sweet, creamy, nutty, I loved it. Putting those two together, however, was a different story completely.

I think the fact that I read smitten's warnings and ignored them is tantamount to my attitude about a lot of things. I know all the things that could go wrong, I acknowledge the fact that they probably WILL go wrong, and then just go ahead and do whatever I think is best anyway. Then I get frustrated when things don't go well. 

The frosting pulled up crumbs from the soft top layer of the cake. I threw the cakes in the fridge (not freezer, as advised) for all of 10 minutes to cool the cakes. I also did not apply a thin crumb layer and freeze that, as advised, so I had a confetti covered cake. I also had NO idea how to apply frosting. Like, none. So getting the sides with this thick cream cheese frosting was a challenge in itself. Oh, also, my layers were not perfectly lined up. Oops. I ended up not doing the ganache layer, mainly due to laziness. In the end, I am glad I didn't - the cake was insanely rich. I think an extra layer of chocolate would have been too much. If I don't master this crumb mixing thing, however, I may rethink that.

I learned quite a bit from my first attempt at caking. Including the fact that Josh and I can put away a quarter of a cake in one lazy Sunday. The rest is going to work tomorrow. After a weekend of chocolate and peanut butter, let them eat cake. 

Frosting perfection. 
I went with two layers, not three. I realized that I should have added a bit more frosting in the middle to support that huge top layer. Next time...
I wasn't thrilled with my first frosting attempt, but it wasn't too shabby... right?
Hmm.. spoke to soon. This was the "back of the cake". Each attempt to fix this only made it worse. We should just all focus on the picture above this one, no?

Going, going... there is still quite a bit left, but tomorrow it will be gone.