I had every intention of taking my own advice this weekend for my lovely girl's ninth birthday extravaganza. With the breakneck pace of our lives these days, it was a smart idea. But when my girl and I went to the bakery to order a cake a few nights ago, the options being offered were not to our liking. I told her I'd order one during the week, with a birthday party, a visitor, and Father's Day on the weekend calendar; I suspected that I'd be at the grocery store even more than my usual 3 or 4 times this week. And I did hit every joint in town at some point, but the cakes never quite presented themselves in a way that made the cost seem worthwhile.
Flash forward to Friday night. THIS is why store bought cakes are worth the money:
I assessed this situation with Erin, my dreamgirl niece who came to visit this weekend. She had, incidentally, supervised the baking and decorating of 24 cupcakes for my girl's class the night before without incident. She helpfully recounted a story about a time when one of the Huxtable kids tried to cover up the evidence of having dug into Claire's cake too soon by stuffing the cavern with paper towels and then covering it up with frosting. I was not sold on the paper towel idea, but I did like the bones of the plan, and I had just the things to fill our caverns: frosting and oreos.
The rest is, as they say, history.
Happy Birthday to my baby girl! And goodbye, lovely Erin. We miss you already!
8 comments:
Love the photos of your birthday girl (can't believe little Ms. C is 9!) and the lovely Erin. Sounds like you all had a great visit!
Miss you,
MB xox
It's gorgeous! Too perfect, in fact, because I know I'm going to get two requests to make cakes just like your girl's for two birthdays coming up this summer. If I had your dreamgirl neice, I would almost attempt it :-)
Hope all the festivities were fantastic.
And I'm glad to see my girl right next to the cake, as per.
xo,
beth
If you want to wet your pants, check out cakewrecks.com. If you don't want to wet your pants, do something more useful with your life.
Hey Beth, your girl's no dummy...
Jacquie, I love this. I love seeing photos of my dreamboat nieces together -- it's hard to say who's more adorable: Little Ms. 9 or my gigantic (comparatively speaking) 17-year old goddaughter. I want to squeeze the stuffing out of both of them.
Speaking of stuffing, your cake is beautiful! Anybody can buy a perfect bakery cake -- this one's got luuuuuuuuv written all over it. Well, not literally of course.
Nice one, schnooks.
xxEllie
that cake is perfect! I love oreos..just ask Beth :)
This year was the first time I bought a cake at the grocery store and I felt like a bad mother as soon as I did. It just seems more worthwhile to have the imperfections of a homemade cake (I wouldn't go so far as to make one from scratch..box mix works for me) If I can't be June Cleaver and vacuum with pearls, the least I can do is make a cake 3 times a year.
Oh, I can do less.
I like and usually live by Jacquie's first line: ALWAYS BUY THE CAKE
beth
I agree with buying a cake, but next time you have a cavern in your cake, turn it upside down so the pan side/ bottom is on top. Then you'll have a nice smooth surface to frost.
But that cake looked pretty awesome to me.
You guys totally underestimate the severity of the cavernous cake. I had to stop photographing it when it became too sad. It was literally cemented together with frosting - THREE tubs of it. However, this was a drop off party so we knew that we would be the only so-called adults to witness the carnage, so we just kept piling on the shellack. When we cut into the center at the party, it just crumbled into bits and I quickly scooted that plate out to receive extra ice cream.
All's well that end's well. And there's still a piece in the fridge for my late night snack.
Meg - I love cakewrecks, I would have considered submitting it but those cakes have to be professionally wrecked.
Beth, I've got panned out shots of the larger group that show BOTH of your girls right next to the cake. Mama didn't raise no fools.
xoxoxoxxoxo, lovely peeps.
Jacquie
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