The girls just love it that I took the beginner cake decorating class and that I can make their birthday cakes rather than buy them. It really doesn't matter what I do on the cakes, they think it should be in a magazine. They oooo and awww over every little thing I make, so you would think that I wouldn't put pressure on myself to make a perfect cake right???? WRONG!!! I don't even know why I do it, but I guess I watch too many of those cake shows (Ultimate Cake off, Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, Cupcake Wars...yeah...I love those) and for some reason I forget that those guys have had years of experience and/or formal training and that after one beginner class and only less than a dozen cakes made, I won't be able to be cake boss just yet. I forget that and I envision a cake boss cake in my head when I get ideas. It just doesn't always turn out that way. And with most things, it just would not bother me, but this cake thing does. So, for the birthdays, the girls have been able to come up with an idea and we can put it on the cake. They are so happy to be apart of the cake and so proud that their mom/aunt made it. Very proud moment...then WHY am I always pointing out the imperfections? Why am I expecting the cakes to be perfect, and WHY oh WHY can I not just enjoy the moment and look at my cakes and be happy with them?
S just had her birthday (I'll post more pictures later) and I FREAKED out about the cake. Here was her request: a round cake with grass and yellow flowers, a sun and rainbow...sounds easy right? Well, first off, the paper that I wrote my frosting recipe on got something spilled on it, so I had to do the recipe from memory, which you all know that memory isn't the greatest. The frosting tasted great, but I put way too much butter in it, so it got soft easily, which makes it hard to work with on the cake. So, after working with my melty frosting (putting the cake in the fridge every few minutes) and trying to figure out how to make the rainbow and sun out of fondant. I know it sounds easy...just a circle and a some lines for rays, but I had to find the right size circle and figure out how to make the rays....I ended up with the apple cutter for the rays. I kept running into problems, which while writing these cake problems out on this blog, I am realizing how silly these are, so I will spare you the rest of the details, but just know that I was frustrated...and you might know that when I stress out, I get a LITTLE dramatic! So, as I finished the cake, all I saw was a pile of melted frosting and fondant that looked like playdo a three year old threw together. I threw the cake (ok, I didn't throw it) in the fridge, and started calling and texting Bethany and a couple of friends to tell them of my disaster (cause apparently I didn't listen to Autumn when she said it was cute and S would love it). After a while, I finally heard back from a couple of them who CALMLY had me tell them the problem and send them a picture and ASSURED me that the cake was great and S would love it.
We also got to bring cupcakes to S's class, and she wanted yellow ducks on her cupcakes, so instead of trying to make them out of fondant, I chose to use peeps. Again, my frosting was melty, and all I could see were the imperfections of the cupcakes.
So, you might ask, why such a long post on such a silly thing? I have been wondering the same thing...why am I spending so much time and effort focusing on the imperfections? So the Lord spoke to me. Yes, He used cake and melty frosting to speak to me! Here I am focusing on the imperfections, but in all reality, (and I am talking about life now, not just cakes) through our imperfections God can show His strength. If we were perfect, there would be no need for HIM. He also has shown me how silly it is to spend my efforts worrying about frosting and cake when there are far greater things to put my efforts in. There are people who need the Lord all around me and I am worried about cake??? Yeah...put it in perspective for me! So, thank you Lord for the lessons you teach me...thank you that you can even use melty frosting to show me more of who YOU are!
And just so you know....S LOVED her cake!!! And I LOVE that!
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