Have you ever decided to do something really over the top and silly because you love your friends, like doing crazy things, and want to show your friends how much you value them by doing something crazy? This seems to happen to me a lot. This time, I decided to make a cake for my friends Lindsey and John's joint bachelor/bachelorette party. But I couldn't decide what flavor to make, and I couldn't decide whether or not it should be over the top, and we were going camping all weekend. The last factor was a tough one, because, on the one hand, one might need more than the average amount of cake while camping, but, on the other hand, one might not want to go all out and make a really fancy cake to take camping. In the end, my love of big, intense, statement cakes won out, and I spent a few hilarious days making a three layer cake and a few more amazing days hanging out with my friends and occasionally eating cake.
I decided to make a three layer cake in which the bottom layer was chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, the middle layer was yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and the top layer was spice cake with buttercream frosting. I decided to dye the buttercream frosting in my friends' wedding colors. I also enlisted my friend Jeff (of
Inappropriate Games fame) to draw John and Lindsey-specific cake toppers. Basically, the idea was to make a mock wedding cake that, unlike some real wedding cakes, would be simple and tasty, have a little something for everyone, and, most importantly, reflect the John-and-Lindsey-ness of my friends, if it is at all possible to do that in cake form.
Remembering everything I have ever read on Treacy's
blog, I started baking on Tuesday night and bought extra cake mix in case of accident. I found that the hardest parts were: baking in a new-ish pan that I thought would make my life easier, but didn't because I wasn't used to it, leveling the cakes, and frosting the smallest cake, which had lost some of its structural integrity. I only broke one cake, and only one cake was harmed in the trimming process (and I used it anyway, because nobody minds a slightly off-kilter cake after three beers.)
Trimming the middle cake wasn't too hard - although after trimming it I realized that it might not be completely cooked in the center, because of the new pan! I popped it back in the oven after the trimming for another ten minutes. This is probably a big cake no-no, but I'm kind of a cake novice, so it didn't really bother me!
It took a while to match the frosting to my friends' wedding colors, and I spent a lot of time holding their invitation in one hand and the beaters in the other, comparing shades. I eventually decided to go with a lighter version of the blue on their invitation, because too much food coloring in icing kind of freaks me out. I worry that it can't be good for me, even though it's non-toxic. I used skewers to anchor the cakes together, since we'd be driving with this cake along a dirt road in Gifford Pinchot (it did not disappoint, after all the bumps I was really glad I had secured the layers.)
Finally, after sort of cracking the top layer of cake while trimming it, I anchored it to the skewers and decided that it looked fine. I put a layer of frosting on, and nearly broke the top layer in half. I was using room temperature frosting on a cake that had been sitting in the fridge for a few hours in the hopes of making it extra solid, but I was still having a lot of trouble. Eventually, I just slapped a really thick layer of frosting on and popped the whole cake back in the fridge. When I took it out about an hour later, I smoothed a thin layer of frosting over the uneven, thick frosting, to give it a smooth look, even though it was a bit of a mess. Later, when we were eating the cake, I felt like there was was too much frosting on the top layer - I'm against really thick frosting anyway, because a little goes a long way. Next time, I think I'll just break down a buy a small cake pan, rather than trying to carve a small cake out of a larger one. The center just wasn't as structurally sound as the whole cake.
Finally, I was ready to write on the cake. I had a tense moment while making the yellow frosting. It was last of my frosting and I was out of powdered sugar, so if I messed up the color, I just had to live with it. The color I was going for was a very soft butter yellow, with just a hint of warmth to it that made it less glaringly yellow. I added the tiniest amount of red food coloring, and all of a sudden the frosting was peach colored. Luckily, another tiny bit of yellow frosting corrected it without making it too bright! I ended up just writing "Lindsey + John" on the top, then writing "Bachelor(ette) Camping Weekend" around the edge of the middle layer.
It's definitely not as smooth and beautiful as the gorgeous cakes I've seen on Treacy's blog and elsewhere, and I didn't spend a lot of time trying to make it look neat, but it turned out really cute and fun, and I think everyone enjoyed eating it. It had kind of a harrowing trip through Gifford Pinchot, but once we got to the campsite and added the cake toppers, it was pretty fantastic. Plus, we got to eat cake all weekend!
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