Yay For Babies!

Have you ever met one of those people who is happiest when serving God by serving other people? You know who I'm talking about...Sunday school teachers, pastors, school nurses, counselors....unpaid coaches. Oh, you've never thought of it that way? You've obviously never met Britany Schmidt. Britany has coached Elaina's volleyball teams through the Boys and Girls Club, and Southside Youth Center, for three or four seasons now. She has put up with complete and total disrespect, arrogance, arguments and just plain meanness from girls and parents all of this time, and with a smile on her face. She didn't do all of this because she didn't want to let her daughter down or have her end up coached by someone else who may not teach her everything she needed to know....her daughter was only 3 when Elaina played her first season for the Lady Spikers. Britany has a true spirit of servitude and has spent her time away from her own family, and no telling how much of her own money, coaching these girls because she loves them. This past season, her sister Malerie Brady helped coach. These are two of the most amazing women I've ever met - you'd all be lucky to know them.

So now that the introductions are over - here's the story behind the cake: In the middle of the spring 2010 volleyball season, Britany found out that, to her surprise, she was expecting baby #2. At the end of the summer season, I got the priviledge of being part of Britany's announcement to her team that she was having another girl! The zebra striped onesie cake was designed to look like a Lady Spikers jersey, but with 'Baby Spiker' written across the volleyball. When the cake was cut, the restaurant was filled with squeals and giggles from excited volleyball players at the sight of the pink cake - letting them know that baby #2 would be a baby sister for now 5 year old Aniston.

Malerie had gone to work planning the shower almost as soon as Britany new she was pregnant and, once again, I had the great thrill and priviledge of making the cake for this too. Yay! I love a good baby shower - and Britany's was definitely THE BEST! Malerie and their Aunt Gillis worked so hard making this the baby shower of the century that shower hostesses everywhere should really be taking lessons from them. The cake was the biggest I had ever made - and it shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but I was making it during the Yankees/Rangers ALCS playoff series so I spent a lot of time in front of the TV yelling to the Yankees that I had seen Little League teams play better baseball than what they were playing. Despite the MLB upset, the cake came together remarkably easily. So easily that I just knew that something was bound to go wrong. Then shower day met us with cold and rainy weather and I knew that I was right. The minute we got in the truck to deliver the cake the weather took it's toll and the buttercream started cracking and 'weeping.' Luckily, by the time I had it fully assembled and added the ribbons and the floral cake topper, you couldn't really tell that I was having technical difficulties with it. It looked exactly the way I wanted to, and everyone was thrilled with it...it was so great to be a part of the baby shower for someone who means so much to us, and has done so much for Elaina - and countless other girls.

Baby Landrie Kay made her arrival this week - December 20th at 11:23 AM. Elaina and I can't wait to go meet her - and I can't wait to make her first birthday cake! It's been so cool for me to be involved in her life - even before she took her first breath. What an honor!

Baby Shower Cakes

I actually typed this up last June - and it's been in my drafts since then - I have no ideah how that happened - but here it is, for your reading enjoyment! Better late than never, right?
Who doesn't love a pink and brown baby shower cake?
Personally, I think my favorite of the two is the onesie cake - but that's probably because I managed to carve and decorate it without any technical difficulties. This was for a surprise baby shower for the birth of a co-worker's first grand-baby. The shower was on a Friday and, not wanting to run into a problem Thursday night, I started it on Wednesday. By the time I was ready for bed, I had it baked, cooled, carved, and crumb coated, and had the outlines and the pink and violet stars piped onto it. I was really excited about how it was going and had intended to stay up all night if I had to, just because I couldn't wait to see the finished product. I was pretty glad when the alarm went off on Thursday that I had opted to go to bed at 11:00 instead of staying up later. It was a big hit at work - and the guest of honor didn't even want to cut into it. That always makes my day.

The two-tiered cake, however, was a different story. One of my FaceBook friends, a girl that I grew up with named Misty, messaged me one day asking if I could do a mad hatter baby shower cake that was two different colors of pink with a diva cowgirl theme. If you know me, you know that 'diva' and 'cowgirl' are definitely traits that I DON'T have so I was really at a loss on this one. She also asked if she could come over while I worked on it to 'learn' from me. While I was very excited about that and thrilled that someone thought I could teach them something, I was really nervous about it. I borrowed some Cricut cartridges from my former supervisor at work, and let Misty look through the books for designs that might work while I worked on frosting and stacking the cake. Diva Cowgirl is a harder theme to match than we had thought, because in 8 Cricut cartridge books we couldn't find anything that might work, so we settled for the princess crowns and polka dots. Easy, right? Yeah, in theory.

The problems started early in the day when I, for the life of me, could not manage to get the icing smooth on either tier. I stacked them anyway knowing that there was no wrinkle in the icing that a Viva paper towel wouldn't fix. Roadblock number 1? I was completely out of Viva paper towels - and so was the closest store. So I moved on to cutting the crowns and circles out of the 'chocolate frosting sheets for the Cricut. Roadblock number 2? The frosting sheets tasted terrible, and as soon as I opened them they started drying out - despite my following the directions to prevent that to a tee. You would think, for $15 for 3 sheets they would actually have some flavor other than cornstarch and wouldn't dry up the second they were exposed to air. I'm pretty sure I will never buy them again.

While I was cutting shapes, I noticed roadblock number 3: The buttercream on the top tier of my cake seemed to have come alive. It was actually breathing - yes, you read that right - BREATHING. Giant bubbles were forming on it in various places. As soon as one would go away, another would pop up. I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. The cakes were cooled. Completely cooled. I had baked them the previous two nights so there was no way there was any residual heat hiding in them anywhere that would cause the frosting to bubble and look gross. Once again, I found myself in over my head - and this time with someone watching the train wreck that was happening in my kitchen.

When Misty left for work, the crooked (and not the kind of crooked it was supposed to be,) ugly, wrinkled and breathing cake was sitting in the fridge, and I was on the verge of tears...or tiers? Who knows now. Ricky came home from work, took one look at it and said 'Rebake those. By the time they're done baking Matt and I will be done playing golf and we'll stay up and finish it tonight when I get home. It's going to be ok. We'll just start over.' I love that man for wanting to help me. So I did just that. The kids and I made an emergency trip to Michael's and then to Walmart and came home to clean up the awful mess I had left and re-bake cakes. By the time they got home from golf, my first 12" and 8" cakes were finishing up in the oven. We pulled the original cake out of the fridge and Ricky, the DirecTV installer, and Matt, the railroad engineer, and I spent several minutes just looking at it, trying to figure out why the frosting was still breathing and why the top tier was now falling off. We made the executive decision to pull the top tier off of the cake and only re-do that one. They made steaks to go through both tiers for support and I made more frosting. It was about 3:00 AM before I was ready to put the now perfectly frosted top tier back on. Ricky had stayed awake as long as he could and was dozing on the couch by that time so I woke him up, we popped the top tier on and went to bed. Finally.

The next morning was Father's Day, and instead of making my near-perfect husband breakfast in bed, I was at Walmart, again, buying the last few things I needed. I had to miss church - and the kids and I were all unhappy about that - but I finally got the cake finished about 11:00 AM. Complete with princess crowns, polka dots, Whopper candies around the bottom of the tiers, chocolate frosting swirls, and some pale pink sugar pearls for good measure. Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I'd be sad if no one else wants a topsy turvey cake for a while.

I guess the only real lessons I learned here, though, are not to buy the Cricut frosting sheets, and not to be so over-confident that I think having someone watch me won't throw me off of my game. The lesson I WISH I would have learned is why my buttercream had taken on a life of it's own, but I guess I'll have to do some more research on that one.