Pointless Ramblings of a Verbose Cook w/a Loooong List of Food Aversions...

So, for the past few weeks Mr. LTH has been working at nights.  Since I am off over the summer and we have no children (and because I'm such an amazing wife :) ), I decided to go on his schedule, as well, so we could suffer together.  I've learned there's not a whole lot on TV at 3 AM; however, there almost always seems to be an episode of "Ace of Cakes" or "Cake Boss" on, neither of which I'd ever seen pre-night shift.  Hold that thought.

Mr. LTH's cousin (OUR cousin, we’ll call him “Proud Larry”, for blogging purposes) has a birthday Friday and he and his lovely wife will be staying with us, so what does that call for?  CAKE!  I'm always looking for an excuse to make a cake! I texted him for flavor/design preference and he said he trusts me...silly boy!  Mr. LTH had the idea for me to make a Beer Pong Cup cake since he & his cousin are the reigning Beer Pong champions (Mrs. Proud Larry & I pulled a respectable 4^th) of our annual Grease Pong (a get together we host where we deep fry anything and everything and also run a beer pong tourney) beer pong tourney.  Great idea, Mr. LTH!  He said, "Just make it like your ducky cake.  You know, but a cup.".  Hmmmmm

So, back to the cake shows.  They make it looks so easy.  They carve the cake, pick it up, move it, move fondant with ease....I can do that, right?  Yeah, not so much.

My initial plan was to make it like I made the ducky cake, but decided that would be too wide, so I bought an 8" pan.  My first mistake was NOT using a pound cake.  Now, I KNOW when people are planning to carve a cake, they use a pound cake cause it's sturdier.  However, I've never carved a cake before and wasn't thinking when I, by rote, just started mixing up Sandy's Chocolate Cake.  I realized my error when the first 2 cakes were in the oven.  No biggie, I though, I'm not *really* carving, more like just shaving off some of the outside.  Idiot.

I baked the cakes:  2 Sandy's Choc and 2 peanut butter which I made using White Layer Cake & adding PB.  Looking at the cakes (2 8X3', 2 8X2") I KNOW it probably won't be tall enough, but convince myself if will be (read:  too lazy to make more cake batter & wait for them to bake). 

I make a plan (this is a big step, usually I just dive right in, then step back and make a plan).  Well, I didn’t actually measure or make a real in depth plan, I just looked at the cakes for a moment before I dove in.  I put the first cake on the cutting board and begin cutting (using a bread knife.  What are you supposed to carve cakes with?  I’m sure Wilton has a tool…).  I carve all of the cakes (I tried to get all fancy and carve the indents in the cup…it worked, for now) and begin to stack them on a cake board, alternating flavors and alternating peanut butter and chocolate butter cream filling.  At this point I realize it’s not going to be tall enough, but am still hoping against hope I’m wrong (have I mentioned I’m lazy?). 

So far, so good.  I ponder whether or not I have to use supports (I’d asked on the RE and was given sage advice by Soifua, but, again, I’m lazy) and decide Soifua’s pretty smart, so I’d best do what she said.  I grab some straws (bendy, Target brand) and stick them in various spots around the cake (5 of them).  Now comes the time to dirty ice  (seriously, I’ve watched too much Cake Boss in the last few weeks), as well as my second major mistake.  I decide to use peanut butter butter cream, since Proud Larry has asked for a chocolate/PB cake.  Idiot.  PB frosting has a dryer consistency than normal butter cream and I had one heck of a time trying to dirty frost the cake.  It was pulling pieces of cake off left and right and was a huge mess.  At this point, it was beer:30 at the LTH house, as well as time for bed.

Fast forward to mid afternoon. We wake up, I let the fondant (which I whipped up earlier while taking a break from the cake carving debacle) come to room temp, and get ready to hopefully transform this future Cake Wreck into something vaguely resembling a Beer Pong Cup.

I take the packaging off my brand new fondant roller and rolling board/pad/thin sheet of plastic and get to work.  I realize, unlike Duff and Carlos (I’m not sure why I mentioned them, since Geof is my fav), there’s about as much of a chance of me being able to roll out and transport 1 sheet of fondant to cover the sides of this cake as there is of Keni using cream of whatever soups.  OK, now what?  No problem, I’ll just roll out 2 sheets and try to massage the seams out.  This would be the point where it would have been prudent to get a ruler/tape and measure, right?  Nah, I’ll just eyeball it.  I could have used the handy printed on ruler on the mat, but the fondant kept sticking to it, so I ditched it in favor of my old standby, the counter.  Somehow, I get 2 sheets rolled and on the cake and I use a little water on my fingertips to massage the seams out (kind of).  Red fondant-done…and I use the term red loosely…I cannot get my red deep enough and I used almost a whole jar of red food dye…anyone?  I wrap up the remaining red fondant and chuck in the freezer.

I’m trying to press the red fondant into the cake, so you can see all of the layers/indents I so carefully crafted that were mangled by the disastrous dirty ice…not so much.  I give up…moving on to the white fondant…

The white fondant part was simple, in theory…all I had to do is roll out a rope to use as the rim of the cup. Easy, right?  Except I can’t seem to do it in all one piece.  Whatever, I’ll just make a couple of sections and massage them together. Done. 

At this point, it’s looking more like a Beer Pong Cup than a total hot mess, but it’s blatantly obvious it’s too squat.  Had I not been an idiot, I would have realized I could have fashioned some sort of a stand for it and cover it in fondant to increase it’s height.  However, since I just came to that realization as I’m typing, it doesn’t do me much good now.  The cake board is a total mess and I realize I’m going to have to move the cake.  This is a little scary because I’ve never done that before.  I prepare another cake board (someone on the RE, I’m sorry-I forget exactly who, suggested making the cake board look like an outdoor table cloth like the one we play beer pong on) and get ready for the BIG MOVE.  I was sure the cake would collapse and the fondant would slide off, but it survived.  I used a big spatula and my hands.

All that’s left now is using butter cream to create the foamy head of the beer and to make a beer pong ball out of the white fondant.  I fill a bag w/butter cream and use a round tip to pipe bubbles.  I realize that the bubbles are too bubbly and start swishy them w/the tip to make them more foamy and less soap bubbly.  I place the beer pong ball in the cup and pipe some beer running down the side of the cup. 

All that’s left now is to pipe “Happy Birthday J-Weeze” on the “table”.  Chocolate butter cream in another bag, pipe, and DONE!!!

LESSONS I LEARNED:

1. If you plan to carve a cake, use POUND CAKE.

2.  Dirty frost w/butter cream, not PB frosting.

3.  Cake decorating while hung over is not so much fun.

4.  Don’t believe everything you see on TV