The Cake From Hell ... not really, but it felt like it.

It’s time to blog again… but what should I blog about?

 

The other day Holly and I were discussing stuff, and she suggested that I start a Cake Blog and blog about all the cakes I make… But that would be a really lame blog since I really only make about two cakes a year… Except this year I have made three (and #4 is coming up for Halloween.) And then I realized… I never did blog about the Batman cake I made for Holly’s friend’s birthday.

Back in July Holly asked if I could make a Batman cake for a friend at work, and being the nice person I am, I agreed. I had almost a months notice. I had to have the cake ready by the morning of August 4^th, (it was a Thursday) so she could take it to work with her.

This cake was a PAIN IN THE BUTT to make. Sure, the pattern was pretty simple, but the putting together of it was harder than it needed to be.  The plan was:

 

Black sides

Yellow Bat symbol on top

 

Yes, looking at the picture you’d say, “that’s what is does have.” But getting it that way was ridiculous.

 

First I had to find a logo to use. holly and I agreed on this one:

I had to make the cakes on Sunday afternoon because our week was turning out to be rather booked. I was going to just make one 9x13 cake, but I’ve learned that that’s really not a lot of cake if you’re sharing with a group, so I ended up making two 9x13’s. Chocolate, of course, and one layer also was filled with mini-chocolate chips. (I was told that it tasted fantastic.) So after baking and cooling on Sunday the cakes went into the fridge to await frosting.

Monday we went to a spectacular Ludo concert at “In The Venue” that I kind of grazed over in this POST back in August. so we weren’t home that night. It was a fun night. I’ll have to remember to post about it, I mean *really* post about it, one day before I forget everything. So needless to say we weren’t home that night.

Tuesday night I used an entire can of Pillsbury Chocolate Frosting to glue the two layers together before putting on a crumb coat.I made the frosting yellow just to try and see how much coloring I was going to need to use for the actual cake… turns out it was a lot. Then it went back in the fridge to await it's final frosting coat on the morrow... it was time for bed.

Before I get to the next day – I want to point out this fantastic little cake contraption that Holly gave me to put the cake in. It is large enough for a 9x13 cake (as long as you’re not having it frosted) or, if you flip the bottom it holds 12 cupcakes. It has handles and a lid and seems so very handy… except when it comes to decorative frosting. I had to cut about an inch and a half off each side of the cake so the handles would flip back up. But then, once I got the cake on the base, and dropped it in the box after the crumb coat… I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get it out again. I did, but It was stressful and really dangerous for the me and the cake in that order… You can see the box in some of the pictures. So – Note to Self: I will no longer try decorating a cake to put in this box unless I’m paid extra to do it.

 

Wednesday it was time to get down to business. I had all evening to put the cake together and I was going to get it done. I made the frosting, guesstimating how much black I’d need, and how much yellow I’d need. I think I did a pretty good job, I didn’t have too much frosting left over.

I HATE black frosting. First frustrating thing of the night. I can never get it black enough to satisfy myself. It has recently turned out very gray. I wanted nice BLACK frosting like I used on John’s birthday cake in 2010 (because that was an awesome cake) but no matter what I tried this time I couldn’t get it right. I have since learned a trick to black icing form the Wilton website. The advice is located HERE. Turns out I can add coco powder to the frosting to help the black be more blacker. I’ll have to try that next time.

I started out frosting the sides. Turns out that was a stupid idea. Second frustrating thing of the night. I should have done the top first, but you live and learn. I spent time getting the sides just right and the realized at this point that I should have done the top first, but it was too late so here is where I got the top on. So I frosted the top bright yellow. I debated on if I should just do the oval in the center yellow or if I should cover the entire top. I chose to frost the entire top.

It took forever to get the corners of this cake to cooperate. The top did not want to join the sides. The black kept smearing into the yellow. And I kept getting more and more frustrated. I put the cake back in the fridge to let the frosting harden a little before I tried adding the logo to the top. Third frustrating thing of the night.

After a little while I pulled it out again and threw the logo on top of the cake and traced it using a frosting bag and a # 2 frosting tip. Now I had to add more black frosting around the outer edge of the oval and cover up all that yellow. Here is where I’m really glad that I decided to frost the entire top yellow instead of just an oval in the middle.

Then I decided to do the Bat symbol all in stars and used a #16 Tip to do them. Mostly I chose stars to cover the mistakes and to get it done faster. Because let me tell you… I was DONE with this cake.

All in all it turned out really well. Aside from the anger, and all the snapping at poor John who happened to be in the same room with me. I didn't throw the cake away and tell Holly she was out of luck. So it all worked out. Also, because I cut the bat out of the center of the paper pattern I had it left over at the end... So what did I do with it? I turned the bathroom into the Bat Cave.

We really like it there and are considering actually painting one on the door for reals.