A few days ago I posted about my birthday cake and letting the girls pick it out, as opposed to my making my own, (which is what I really wanted to do.)
Well, yesterday, I made my own cakes. Now, before you judge, let me explain.
First, let me step back to Friday. I had the girls with me and we went to lunch at a place that sells food and bakery items, such as cakes and whatnots. As we were waiting for our lunch, we looked at all the confectionary conglomerations in awe and wonderment. The girls were telling me which cakes they liked; (and more specifically; which cupcakes they wanted for themselves after lunch.)
We decided to ask for a pricelist of these beautiful cakes and when we saw the prices I quickly started computing in my head that this was more than I wanted to spend (or have them spend on a cake for me). I mean, after all; having them decide on a cake flavor would be hard because one likes chocolate and the other, vanilla. One likes fruit, while the other can't stand it. To make this story shorter, lets just say that they, together, enjoy the food spectrum; only one won't touch what the other desires....if you get my drift!
Yes, I know it's my cake, but when I started thinking about daddy (who gives in to their every whim), standing at the cake counter, I quickly saw two cakes coming home. And as the smallest cake was $25.99, times two....I decided to have a conversation about math with my girls.
I also decided to make it an adventure and try something we haven't done before. Start with a sheet cake and stack from there! So with our $25.00 that we just saved (a-hem....), I bought some jelly roll pans to start our adventure.
The intention was to have them help me and keep it as simple as possible. Suffice to say, they got distracted, seemed less than interested, and I didn't push them very hard as I didn't want arguments. So....they did help, but not as much as I had planned. And....I decided to use a box mix to keep it simple (which I never do), so I got one devils food and one yellow cake mix.
Cakes went in easily; and as they were cooking, I started the buttercream frosting and lemon curd (for the yellow cake). The cakes came out rather quickly, but thinner than I had hoped, but that is okay, cuz I have two cakes here.
In the end, my chocolate cake is two layer with chocolate filling (from real chocolate), buttercream frosting (at the request of my two pretties), and chocolate shavings on them. The vanilla cake has lemon curd, buttercream filling and cream cheese frosting and it's 2 layers.
What did I learn from this? Baking takes a very long time. First to prepare, then to cook, then to create, then to clean (even if you clean along the way). What did I lose from doing this myself? Pretty much a whole day of cleaning my house so the guests actually have a place to sit. Also, because I wasn't totally available for the day, it created a bit of tension for all the other things that needed to be done.
So, I wonder...what was the cost of my making the cakes vs. buying two small cakes to appease the masses? In the end, between all the ingredients and the pans, I may have broken even. I did lose a bit of time from my day, and the girls didn't help as much as I wanted or hoped. But as I sat there zesting the lemons, getting into the zone; there was an inner peace and excitement that I was experimenting with something new and actually having fun at it.
Now, they may not be the best or the prettiest cakes, cuz I'm not a cake baker. But they are my own creation and I know down the road, I will get better with every cake. And though, I didn't spend all day with my kids; they did get to make cake pops with the extra cake. And just watching them decorate the chocolate covered pops, it was clear to me, that the apples didn't fall far from the tree!! And you can't buy that at a cake store!
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