Where I play Cake Boss

It was my nephew's first birthday last weekend, and his parents planned a three-day party...I mean family camping trip.  I asked (actually, I begged lol) to make the cake; we decided marble would be yummy and I spent some time looking for cake and icing recipes.  AND I found a place that rents cake pans...who knew!  There were SO many options...maybe I'll get the chance try a few more in the future!

I had Friday off (I LOVE compressed work weeks!), so that afternoon I started baking.  Things always start out fairly neat...

And then I have to measure or add the flour and it all goes downhill from there lol.

Not even my camera is safe from the Crazy J baking experience.

Finally I had the batters ready...

I greased the pan...

And got ready to make a big mess!  I thought FO SURE the dispensing of the batter was gonna end badly...but it went pretty good!  Although there were a few drips that wrecked my 'zebra' effect...drove me crazy! 

Next challenge was to not over-bake the cake...you may remember I have the tendency of doing that!

Before I could ice the cake I had to flatten the base, which worked in my favor...TASTE TEST!  LOL!

Now if I'd been reading about how to ice the cake, instead of  just reading yummy icing recipes...I'd have known you get fewer crumbs in the icing if you let it sit a day.  I read this lil nugget of information Friday, so I decided to wait and ice the cake Saturday morning.  In the meantime I made the icing.  8.  That's how many cups of icing sugar I used.  That is sick.  I actually felt bad letting my nephew eat it.  No lie.

Bright and early Saturday morning I was up dying the icing.  And my fingies.

At this point I remembered that I'm a science geek...I can barely draw stick figures, and my writing...well I've had RACERS make fun of it...its pretty bad.  Sigh.  BUT...for the cause (eg. that little boy who I love very much!) I soldiered on...TWO HOURS...that's how long it took.  But I figure it turned out not bad for my first cake boss attempt!

It was a lot of work.  It was also a lot of fun.  Hope to do it again lol!