Happy Birthday Dad... Sorry About The Cake.

Yesterday was my daddy's 60th birthday. It's kinda crazy. If my dad is 60 then the rest of us are all a lot older, too... And that's a little scary.

I made his cake today. Actually, I BAKED the cake on Wednesday. The baking went well. The freezing went pretty ok. There was no indication that things would go poorly. Today everything fell apart.

First the cake: One layer refused to come out of the pan in one piece and I ended up with three large pieces and several crumbs. I did manage to piece it together a bit and it's now the bottom layer of the cake. Structurally, that's not very stable but icingly (I just made that word up) it was the only way to go.

Second the marzipan: I foolishly talked my dad into a more complicated cake because I felt that I'd be fine making it... And I should have been. He wanted a layer of marzipan in the middle so I picked some up at the store. I should have realized that it had probably been on the shelf forever. There's not really any worries about it going bad since it's sugar and almond paste and not a lot of other things. The problem is that it was hard as a slightly soft rock and dry as a dry thing and lumpy- I assume that the last problem was caused by the first two problems. I rolled it, warmed it in the microwave and rolled it some more. I managed to get it to be decently thin and roughly the size of the cake though not round. I put it on the cake, ripped off the overhanging edges and used them to fill in the gaps where it was a little bit too much not round.

Third the jam filling: I chose this jam called Traffic Jam. It's a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries... Just the type of thing my dad likes. It's even somewhat locally made if you consider Wyoming to be somewhat local for where I live. I couldn't get the jar open. I tried and tried and tried. I did everything I knew to make it open. I even had Branden try. Then I tried some more. Then I made Branden try again. After much straining, he managed to get it open. I am happy to announce that it really is pretty good jam so we didn't have that small crisis for nothing.

Fourth the icing: My dad loves almond icing so I found a false buttercream recipe that I've used in the past and adjusted it to make it almond flavored. It tastes great, it's the right consistency, it's the right everything... So obviously the problem is more with the icing JOB than the icing itself. When you try to ice a crumbling cake, a couple of things happen. (a) You get crumbs in the icing. REAL shocker there, huh? (b) Unless you use LOTS of icing and spread it minimally, you end up pulling more cake off the, um, well, off the cake. I put lots of icing on and pulled a minimal amount back off the cake... And one side has partially collapsed because it's falling apart.

So I have this cake that is TECHNICALLY exactly what my dad wants but doesn't look quite the way that anyone would hope it'd turn out. I MADE A CAKE WRECK!!! It's not really done yet and I'm kinda hoping to save it. The party is tomorrow evening so before it starts I'm making a trip to the store. I'm going to buy whatever berries I can afford and kinda cascade them down the side of the cake to hide the messy part. Wish me luck!