Friday, February 13, 2009

Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Cake!


(I feel like I'm blogging on borrowed time, but I'm going to keep doing it as long as my ailing computer allows.)

Today I scrambled to get my work done in the office so I could leave campus promptly at 1pm. That done, I told myself that I would start slow with the baking. Take it in shifts. I'd do part mid-afternoon. Another step Friday night and then I'd do the rest on Saturday before people show up.

Sure. Good plans.

And then I just did everything.

I've been baking and chilling and icing and dipping and decorating and rolling and crying (not really, but almost) since 3 o'clock today. And I have to say, I'm tired. My back is sore and my arms feel jelly-ish.

But! I don't think I completely failed.

My goal was to recreate Bakerella's Valentine's Box of Cake. If you check out Bakerella's site, which I highly recommend, you'll notice that her box of cake is... well... perfect.

Mine is not.

But without further ado, here you go. Judge for yourselves.


I'm fairly pleased with my fondant first run. The top and bottom are not bad, but the side pieces got pretty dry and corn starched by the time I got to them. I should have scrapped those pieces and used new, but live and learn! I might go back to the cake and redo that part tomorrow, but I couldn't face any more fiddling tonight. The arms, remember.

The cake balls (also Bakerella's recipe - you can find them linked on the same page) are so cute and quite delicious, but, alas, I failed a little bit making them too.

I read Bakerella's suggestion to add a little bit of icing at a time to avoid putting too much. And I took that in. And then I put too much icing in the cake right off the bat. So, they are stinkin' moist and heavily cream cheesed, but still tasty. Next time I'll be more careful.


Honestly, how can you stay mad at anything that looks like this?

Okay, so maybe the lighting in that picture fails too. I promise the cake balls are ridiculously tasty.

Retroactive New Year's Resolution: Take one picture for the blog of a home-baked good in proper lighting.

Well, now you know what the red fondant was commissioned for. And now you know the highlight of my Valentine's weekend. So, if you are around, I'll see you tomorrow night, 8ish.

If you're not around, then feel free to be jealous all day.

3 comments:

Evan said...

Those look damn good, A. With the exception of a few runny ones, the cake balls look amazing. I'm sure it will all be, as always, delicious. Looking forward to finding out for sure tonight.

kmari03 said...

It's so cute! I made cakeballs once with a recipe from allrecipes.com. They came out really well with about a little less than a half can of icing. Also, if you mix the cake while it's still warm, but then let it sit in the freezer for about 30 minutes, that works great!

Kate said...

Oh, it looks fabulous! I am SO jealous.

And taking pictures of food is really hard. It's all about the lighting.