Life, love and Laundry

For everyone who admired the cake, here is the cheat sheet:


- Bake basic cake. (cheat, and use a mix, because you don't want to complicate your first cake decorating effort by worrying about how the cake itsself will turn out.

- Follow instructions on the box and on the cake form carefully (butter and flour the form) so that your cake comes out in one piece.

- Do a little dance for joy!

- Take a box of store bought icing and discover that you bought 'stiff decorator icing, ideal for borders and roses'.

- Start to slightly panic.

- rejoice when reading on the back label that you can thin it out with water, milk or cream.

- Add cream, a dash of lemon and stirr like crazy.

- Find out that you have made it too thin and that the icing is sliding off the side.

- Pray.

- Find your prayers answered when you realize that you could just add some of the stiffer icing that is still in the jar.

- Smear it all over the cake and smooth lightly with a spoon or knife, because you were too cheap to buy the palette knife in the store.

- Beam proudly at your white, mostly smooth, cake!

- Mix some blue foodcolouring into some of the white icing.

- Make a big mess by not being careful when putting it in the squeezing/ piping bag.

- Pipe blue lines on the cake, because the stars you started to try all around the border require more practice than you had (none).

- Do not leave well enough alone.

- Mix up a batch of red icing.

- Grumble and growl when you notice that the piping tip you wanted to use is completely shut, probably because somebody stepped on it one time or another!

- Try to remove tip from icing bag.

- Discover that this is not so easy.

- Run your sink full of coloured icing water, barely avoid stomping your feet like a four year old and end up with your mother saving the day!

- Realize that the only suitable piping tip that is left besides the one that has been stepped on is.. the one you just used for the blue icing.

- Resist the temptation to curse.

- But do wail and moan. You are after all, human!

- Just cut open the piping bag you used for the blue icing to free the tip that has also become stuck.

- Make a mess anyhow, turning the water in your sink purple, as well as your hands.

- Pipe red lines of icing in between the blue ones

- Pipe a big four in the middle.

- Plop the thomas candle on the front so it looks like he drove out of a tunnel.

- Put three plastic Thomas figurines on top.

- Have a cranky birthday boy interrupt you all through the previous steps by whining and have your mother foist him off.

- Contemplate on whether you really WANT to make him a birthday cake, but bask in pride when it is all finished.

- Add candles at last moment.

- Wonder whether you were insane for doing this when you could have just BOUGHT a cake!

- Serve with a smile and do not tell this story to anyone.