Desperate Horsewife Bakes a Cake

Warning. Graphic photos to follow. This blog post may not be suitable for all audiences. If you are easily offended by poor kitchen skills, this blog post is not for you.












You still here? Well, don't say I didn't warn you!

Today is Darling's birthday. Sweet Sixteen!

Oh, okay, sure. Get it out of the way. Sing the little song.

Alrighty then. Down to business. Today on Sunday Stills, the subject is Food. Perfect! I eat food. Often what I create in the kitchen does not resemble it. Still, I was bound and determined to combine this photo assignment with Darling's birthday party. And so a plan was hatched to bake a cake. Not just any cake. Darling and I have been watching Ace Of Cakes on the food network, and we were inspired! And inspiration, my friends, can lead to terrible things...

First, we found a recipe for making your own fondant. Sounded simple enough, and tasty, too! Melt some marshmallows, mix in powdered sugar, knead like bread, and there you have it. Fondant good enough to eat!

The recipe said you could make a batch of fondant in about 8 minutes. They lied. I made four batches, with four colors, and by recipe standards I ought to have been done well within the hour. It took me all day.


We began by melting the marshmallows along with a touch of water in a double boiler. Note to all you non-kitchen folks; double boilers don't allow the top pot to touch the water in the bottom pot. I thought the water was supposed to meet up with the bottom of the top pot, but was corrected by my know it all 23 year old son. So I dumped water out of the bottom pot and began melting marshmallows.

Once the marshmallows were a smooth consistency, I began adding powdered sugar to make it more dough like while they were still in the pan. The instructions left that little part out, so I'll save you the trouble of wondering, just in case you decide to make your own and attempt to pour your marshmallows out of the pan onto the counter and get them stuck to anything and everything within 10' of your kitchen. Like I did. Which could be why I needed to make another batch.

You're also going to want to grease up your counter before plunking your sticky, gooey mixture down onto it. Trust me. This stuff could be with you forever if you don't follow this step.

Once you've got the powdered sugar kneaded in successfully, you'll want to roll it into a ball, slather it with more shortening, and wrap it up some plastic wrap until you're ready to use it. They say it's best if refrigerated, but I'm not so sure about that. Maybe chilled for a bit, but if you leave it in overnight it's as hard as a rock and difficult to roll out the next day. Did I say difficult? Make that impossible. Which could be why I needed to make another batch. Again.

Darling seems a bit skeptical.

Of course, once the fondant was finished, we needed to have something to put it on, so between batches of melted marshmallows and kneading, I baked a cake. Or two. We started with a nice boxed mix and because I didn't want to sit around waiting for two cakes to bake and then creating a layer, I doubled the recipe and made a deep cake. Note to self: Fat cakes do not bake well in the center and the outside may scorch if you're not careful.

I invested in a springform pan yesterday before doing any baking. That made life MUCH simpler. Just flick the little latch and the outside of the pan and it opens up and slips right off that cake. What the heck have I been doing all these years without a springform pan?

As previously mentioned, I cannot be normal and let it go at one fat cake covered in marshmallow fondant. Darling had seen a yellow submarine cake and for some strange reason, I felt compelled to try sculpting. Three little words that fit me:

In

San

Ity

I ask you, does this even look remotely like a submarine? No. No, it does not. It looks like a football with birth defects. But this is what my two hands created, so Darling was smiling. Or grimacing. Sometimes its difficult to tell the difference.

We began layering fondant over the round base, and Darling made a little blue bow. The bottom portion of the cake was beginning to take on an odd Cinderella look to it. Which, if you've known Darling for any amount of time, you'd know this was appropriate. She was always a princess for Halloween, and Cinderella was her favorite.

It did, however, seem a bit odd to combine this sweet, pink and blue cake with the Beatle's yellow submarine. Or even a deformed yellow football. But that's what we did. And despite it's lopsided periscopes and candied decorations slipping off the side, it really was time well spent. We learned how to make fondant, and we learned to keep me away from cakes and serrated knives in the kitchen.

We've got plenty of fondant left over, by the way, if anyone wants to make a pink, blue, white and yellow cake!