Sunday, September 06, 2009

Mr T's bike cake, or my most depressing baking day

I think maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I should stick to cupcakes, because I had issues with the scrabble cake, but the attempts for Mr T's birthday cake were almost heart breaking.

Mr T's had drinks to celebrate his birthday on sat night. A groups of our awesome friends had all financially contributed so that two friends could build him his very own bike. So I decided to bake him a bike cake to match his bike.

There doesn't appear to be many instructions online for bike cakes, so I just made it up. I decided to make the bike out of white icing and it was an absolute bitch to make. I had to redo the writing, wheels and several parts and when I tried to move it it kept falling apart even when it had hardened. But I eventually got it done, even if it looked a bit like a 10 year old did it.

1st cake attempt: I made an oreo cake using the vctotw recipe x 3. I baked two square cakes, put icing in the middle and all over the sides and had it looking pretty good and then tried to move the cake into a container and it all broke and fell to a thousand pieces, I wanted to cry because I had spent two evening and one whole day to get to this point and was running out of time. Around this time, all of my family members came over one by one, each seeing what had happened and tried the crumbly mess and told me how delicious it was. Which was great but at this stage I had started to make a different cake.

Failed cake #1 looked something like this:


For the second attempt I made a vanilla cake because it didn't require going to shops to get more oreos. I used kittee's vanilla cake recipe because I know she is a cake goddess. When it was in the oven, I thought something might be wrong because there was quite a strange smell. I had already made the icing though and thought maybe it was just me. So I iced it by cutting it half and put jam in the middle and then chocolate icing all over. The chocolate icing was awesome and surprisingly doesn't need any soy/rice milk. Anyway I then noticed that there was a tiny bit of cake that I could try, so I had it and realised that it tasted sour, I then realised that I must have put apple cider vinegar in it in place of the oil. So I had spent all day and then all evening making two failed cakes. I just wanted to crawl up in a ball and cry but had to go home to Mr T. I considered staying up to midnight to bake a third but just realised it was crazy. So I decided to take the iced cake to show him and everyone and explain that it wasn't really edible.


But somehow, with 24 hours and a hell of a lot of icing and jam it was edible. It still smelt weird but all the sweetness of the jam and icing seemed to compensate for the weird cake.

Here is the cake:




and here is the bike:

I think I need a rest from cake baking for a while :-)

9 comments:

Theresa said...

Aw, for all the strife it gave you, the final product looks great. Happy birthday to Toby, and good on you for getting creative with your cake decorations!

lisa said...

I think my enjoyment of said cake is well documented. I love that picture of Toby with his bike!

cristy said...

It looks fabulous Kristy. You poor thing though. I hate baking disasters. Once something goes wrong I find it so hard to get back on track. I get so discouraged and stressed.

Vaala ◪ said...

Oh no!! That must have been terribly stressful. It looks awesome though. Don't give up on cakes yet...

Amy said...

Is it wrong to say it still looks tasty as hell? I think your second cake looks pretty good!

Johanna GGG said...

That is a cake (or two) made with love. Decorating these sort of birthday cakes is stressful enough without having to stress over the baking too.

I made a cake last week which as I put it in the oven I remembered I hadn't put in the baking powder and had to carefully stir in it while in the tin - I think I would have cried if I had had to start again

Your cake looks fabulous - I want to make a bike cake now!

K said...

Thanks everyone!

x said...

I think the bike looks great and you did a fantastic job. I would have wanted to give up because baking failures are such a waste of ingredients. I'm glad it tasted fine the next day :)

Anonymous said...

No way, I'm looking up how to make a bike cake for a friend and he even has the SAME BIKE as mr. T's. It's like fate.
Bike cake here I come.