U-G-L-Y YOU AIN'T GOT NO ALIBI!!

So...like I said on Facebook...what better way to kick off the holiday month then with an AWESOME ugly sweater cake!!! It was SUPER awesome and I love it!! And then, to keep the momentum of awesome flowing, ever so smoothly, another EPIC baby shower cake....

Too bad it was almost an ENTIRE failure throughout most of the process....oh dear...Hurrican Cakester HITS AGAIN!!!

Alright, I KNOW I'm not a professional...but I think I've made enough cakes now, to KNOW what works and what doesn't...Sometimes, however...I guess I must forget. First mistake: I took on more cakes then I made myself commit to a while back. Second mistake: I assumed that having cake #2 moved back by a day wouldn't be a problem...I'm an idiot and was I EVER so wrong! Mind you, I did this to myself..I get all UBER excited when I get these requests and I want them so bad that sometimes I forget what must be sacrificed for my silly entertainment. And so...as per my usual routine, I panicked...and tried to get as much done in advance as humanly possible...just to make things easier at crunch time. It was good at first...cakes were made, fondant in check and waiting, frosting just hanging out waiting to be used...and toppers made well in advance...I even made multiples to try and avoid disaster (Don't forget I am the worlds CLUMSIEST human being!!!) It's not Murphey's Law my dear children...it's MIREILLE'S LAW!!!! And it came in full swing on THAT day....

The first thing that happened was the dang sweater cake...I had to cut/carve it to make the right shape, but seriously, it a rectangle, so it shouldn't be that much of a challenge...but EVERY piece of cake that I picked up broke in TWO PIECES!!!! And then every time I picked up one of THOSE pieces, IT broke apart too! So I, VERY QUICKLY, ended up with cake bits EVERYWHERE, which threw me into psycho-crazy-mom mode and it was all down hill after that. I instantly went from being ahead of schedule to behind....So I had to bake more cake...awesome.
Whilst I awaited my new pet to bake in the oven...and then cool, I decided to try and work on the pillow for my baby shower cake...I found out the first time I tried to carve a pillow out of cake that freezing it makes things SOOOO much easier....but what I FORGOT was that all cakes are not created equal. Damn. The cake that I used didn't freeze...it just came out of the freezer...well chilled...sigh...oh well, work with whatcha got girlfriend! Unfortunately, this sort of cake is also VERY crumby and as a result it was breaking apart and cracking and becoming more unstable with every bit that was being carved away. And then when I tried to frost the damn thing, instead of leaving frosting on the cake with every swipe, I was taking cake off! (I think it must have gotten confused or something...I mean...it got the general idea that cake and frosting go together, but the frosting took the cake away...not vice versa...how contrary!) Ok...so here comes super psycho mom again...My poor children...my poor HUSBAND! ugh....and thus...another cake must be baked...or so I thought....I decided to abandon it in the freezer (after it's poorly administered frosting episode) in hopes to find that the frosting would freeze making it easier to handle...fortunately, I was right! SUCCESS!!

So...new cake being baked....pillow cake not dead, only in a coma....life is good!

I bake, I frost , I decorate...the ugly sweater turns into therapeutic goodness as I laugh my bum off the entire time it comes together...My hubby even made a few designer suggestions which put it over the top...In order to make a sweater, a sweater...it must have that matching band on the top and bottom...so what better way to make a sweater ugly then to use CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!! So yes...miniature lights on the top...and big 'ol gawdy ones on the bottom...NICE! I thought the reindeer on the boobies was a sweet touch too....woop woop!! Anyhoo...it were awesome and I WISH all my cakes were that cooperative (in the end) but life is NOT that predictable and we must simply ride the wave my friend...ride the wave....and crash once in a while...just to keep things interesting...meh, why the hell not, hey?

So moving on to the baby shower cake....Somehow things went ever so wrong....I burned the bottom tier and, somehow, ruined another (It was seriously only a few days ago yet I can't, for the life of me, remember what I did wrong!) Anyhow, time is of essence and I end up being so incredibly late that I offer to drive the cake to her when it's done admitting defeat at the time that it was supposed to be ready...And at that point I thought I would only be a couple of hours later...I was deeply mistaken. Lucky for me, I had the worlds most understanding client who actually felt bad for me...letting me know that she'd be up even until midnight if needed...and as it turned out IT WAS SOOOO NEEDED!!!!
So...I bake, I frost, I decorate...things started to fall into place and I even had a super sweet little surprise for her....
When she ordered the cake, she told me that her theme was going to be a princess shower since that was the nursery decor...and she had just purchased a hot pink tu-tu to put under the cake as a decoration...so I pull out the stops and make a little sleeping infant with a tu-tu on it SO CUTE!!! HER request, however, was to have a tiara on the cake as this was to go with the theme...fair enough...I had 2 tiaras made out of royal icing, and I decided that with MY luck, I should make a 3rd crown JUST in case...

So picture the stress of having a burnt cake, a cake that fell apart, and the general stress of being late....I then realize that the 3rd tiara had mutated as it dried...so it was unusable...so I go to find my 2 other tiars only to find one of them had shattered at some point....that's OK...I had ONE more to play with! (See my logic with all this? hahaha!) And since I am the clumsiest human to walk the earth, I decided it would be prudent to keep it as far away from me as possible during production...and to just wait until the very last possible second to place it on top of my cake....can you see where this is going?

The cakes was finished...the car was warmed & ready for driving...it was past midnight and I walked over to the table where I kept my delicate tiara in a plastic sandwich bag....I ever so slowly opened the bag, VERY carefully pulled it out of its home that it had known all its life....and dropped it. Have you ever had a slow motion moment where you can see everything happen all at once? This was one of those moments...I watched as my LAST tiara falls about 8 inches and breaks into 3 pieces....right in front of my eyes.....I screamed....and screamed...and screamed...and I started crying...and then I screamed some more...and then the baby started to cry...and then my husband started screaming at me to stop screaming because it was making the baby scream and cry...which only made me even more distraught, so I handled it by screaming even more.....and then I hit the table...and then I cried some more...and then...I just put my head in my hands and sobbed.....
Tony put the baby down...and picked up the pieces...examined the damage...and then asked me if I could fix it. What else could I do? That was the main centerpiece of the cake..I HAD to try...and so I walked over to the cake and put some frosting together and took MANY deep breaths before starting... and then..I put the tiara on the pillow little bit, by little bit. And when I was finished....it  looked very pretty. So Tony sat in the car with it on his lap, and I drove straight to the lovely girl's home...gave her the repaired masterpiece and ran like hell as fast as my little legs could carry me...I wanted to get as far away as humanly possible from that cake because I knew that our relationship was dysfunctional from the start and it was NOTHING but bad luck for me... Fortunately , it worked VERY well with the rest of the theme of her shower, it looked like it was a success...and my client was happy! which makes ME happy.

For yesterday, I was asked to make a Bon Voyage cake...a tropical theme...just a small cake...nothing too crazy, and at first I was just going to make a 6", but I made the CUTEST little man to go top, which meant I just HAD to make a bigger cake...ha! PERFECT! It wasn't much bigger...I made her an 8"...but 2 inches is significant when you think about the frosting and then the fondant going on top....but anyhow...it was fun and easy and quick and it turned out AWESOME....I love fondant....

And in the end, I discovered how to successfully make fondant more pliable...easier to work with...giving it less chance of cracking upon placement, making it more "stretchy"...warm it up. If not, I then have spend about 45 minutes kneading it to get it warmed and mold-able in my hands...homemade fondant can have an attitude worse then a hormonal teenage girl (if you read deep enough into that, you'll see I was referring to myself from back in the day)..it falls apart, it refuses to cooperate...sometimes it only applies half-assed...basically I am repeatedly dealing with myself from a younger life...and we don't always get along...I often wonder how my family ever let me live! BUT if you give a little warmth, it becomes soft and stretchy, allowing you to add color more easily and doing everything you ask it to...it's lovely! What better way to complete a round of caking chaos? With a discovery that will last a lifetime and hopefully come through each and every time I need it to. LOVE IT.

and now for photos of the insanity:

I think my very favorite-est part are the mittens... Courtesy of my wonderful hubby!

The theme of the cake is princess and royalty....so I made  pink and white shaped chocolates with luster dust on them to make them all shimmery and shiny! yay!!

Zee baby with zee little tu-tu...

the chocolates and pearls...

more chocolates and jewels and pearls

This was first attempt at making ribbon out of fondant...not too bad!

And the infamous repair...part of it anyhow...damn it.

self explanatory I think...lol

I don't know how much I like my husbands camera... every time I see the photos, I find flaws that I just don't see in real life...it's like that whole tv adding 10lbs thing...it really sucks! hahahaha!!!

I particularly like the bananas...A nice touch and the perfect size! SWEET!!
And check out his coconut drink complete with an umbrella-ella-ella!!