didactic

Hooray for another birthday party for which I could bake and decorate cake!

Last year, the birthday girl gave me some vague directions for what she wanted as her special cake. This year, I got a drawing. In color!

I told her I would get it as close as possible and set to work. 

I kept a few cake pans from my grandma, including some that are heart shaped, so that part was easy--no cutting corners and reassembling to create the base. I also figured I'd make the seven little hearts separate and add them to the top (rather than create them directly on the cake) and they'd work perfectly for candle spots.

The colors weren't going to be as strong as the markers she used, but I made sure there were distinctions between the different elements. The other issue I ran into was her drawing was pretty wide and my cake pans are narrow... so I rearranged a few elements and ended up with a pretty nice looking cake.

M commented on the color being off*, but said she loved it and it was really pretty, so that didn't matter. When it was time to sing Happy Birthday, we loaded it up with silver candles and had a boisterous round of song.

Almost missed this shot--she was speedy!

Then we cut and served. I knew we couldn't cut traditional wedges, like a round cake, nor could we make easy squares, like a rectangle cake, so a couple girls got wonky shaped pieces. They didn't mind in the least, though. M told all her friends I'm the best cake baker ever, which was very sweet of her. 

*I was not offended in the least, as I completely understand. Getting dark red/pink colors are hard!