A Cake Story

An interesting side story about Jack and Barbara's cake--because we'd been in Virginia and busy with my parents' party, I pulled together most of the details for J and B's fiesta just a week or two ahead of time.  I had hoped to get the kind of deal on a cake that my SIL Jes had found in Virginia but everywhere I went, prices were well north of $100.  I was looking for something simple and I knew the main decoration would be a cake topper of live flowers* so I decided to bake a small two layer cake myself.  My friend Misty suggested I make an Italian Creme Cake--something I'd never heard of but it sounded good to me.  It was a bit of a disaster as you can see below. 

 The cake turned out like a cross between over-baked banana bread and a hockey puck.  I had overfilled the pans in an effort to plump up the layers and they had first spilled over all over the oven and then taken over an hour and a half to bake because of their thickness.

Misty had volunteered to help with the decorating and I left a message on her machine warning her that she had her work cut out for her.

As you can see, she worked a miracle (my theory is that she was praying continuously for the intercession of St. Jude) and, while the cake remained a bit lopsided, it looked beautiful.  I'm told it tasted very good as well.  My piece was a little dense but in the end, it probably wasn't any worse than a grocery store cake.  Still, my daughters have nothing to fear concerning me and future attempts at wedding cakes.  (I may call Misty though--Kudos for saving the day!)

*Next time, when ordering, I'll pay a bit more attention to details such as size.