The Cakes (yes, plural)

For Annaliese's cake, I knew I wanted polka dots. But after eating Ian's fondant, I knew I did not want fondant on her cake. The fondant was so fun and easy to make, but the taste was nasty. So a search through the web and this cake became my inspiration. It was sprinkles massed together in circles. I could handle doing that.

Fast forward a few days, and one of the blogs I regularly read had a post on homemade sprinkles. After reading up, I realized I needed to try it, and so the process began.





As for the cake, I wavered back and forth between going out and buying a large sheet cake pan, or making two 9x13 cakes that I was going to butt together. I went with the latter, but the cakes came out so high and rounded in the center that when I leveled them, they seemed so short. My solution was to turn it into a two-tiered cake. Having the flu put me behind, and so I ended up having to do box cake mix. After frosting those, I will never make them again; they are soooo crumbly! During a late-night of no sleep, I feared I wouldn't have enough cake, so the morning before we left, I made some yellow cake in a round pan.





Annaliese needed her own little smash cake and it, along with the rest of the cakes, turned out exactly as I envisioned (I love it when that happens).



She was not a happy girl for reasons I don't want to admit here on the blog, so she did not dig in to the cake until later. But once she did, mmmmm, she loved it.










I have now made 5 different frostings between both Ian and Annaliese's birthday: butter cream, fondant, glaze (turned into sprinkles), cream cheese, and store bought. From this smorgasbord of taste-testing, I have learned that I definitely prefer cream cheese frosting. And from now on, only homemade cake for me.