Down to the Wire

Happy Saturday! I am enjoying a weekend without cakes. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE decorating, but after the craziness last weekend, I'm ok with a weekend off. Of course, I'm still thinking cake. I'm thinking of how to decorate upcoming cakes I have and I keep checking my Google Reader for new posts from the blogs I follow. But I know my husband appreciates a cake-free weekend. And my kitchen is clean!! Wonder how long that'll last...


Even though I don't have a "new" cake, I still want to share something! Since I've been doing this cake thing for over two years, I have plenty of cake stories to share (sorry if they're not exciting, but as I have said before I just can't keep myself from talking about them). 


Short background story to this cake: getting started decorating cakes, naturally, most of the people I did cakes for were friends. Since we are not from here, all the people I know are from work or church. It's kinda a bummer because I know if I were in my hometown I could get LOTS of practice from my big family and all of the friends of family and just all the people I know from growing up there. But oh well. I'll just practice so I'm really amazing by the time we move back!! ;) 


Anyway... Over a year ago, a young lady named Jennifer walked into the bakery/cafe where I work and asked if we did cakes. I told her no and didn't feel right promoting myself. Fortunately, my general manager did it for me!! He spoke up and told her I made cakes! I'm sure glad he did! I ended up doing a baby shower cake for a friend of hers. It was one of my favorite cakes I had done so far also! I suppose I can share a picture...

As you can see, the invitation was the inspiration.

 Jennifer also happens to be a fantastic photographer!! These are her pictures of the cake at the event. Lovely.

This was a big deal. The first cake I did for someone I did not know! And she was the perfect one too! I have now done cakes for her aunt, cousin, family friend, etc etc. A couple of weeks ago, her little girl was turning one! She asked me to make her cake, which of course I was honored to do so!! Jennifer came over so we could discuss the details of her little girl's first birthday cake. It was so nice to have someone come over and chat with me about what the cake would look like! Not everyone really cares so it was fun to have someone really into it. She even brought over her girl's boppy and a platter for inspiration. We talked for a good bit and had a detailed sketch. 


Before I show pictures, let me tell you the stressful events of making this cake. It was for a Sunday. I do not work weekends. Except for this weekend. We were catering the VIP area of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores (3 day long music festival). Long story short: the schedule I had discussed with my contacts with the HMF before the event were not the same once we got going with the event. I thought we would be done by 2pm everyday. Really they wanted us to work till 6 pm. So we were up at 3 am to get to the store to make the food to drive to Gulf Shores before the traffic got horrendous and now they want us to serve till 6 pm?! Side note: Gulf Shores is an hour and a half from my house. So Saturday, when I HAVE to finish the cake, we arrive in GS and they ask us to serve till 6. I kinda freak out. I just cannot stay that long. I end up leaving at 4, I think. Getting home hours later than planned. 


The cakes are baked and details are made. I can't remember if I had dirty iced them yet, but I don't think I had. Oh my goodness. I'm getting nervous. I get started as soon as I get home and am already stressed out. I usually take a while making cakes. I had to get it to her that night. So I work as hard as I can. Fortunately, Jennifer and her husband offer to come pick it up (they live about 45 min away from me) and don't mind the fact that I don't get done until after 11 pm! They were incredibly sweet and so happy with the cakes! (There was a smash cake too). I'm so glad because I really didn't get to do as many details as I planned, but she loved it. So here you go: (Sorry that my story really wasn't that short, haha! But it could've been longer!)

 Again, wonderful pictures courtesy of Jennifer :)

 Fun story about the smash cake. When I was placing it in the box for them to take (they were there witnessing this), I can't recall what happened but I "dropped" it kinda... it ended up half slid off the board. It was embarrassing and annoying but they were so easy-going and I was just incredibly happy it wasn't the tiered cake. I re-positioned it and re-piped the border and ta-da... (not as pretty as before but I think I'm the only one who could tell) but fixed!

 I can't help showing all of Jennifer's beautiful pictures!

 But here a few of my own. I usually put more effort into my pictures, but with the timing issue, pictures were the least of my concerns. But I had to get pictures with the inspirations! Above, the platter. Below, the boppy.

Everything turned out fine, but my method of getting there was not as planned!! But that's usually how it goes, right?? A wise man I know told me "don't make plans, just be prepared." That might not be verbatim, but the point is we never know what will happen! Plans never work out, but we can do our best to prepare ourselves for whatever might happen. Hmmm.... he would say it much better. I hope I got the point across though :)