Hearts

A friend of mine at work's birthday was yesterday. Of course I had to make her a cake!  I have for the past 2 years:

Yeah... can you tell I had just started decorating cakes? Then last year...

 This is the one she asked for and designed. I feel like I could've done better.

Then her surprise one that I took to work. She loves mushrooms!

This year I decided for hearts to be the theme! She likes hearts so there you go :) I wanted to "doodle" hearts all over the cake! Fun piping!

I also happen to need to make a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing in a few weeks and thought this would be a good opportunity to practice. I hope that doesn't sound bad, but I think it's quite reasonable! It cost money to make a cake and it's best to have an occasion for people to eat cake! I'm trying to be efficient!

I have had bad experiences with cream cheese icing. I used it for one cake almost two years ago and things seemed to go fine. I don't remember any issues or the recipe I used. Then I try again sometime last year, and the icing is falling off the cake! I managed to finish it somehow.... Then another cake... I have to call the lady I was doing it for and tell her I couldn't do it. The icing wouldn't stay on the cake! Ugh, so frustrating. And it happened to be the 4th one I was working on the night before I left town. So getting close to midnight and just couldn't pull it off. I felt awful. After that I swore off cream cheese icing, at least during the summer months. I think I did it for a carrot cake for a lady at church who had a death in the family so I wasn't worried about decoration. Anyway, really have put it out of my mind because of my frustration.

Then a friend of mine who does cupcakes in another state gave me her recipe. I was so excited!! I had high expectations. I got it months ago and finally had the opportunity to try it out with this cake. I am disappointed. It might be different decorating cupcakes, but it was less than perfect for decorating my cake. I just don't understand cream cheese icing. Is there one that exists that decorates like buttercream?? I couldn't get it smooth and clean. I guess I can show it to you since I've been talking alot...

Sorry, the pictures aren't very good. I took them in my laundry room (no windows) because I didn't feel like clearing off all the stuff on my counters in my kitchen, ha!

Anyway, so I had a bout of depression after this cake. The same that happens every now and then.... The feeling that my cakes should be better than this after over two years of doing this. The depressing thought that I'm really only comfortable working with buttercream because it's what I work with the most and even then, I am disappointed with some of my buttercream cakes. It's frustrating. So I was kinda sad. But today I'm feeling better. I may be a slow learner, but I still am not too discouraged to stop. My goal is to have every one of my cakes be beautiful and clean. For me to be so excited to share them with others (it's not much fun when I'm not impressed with my own work). I am still determined!!

Positive things about this cake: it was DELICIOUS! Yum yum :) Too good. I ate too much of it. Also, I love piping. It was fun doing the hearts. And I thought I had one cool picture of it...

I'm gradually learning more about Photoshop :)