Cakes are like precious little delicious babies...right?

I'm sleep deprived and have had two mimosas today (don't judge me- Sunday was clearly made for day drinking), so I apologize in advance for going off topic. It's going to happen at some point, believe me. We're also experiencing another wonderful Clovis dust storm with 40+ mph winds, so the sky is a lovely shade of brown here today. Oh New Mexico, this truly is the land of enchantment. It is so windy it blew our HUGE GRILL from the back porch into my garden a good two feet from where it should be. Not Feng Shui, wind...I do not agree with your redecorating choices. Since we're locked in and even the dog is experiencing a mad case of cabin fever, I would like to present you with the cake I made yesterday to keep my eyes focused on the computer screen and off our windows. I imagine this is what the apocalypse looks like (the dust storm, not my cake), and I am also questioning why I ever even bother dusting here. Anyway...

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?

Yeah, I just likened a cake to Stevie Wonder's song about the birth of his daughter. Since I have no children, I realize my point of reference may be a tiiiiny bit skewed, but this cake really was a labor of love. I didn't clock it exactly, but in the time it took me to decorate this cake, my husband was able to watch Austin Powers in Gold Member from start to finish on Comedy Central. I may be experiencing a tiny bit of carpal tunnel today because I am almost positive my hand wasn't shaped like a claw before yesterday. Anyway, I made this cake for a friend who ended up taking it to a birthday party- that's right, my cake had a proper debut and everything, y'all! I am told no one died or became violently ill afterward, so I'd call it a success. I had some postpartum depression giving my baby cake away and not being able to have a piece of strawberry deliciousness, so this will take some getting used to. But if someone else gets to eat my cake and it makes them happy, then it is all totally worth my time. *Aww*

So let me take you through the steps here...although this cake is incredibly time consuming, the decorating itself is rather simple. Here's what I started with:

Never forget the crumb coat, people!

1. Make cake- can't always decorate on Tupperware or upside-down cake pans.

2. Wait for what feels like forever for cake to cool. Patience is not a virtue I was blessed with.

3. Put a small crumb coat of icing on cake to keep crumbs down and allow any gaps in decorator frosting to be barely noticeable. I enjoy a hobby that affords me a massive amount of room for error.

4. Wait for what feels like forever for crumb coat to stiffen. Contemplate trying to figure out how to make a frosting that hardens instantly after applying that doesn't taste as bad as fondant. Realize you're too simple minded to figure this out, but the whole thought process took long enough that the crumb coat is dry.

5. Figure out the colors to be used, dye frosting, and put in bags fitted with a #12 rounded tip. Realize you somehow managed to dye your elbow blue, too. Question the meaning of life.

6. In whichever color order you choose, pipe a column of larger dots on the side of the cake:

At this point, I had also managed to frost the majority of my left arm.

7. Take an angled spatula, and push it into the middle of the dot, then swipe the spatula towards you. Or away from you if you're a rebel. Either way, pick one direction and stick with it. 

8. Clean your spatula with a paper towel every single time you swipe one of the dots to keep the colors from bleeding. Realize you're awesome because you remembered to buy more paper towels at the grocery store this week. You rock.

9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for what feels like an obscenely long amount of time, question meaning of life again, and realize you have managed to get frosting in your hair even though its pulled back. Consider asking mother if she accidentally dropped you on your head at some point as a child, because a functioning adult should really have better motor skills.

10. You will have a row of buttons that end the cake...so this cake has a backside, further humanizing it. 

11. Frost the top of the cake using the same steps as 7 and 8, but this time its the top of the cake, so make that shit look really spiffy.

12. Take pictures to show to people (whether they want to see them or not- they're going to) about how your labor of love turned out. Make sure to do a healthy amount of bragging, but probably draw the line at mentioning out loud that this cake was like your baby. That's what the blog is for, anyway.

I'm told in exchange for this cake, I am getting a large amount of lumpia. So I've decided a barter system is pretty much the best form of payment for me at this point. Food for food! I'd also accept cake for house cleaning at this point if the wind refuses to die down...or cake for wine. Or cake for a really big bottle of wine. And although hugs are great, they're not enough to get you a  free cake (unless you're my mother or Tom Hiddleston).

I've been continuing to practice my shells and various flowers...and I am in love with the drop flower:

I already warned you in step 1 that I practice icing on my cake pans,
so this really should not be surprising at this point.

The cake I make next Saturday will probably look quite similar and less metallic. Things are coming right along, and provided people still want free cakes for the time being, this hobby will only continue to expand. I apologize if you follow me on Pinterest and have to deal with the ridiculously ludicrous amount of pins related to caking that I post and clog up your feed with...just know I too have to put up with all the pins you put on my feed involving real life actual babies, and not tiny little 8-inch round ones topped with frosting. Til next time, my fellow eaters!

P.S., I'm really proud of the fact that I managed to keep this entire post about cake and instead didn't end up talking about the merits of  low sodium bacon over thick cut bacon or something...because it totally could've happened at this point. I think I might need a nap.