Happy Birthday Once Again

16 years ago, on December 26th, my baby brother was born.

So, this year, on bring it back day, the little rockstar is having himself a birthday party. And, as has been the tradition (even for my birthdays) since I was old enough to hold a full cake pan, I'm making the cake.

I've made a lot of birthday cakes in my day. Generally it's a traditonal homemade cake with traditional home-made frosting. The cakes are layered, occasionally, but always round or square, and decorated with true "Shabby Chic" techniques. Crumb coats have no place here and we're never above decorating with jelly beans instead of trying to pipe on numbers. Don't get me started on long sayings - since the 8th Grade "Congratutalons" cake that we picked up from the local bakery for my graduation, we stopped asking people, even ourselves, to spell in icing. But this year - oh this year.

It's all my mother's fault. She mentioned, off-handedly even, "Maybe a guitar cake..." Perhaps I watch too much TV and read too much Tartlette, but I assumed she meant one of those Food Network Challenge cakes that make average bakers shiver. But then I thought, wait a minute! I've watched enough of those shows... Really, how difficult could a guitar cake be? (Mind, at no point in my plan was the bridge included - I'm speaking strictly to the body itself.)

Turns out, she meant "Why don't you draw a guitar on the cake" but she didn't tell me that until it was too late.

So, today I made a batch of Marshmallow Fondant...bright blue (it took two tubes!), a batch of chocolate frosting and the chocolate cake - it's in the oven.

I'll let you know.

Good To Know I'm Not The Only One

This morning I jumped out of bed, called customer service to yell at a teller about a system error that almost cost me $300 (it didn't. fear me for I am the arch nemesis of poor 20 year old customer service girls everywhere.) and then descended upon my kitchen - which is still a mess from the approximately 150 albeit small cookies that I made last night to begin the "bring-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-its-fabulous-and-unique" dishes for our respective families.

During a brief moment of silence where the pastries were waiting for the oven and the rolls were raising I found myself with a few minutes to spare and checked in on the rest of the blogosphere.

Good to know you're all up to your elbows in butter cream, royal icing and flour too.