29 June 2015

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Not necessarily in that order

Early June
S: “Hi Polly, would you make a cake for the guess the weight of the cake stall at the school fete”?
Me: “Yes of course I would be happy to”. We have always supported the school since my grandson started there, and I do enjoy baking cakes.

Friday morning: started to bake the cake and since all the ingredients were out and the oven was on I decided to bake one for us at the same time. That’s me being frugal and practical. A mix it all together one for the school, a lemon and almond one for us - a new recipe I had found. Easy peasy.

The Bad
Later Friday morning: Oh dear, not one but two disasters; the school cake looked good in the tin, but when I took it out and turned it over it had a huge crater in the bottom, look at this
see that small hole at the pointer – when I held the cake to the window I could see daylight through it!  

The Ugly
On to cake number 2, the one for us. That didn’t fare well either, the top of it was cremated! 
what a dismal sight. Before I had cut the top off the cake my grandson came in and asked if he could have a slice of the chocolate cake!! 

To ruin one cake is unfortunate, to ruin two takes skill J

Friday afternoon: texted my daughter to ask if she could buy a Victoria sponge cake while she was out, which she did, and I would decorate that.

Later Friday afternoon: it was a very nice Victoria sponge cake – Tesco’s finest, but it was small, very small, and even with marzipan and sugar paste coverings it would still be small. My son-in-law suggested I bake another one, but I was tired and really couldn’t be bothered. Then he said, “but how much do you want people to want to win it, is that going to inspire people to pay to guess the weight”? He was right of course, I needed to commit to making the best cake I could.

Friday early evening: baked another cake, exactly the same as before and it was fine.
Friday 9pm: cake done, stuff put away, dishwasher on, sat down with a glass of my favourite wine - Asti Spumante.

The Good
Saturday morning 8am: started decorating the cake and - ta da disaster averted

My grandson leaves the village school next month so our involvement may not be needed anymore, but if it is, note to self – just say no!

PS Although the ruined ones looked grim they tasted very nice. I froze half of each one and prepared the rest for us. The others will be used at a later date.

4 comments:

  1. What a beautiful cake - I'm so glad you did decide to make another one. We all have disasters. I'm known as the cake baker around here (although my decorating skills leave a lot to be desired). I remember being asked to bake one for the RHS who were visiting our park a couple of years ago and it turned out very like your first cake. I had no time to bake another one so I sandwiched it together with butter cream and jam and a liberal dusting of icing sugar on top and it went down pretty well. It's disappointing when things don't go to plan but you really upped your game with that cake, well done!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your lovely comments Sara. I'm glad I made another one too. Everyone made a great effort and there were lots of stalls and inflatables but the rain started after only one hour, thankfully the children don't mind rain! That's a great honour being asked by the RHS, well done you too :-)

      Delete
  2. Yes, I'm sure the 'ruined' cakes taste fine. The one for the school is a masterpiece!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your lovely compliment Gillian. The ruined ones tasted so good they were gone by Sunday afternoon!!

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...