REALITY BITES

Before we knew about Nothing Bundt Cake and their amazing Red Velvet number, Ryan's favourite cake was German Chocolate. No contest. A few years ago, because at that point I hadn't really figured out how rubbish I was at baking, I made him a three layer German chocolate cake for his birthday. (In my head it didn't take the five hours that reality required.) I made it from scratch, coconut frosting and all, and soon realized that the price isn't the only reason people opt for the boxed mix rather than the actual ingredients. I stayed up late into the night, mixing and measuring and filling the house with the smell of hard work...or was it chocolate?   

The next day I painstakingly placed one layer of chocolate cake over another, slathering icing as I went. Carefully, I frosted the top and the sides of the enormous cake that had taken over my life, making sure to spread it evenly and gently. When I stepped back to review my handiwork I laid my eyes upon what could only be described as a concave mess. It sagged sadly on the plate. It did taste good, confirmed by extra helpings for Ryan and his brother, but for me, each bite stung with disappointment that the cake I had worked on so laboriously looked like a car had run over it. That was pretty much the end of baking for me; It's how Nothing Bundt Cakes became a tradition on special occasions- we get the delicious cake without the bags under the eyes.

But, when Ryan was thumbing through a Williams Sonoma catalogue he found a picture of a cake that he thought looked awesome. He even took the time to tell me about it, and show me the picture, and didn't I think it was awesome too? It's not often that he comments on pictures of baked goods so I decided it might be high time I baked him another cake. I aimed a little lower this time and went with two layers instead of three, and rather than bake the whole thing from scratch I just made my own frosting- this time it was easy frosting that didn't need to be boiled and stirred constantly for a very specific amount of time. Plus, I had help in the form of my little Charlotte so it felt a little less like hard labour this time around (though cleaning up after my helper was a different story).

Here's the original:

Followed by our mini copy cat:

And Charlotte who did the first taste test:

It won't be appearing in any catalogue's any time soon, but it was actually shaped like a cake so I'm moving in the right direction- maybe in four years time I'll be ready to bake another one.