Par-Tee Time

I present to you my latest creation!! I worked long & hard to come up with what I felt was just the PERFECT idea for this cake. First let me set the scenario for you... My neighbor knows about my interest & efforts to start my own homebased bakery as she is often my guinea pig when I make breakfast muffins. Well, she was hosting a golf tournament over the weekend & asked if I would do a cake because one of the players was celebrating his 60th birthday - as you can see. So of course I jumped at the chance, as it's a great opportunity to get my name out to other people & a chance to pad my portofolio just a little bit more..lol Of course it doesn't hurt that it gave me a pretty good bit of decorating practice right? After much work & standing over the cake for probably a good hour just staring, trying to decide if it was actually done or not..I was beaming from ear to ear with pride. As I always am when trying out a new recipe, which carelessly this was I was a bit nervous that maybe it didn't turn out right or that it just wouldn't suit the taste of my customer. Unfortunately this time I had reason to be nervous - come to find out the cake was very DRY!! I was crushed..absolutely crushed. I definitely should have tried the recipe before hand..but I made a cupcake out of the batter & sampled it. The flavor was pretty good, but yes it was a bit dry..but I figured once I iced the cake it would be fine. I finished the cake up about 24 hours before the party, so I figured it would be fine..shouldn't dry out too much before then right?? Well I guess with this cake that wasn't the case..Either that or maybe the cake dried out more than the cupcake. Regardless I'm terribly disappointed & will NEVER use the Barefoot Contessa recipe she featured on her show for the "birthday cake with pink frosting". The recipe was called exactly that..well something close. The cake was really cute when she made it on the show & normally I really like her recipes so I felt pretty confident the cake would be atleast satisfactory, but in this case I was wrong. Maybe she just doesn't do good birthday cakes? lol Anyway I'm pretty bummed about that. I don't expect all my recipes to be great..you just have to test & toss sometimes..lol But the fact that I made something for someone else..especially because they were using it for a party & they were going to pay me for it..that makes it bother me even more. Bleh..maybe I'll be able to write a much more redeeming blog SOON!! lol