I might have a bit of a competitive side. It doesn’t come out all the time, and it certainly doesn’t translate to me be being the best, or even better, at anything than others. Still, it’s there and when the mood strikes me, I find it extremely difficult to quell.
This is most obviously the case when it comes to cooking. I’m a pretty good cook and enjoy a good challenge. Most of the time I can swing a decent meal; mostly they’re good, sometimes they’re great, and occasionally they’re…in need of reworking. However, with baking it’s an entirely different story.
I am NOT a baker- though not for lack of trying.
Well…okay, I’ll admit that I don’t like to follow recipes (which you might remember me mentioning previously) and that’s a big part of baking but I am trying to pay more attention to the details…
So, where I really fall flat (baking pun!) is with editing my work (which is extra ironic since I’m an editor). I just love to GO BIG and fix my mistakes after the fact.
Case in point: My friend invited me to make a cake for his birthday. I had seen people making Kit Kat cakes and thought it would be cool to do that…BUT BETTER. I figured that it would be extra amazeballs if it was a Kit Kat on the inside as well as the outside. Sounds pretty good, right? So I decided to do a layer cake and use a large wafer in between the layers so it would be like a REAL Kit Kat.
Okay, not too bad yet. THEN, I thought that I would go one step further than just chocolate or just vanilla and do a zebra cake! Whoooo!
Hang on to your hats, folks. We’re not done yet!
Instead of straight chocolate icing, I figured that I’d up the ante and make a Nutella ganache. Who doesn’t love Nutella?
Of course, sticking with the Kit Kat theme, I’d have those on the outside and then pipe Nutella rosettes for the top. It looked pretty good but I knew I could make it better with Kit Kat Bites dotting the top as well and that looked awesome, but not quite complete. What did it need? Sprinkles of course!
So, the cake was finished and actually looked pretty cool (okay, gaudy and over done, but still cool) but I couldn’t stop there! No, I had to make chocolate truffles to add around the cake as well and when those were done, I dipped them in candy melts and garnished them with flower toothpicks.
SOMEONE STOP ME!
Kit Kat Cake- Outside
It actually looks pretty good, eh? In fact, I’d say from the outside it was a success.
The problems came about when it was time to serve the cake. Rather than outline them one-by-one, I’ll just provide you a random sampling of some of the comments overheard at the party:
“Why is it so big? There aren’t that many of us!”
“Why is it stripey on the inside?”
“It’s too big to cut.”
“What is this stretchy bit?” (referring to the wafer that had absorbed the moisture of the cake and was no longer crisp)
“Ah the sugar! My teeth!”
And so on and so on.
But since I know you’re just DYING to see what I’m talking about, here you go:
Kit Kat Cake- Inside
So, who wants me to bake for their next party?
