Week 2...

I was super pumped to bake and frost my cake for this week's cake decorating class because I felt I had learned several things from my mistakes of last week--I really had a good feeling about this one:) Unfortunately as soon as I began putting the cake together, that good feeling went away, and it went FAST!
I made a 3 layer cake by baking 1 thin layer and 1 thick layer and then slicing the thick one in half. All of that went according to plan, swimmingly even. It was my filling that failed: my mom made strawberry jam earlier this week and I thought it would be SO TASTY in a chocolate cake -- it is good, but it isn't very stable. The minute I started putting the layers together the jam was everywhere! It was oozing out the sides of the cake and even broke through the frosting dam I built to hold the jam in. Oops:) Memo to self: add TONS more cornstarch to thicken the jam next time. In a panic I thought that frosting the cake might cover up the jam and stop the flow but the jam broke through the frosting and started dripping down the cake! The result was a lopsided cake with holes in the side that oozed jam...oh man! And then on the drive to class, my cake shifted and the top layer slid off the rest of the cake! At that point I just laughed and began to take pride in the ridiculousness of my little creation:) Once we got to class I pretty much took the top layer and slid it back into place with my hands, but it was never quite the same.
As my cake was so unique, I was at a loss of how to do it "decoration justice" - what could I do to it to even remotely improve it appearance?! Well, I never figured that out so I ended up decorating it with all of the new things I learned how to do at my class last night in the hopes of drawing eyes up and away from the oozing sides -- kind of freaky! Oh well, Bon Apetit!!
(Oh yeah, we also learned how to make animals! Amy covered those!)