They'll be fine - June 14, 2025

My daughter-in-law and I finished decorating The Granddaughters' birthday cakes around lunchtime yesterday.  

Our phrase for the day was "It'll be fine."  :)

I'd frozen the cake layers overnight, and right off the bat I cut my finger trying to saw off the top of a layer to level it.  I bled like a stuck hog.  I bandaged it and put on disposable gloves and moved on.  

I made several missteps in designing the gymnast cake.  Remember that it was to be covered in fondant.  The misstep was in making the bottom layer bigger than the top two layers.  I don't know why I did that.  Someone who knew what they were doing might not have made a bigger layer, or they might have known how to smooth the fondant over the "ledge" and down the side of the bigger layer.  But I couldn't.  Didn't even try, in fact.  I just cut a strip of fondant as tall as the lowest layer and wrapped it around the cake.  We covered up the seam and the ledge with buttercream flowers and piping.  We went a little over the top sticking stars all over it.

And it was a little lop-sided.  The chubby fondant gymnast on top may pull the whole cake over before I deliver it.

Speaking of the chubby gymnast, she was looking fairly young and cute before I put her head on.  Following along with a you-tube video, I'd fashioned a neck out of gum paste, and it had dried slightly while I made the head.  When I pressed the head down, the neck skin wrinkled.  So she's got the smooth, pink face of a kid, and the neck of a Sharpei puppy.  I stuck a little star over it to camouflage it.  It'll be fine.  

I made two batches of chocolate cake batter and, after filling the two 6" pans and one 8" pan, there was enough batter left over for a dozen cupcakes.  I frosted those yesterday with peanut butter cream cheese frosting.  There was enough peanut butter frosting left over to use as filling between the three layers.  I covered the entire cake with chocolate ganache before adding the fondant.  The cake may look like heck, but it ought to be really yummy under that nasty fondant.

Granddaughter #1's grape soda cake is free of fondant; it's frosted with buttercream.  My daughter-in-law made purple roses and blue forget-me-nots for the top, and she piped some yellow and blue flowers around the sides.  Her wrist is in a cast, and she had a hard time doing some of the work.

I'll deliver the cakes tomorrow.

They'll be fine.  :)