The cake...an epic saga.

I am not a baker, a cook, a pastry artist or good at anything related to the kitchen.  When I tried to make Noelle's birthday cake (I believe it was her third birthday) I did not flour the pan and, well, you can guess what happened to that.  I made cupcakes at the last minute.

So, for Nikolai's first birthday I was dead set again baking/making any sort of pastry.  I was going to march my butt straight to the store and order a cake.  I searched and searched but could not find a nice classic Mickey Mouse cake anywhere.  All of the cakes were Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (that I did not want) or Mickey and Minne on the beach (huh?) or just odd.  I considered my options and decided to give the Wilton Mickey Mouse cake pan a go.  I mean, how hard could it be to bake a cake in a pan, frost it based on the form and be done?  Haha.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Last week my sister and I decided we had better do a practice run - just in case.  I baked the cake - a nice chocolate cake - ahead of time and was sure to flour the pan this time around.  The cake popped right out of the pan, yet I noticed our first problem right away.  Because I had used a chocolate cake, I could not see the outline of Mickey's face very well.  Oops. 

My sister arrived and we (without really reading the instructions) began to dye the frosting and slap it on the cake.  The frosting slid right off the cake and just made a huge mess.  You see, being the poor baker that I am, did not cool the cake prior to frosting it.  After several failed attempts to frost the cake, I said eff it and just frosted over everything in one color so the fam could eat the cake at a BBQ later that day.  It looked like....well a total and compete hot mess.

Hahahaha! Yes, I am still laughing.   As were my online friends who told me I needed to put the cake in the fridge.  I actually was just going to throw in the towel when one friend in particular sent me a message telling me it would be a super cute cake and she thought I could do it. 

My sister and I gave it another go.  I baked the cake WAY in advance, I put it in the fridge for a few hours and I READ the frosting instructions that came with the pan.  Here is how it turned out...

I baked a white cake this time hoping for better tracing lines - yes, I floured this pan too.

This was for sure better than the chocolate! 

This is what we did!  The frosting started melting again midway through - but that was because my sister and I are dumbasses and we were frosting the cake on the counter above the running dishwasher (that is hot, dumb, dumb).  We also need a smaller piping tip for the black lines.  Otherwise, I like it! 

I have decided that this will be Nikolai's smash cake!  I cannot wait for those pics.  The rest of us will eat cupcakes!  I am so excited.  Hooray!!

** I must give a special shout out to my e-girls (you know who your are) and Three Pugs and a Baby for giving me tips and encouraging me to give the cake another try **