Talia's first birthday is in just a couple of days! For her cake, I bought a really cool 3-d cake pan in the shape of a duck. Yesterday, I set out to bake the cake. I started at about 9:00 am. I took out the mix I'd bought, which just happened to be a Funfetti-type mix. I mixed up the batter and poured it into one half of the duck mold. There wasn't enough to fill it! I didn't have another mix, so I pulled out a cookbook and mixed up half of a yellow cake recipe. I wanted it to match the other batter, but I didn't have any assorted colored sprinkles to mix into it. I did have, however, some from Halloween that were orange and black, and some from Christmas that were red and green. Close enough, I thought. I filled up the duckie pan, covered the bottom rack of the oven with aluminum foil (to catch any seepage [as per the instructions]), and stuck it in the oven. There was left over cake batter, so I decided to make two little heart cakes with some pans that I've had for a while. An hour later, the duck was done, so I pulled it out and put in the hearts. The directions said to cool for 5 minutes, take off the top half of the mold, cool for 5 more minutes, then to put the top half back on, flip it over, and remove the bottom half of the mold, then cool until it was completely cooled. I pulled off the top half of the duck mold. Beautiful. It looked great! But then, I flipped it over to take off the other half. The cake plopped onto the cooling rack and began oozing all over the counter. The bottom half had completely failed to cook!! Into the trash. I pulled out the heart cakes, but when it came time to turn them out of the pans, they crumbled into bits. Complete and utter failure.
So... I washed all of the bowls, beaters, and pans. I got my cookbook back out and make another yellow cake batch (12:00 by this time). Thank heavens I got a stand mixer for Christmas (thanks, Mom!!) I was a lot more nervous this time. I left it in for the longest time the recipe allowed (you know, "bake for 50-60 minutes at 350".) I let it cool for the first five minutes, then nervously removed the top mold. So far so good. 5 more minutes, and I flipped it and started trying to get off the bottom mold. It would not come off for anything! I had greased it, but it just would not come off. As I was trying to get it off, it started pulling apart, and I thought I saw some still raw batter in the middle. Nervously, I put it back together, and back in the oven. I even baked it for an additional 20 minutes. Finally, it was time to try and get that stupid mold off. The long and short of it is, it wouldn't come off. I finally just pulled the stupid thing off and a whole layer of wet cake stuck to it. There was also a big hole in the middle, presumably from letting it cool and then re-cooking it. The plus side was that I now had half of a duck cake, because the top half had, once again, come out beautifully.
Okay, this is a learning experience, I've never done this before. Try, try again. But if it didn't work this time, Talia was getting only half of a duck cake for her birthday. Or store bought. I washed all of the bowls. Again. And the beaters. Again. And the pans. Again. I mixed up my fourth batch of cake batter for the day. Suddenly, inspiration! Maybe that layer of foil on the bottom rack of the oven was preventing the bottom half of the cake from cooking! I took it out, and (prayerfully) put my cake in. And, finally, finally, finally, it worked!!! I was so sick of cakes, and hand-washing dishes, and dumb ducks, and most of all cooking, but, a mere 10 hours later, I finally had a duck cake!
Time to cook dinner.
Today, I decorated the cake. Here are some pictures of the finished product.
