Maggie had some very specific wishes for her birthday cake, and they got more elaborate as time went on. About a month and a half ago when we asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted, she said "Gray." Subsequent requests included:
- Gray with a mermaid
- Gray with Barbie and mermaids
- Gray colorful with Barbie and mermaids
- Gray colorful with Barbie and mermaids, and no lemons
- Gray colorful with ice cream cones and Barbie and mermaids; a big cake - no cupcakes allowed.
Here's what we devised:
We chose to ignore "gray" and "ice cream cones," but met pretty much every other requirement. Mel and I used the 1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake recipe from The Joy of Cooking and the vanilla buttercream recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook. Big cake, Barbie and mermaid all accounted for. Colorful came from the pepto pink frosting, sprinkles, amateurish purple writing and this:
Awwww, yeah. Purple and white cake.
Much to our delight, it was delicious! Well worth the late nights and the cussing I did over eggs that wouldn't separate and frosting that wouldn't spread right.
Unfortunately, we were unable to unleash our creation on unsuspecting party guests--Maggie woke up from her nap two hours before her party was supposed to start with a fever of 103.7! She had succumbed to the mystery 24-hour fever virus that had made its way through her daycare class last week. Canceling a child's birthday party at the last minute is not one of life's great pleasures, I learned. It's downright heartbreaking. Hopefully, we'll get to reschedule in a couple of weeks.
For good measure, more sweetness:
