I HATE Decorating Cakes!!!!

I hate decorating cakes. That is right, I hate it. The icing is like glue and sticks to everything, the food coloring is messy, and it is a pain to clean all those little decorating tips. I hate it!!

Why am I going on about my cake decorating hatred. Well, you see, my twins 6 birthday is this Sunday, and since I am the proud parent of a food allergic child, I am forced to make my own cakes. Of course, because I am forced to make my own cakes, I aspire to make them better then any bakery cakes, so no one feels they are missing anything. My twins, of course want two separate cakes, so I need to decorate two cakes - Natalie wants a Barbie Island Princess Cake, and Michael a Hot Wheels Cake- which means twice the pressure.

I am sure you are now asking yourself how this all began. (I am sure you are also asking yourself why I am writing about my cake decorating hatred, but that is easy, I have spent the last 10 hours making and trying to decorate cakes). After Conor was diagnosed, and I made the unfortunate discovery that no bakery cakes would be safe for us, I decided to sign myself up for a cake decorating class. I had once tried to decorate a cake without such a class, and it was not a good experience, so I figured a class would give me all the expertise I needed. Each week we had to bake a cake, and make our own icing and then go to class and decorate the cake the cake of the week. Then we could take our decorated cake home and share it with all of our family and friends.

The first class was not to bad - I made the cake from scratch, and closely followed the recipe for the perfect icing. I did a simple Superman cake, and excitedly brought it home to share with everyone. As soon as Conor took a bite his face started to swell. Great, I took this class to make him cool safe cakes, and instead he has an allergic reaction to my first cake. Oops. I could not figure out what was going on, I had made everything myself from scratch. After some serious contemplation I finally figured it out - Conor was allergic to eggs, and was reacting to the meringue powder in the icing. After an allergist visit, and some testing confirmed the allergy (it all made perfect sense later, and explained alot of unexplained reactions) I learned to make icing and everything else without eggs.

This has gone on way to long for now. I need to get back to my cake decorating now that the little ones are finally in bed and not able to "help". Unfortunately in our house, "helping" ends up involving sticking fingers in the great masterpiece I have just created, and fighting, crying and large messes. I promise to post pictures of the finished projects when I am done.

Wish me luck