Thursday, April 03, 2014

...And Eat It Too

I dabble in cake decorating, making--or attempting to make--custom cakes and cupcakes for family and friends. In this, as in so many of my endeavors, I am self-educated, having followed a curriculum built of instinct, curiosity, joy in a challenge and the occasional instruction manual or internet video.

Sometimes, I'm pretty satisfied with the results. For example:


Snowman cake for a coworker

Spaghetti & meatballs cake for a fundraiser

Zebra cake for the daughter of a friend

Skittles-filled rainbow cake for Seventh Niece




Sometimes, though, the cakes fall into a whole other category. After so many years of "perfecting" my craft, I hardly ever have out-and-out failures anymore, in part because I have learned to give myself lots of leeway time-wise so that the ones that take a sharp left turn toward failure end up in the garbage can and are replaced by something at least presentable. And also because I've learned that enough frosting can cover up all sorts of horrible mistakes.

Still, there is plenty of room between the garbage can and "pretty satisfied" for cakes like this one:

Jeff Gordon car for the husband of a coworker

 


As I was putting the finishing touches on this cake last weekend, I declared to Hubby that it was another one I'd file under "Not as good as I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd feared."

Being the pathologically philosophical sort, it hit me that all sorts of things in my life could be filed under "Not as good as I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd feared." And it hit me, too, that learning to not only live with, but embrace "Not as good as I'd hoped, but not as bad I'd feared." might be a valuable life skill.

C is for Cake

14 comments:

  1. Is this the spot where I plug the old adage... 'Hope for the best, plan for the worst, expect something in between' ?

    As the one that occasionally helps, often listens to the "not as good as I hoped", and ALWAYS hears the praises from the recipients... the average result makes people happy.

    That's a life skill we all wish we were better at.

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  2. Hmmm... you're making me hungry for cake, especially that skittles filled rainbow one! :-)

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    1. That one was so popular that the birthday girl has requested an encore for her birthday this year.

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  3. I love the rainbow cake - we have a Rainbows troop that would be perfect for!

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    1. It's very easy to make--I found the directions floating around on the internet. It originally called for a fondant rainbow, but I used frozen buttercream transfer because I hate fondant. I imagine fondant would be easier to handle/work with in this case, though. :)

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  4. Sorry pressed publish to soon, thanks for stooping by my blog. Nice to follow and connect.
    http://aimingforapublishingdeal.blogspot.co.uk/

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  5. I like how you turned it into a life lesson. I have dabbled in cake decorating for my kids' parties. Always an adventure. Stopping by from A to Z. Thanks for writing.

    madscientistcrazymom.com

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, Rebecca. :)

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    2. Hey, Rebecca, I don't know if you set this to be notified of follow-up comments or not, but wanted to let you know that I've tried several times to leave a comment on one of your posts and while I am not getting an error message or a "your comment will be visible after approval" type message, my comment is nevertheless not appearing. Just wanted to let you know I tried...and any advice you might have for how to work the new-fangled technology would be great. (PS--I've actually had no issue with "commentluv" comments before, so I have no idea what I'm doing wrong this time.)

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  6. Love the cakes. Oh so that’s where I’ve been going wrong all of this time. I always forget the not as bad as I feared part.

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    1. I think you can be forgiven for that, Lynda, especially considering that you have had to survive one of your worst fears coming true.

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  7. I love your cakes. I love your philosophy even more. As a fellow cake decorator and armchair philosopher, I find that our "not as good as I'd hoped/not as bad as I feared" is someone else's "FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!". Of course it's also someone else's "headed for the garbage can". Perspective is a tricky thing.
    We do what we can, right?

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  8. Now I want spaghetti AND cake.

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