Disaster Averted

Earlier this week, one of the admins at the office asked me to make a birthday cake for another admin. I was happy to be asked and easily agreed, then asked about what she had in mind. I should have known the trouble ahead when she essentially asked me for a remake of this disaster from my cake decorating class:

I baked the cakes Wednesday night so that I could chill them, which makes them easier to level and creates less crumbing. Stupid me, though, I decided to let them chill in their pans. I don't know if it's because I didn't grease my pan well enough or because of the temperature itself, but one broke when I tried to take it out of the pan. I tried to save, it, really I did. I wasted a bunch of buttercream frosting attempting to patch it up, but it just so obviously wasn't going to work.

Dan came to the rescue and went to the store to get new cake mixes and I started over again at 7:30 in the evening. He told me I promised a pink cherry chip cake, and I was going to deliver a pink cherry chip cake. It wasn't until almost 8:30 that I was able to take them out of the pans and let them cool before leveling and decorating. The lady at work has asked for pink icing with yellow borders (no garland, thank goodness) and yellow roses. I, however, overestimated how much icing I'd need to cover the cake and didn't set aside enough for roses. I was pretty flustered about my icing shortage and realizing that I'd have to write on a cake, but Dan was so sweet and encouraging. So the end product is this:

Not entirely awful, but I admit I'm a little disappointed that the roses didn't make it to the party. Still, I think the birthday girl will be excited to have a homemade cake baked and decorated just for her. And to lighten the mood in the midst of the cake breaking and the icing FAIL, my funny knottie friend wrote me the following song, to the tune of "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry:

"I broke a cake and I liiiiiiked iiiiittt, the taste of it's cherry chip-stick.

I broke a cake, just to try iiiiittt, I hope I can recreate iiiittt...

It broke so wrong , I have to do it right. Don't think I'm gonna sleep toooooniiiight"

And speaking of of birthdays, it's my birthday weekend!! My wonderful friend Rachel is coming up from Tucson to celebrate with me. We're going shopping and for pedicures tomorrow, just having a nice relaxing girls' day. Tomorrow night, a few friends are joining us for dinner at a Brazilian BBQ place I've been wanting to try. My parents are going to come Sunday to spend time with me. It'll be an awesome weekend, and I'm very excited.

Does anyone else have fun weekend plans?