Why am I doing this?

Yes you may ask that question. I think it's understandable.
 
The fact is that I have had an Epic Awesome moment and it's inspiring (well I'm inspired!). And I want you to know that it's not my own doing, but recipes and tutorials from others as well as input from my dear Husband, but I am so proud of it and I hope I can help someone else do something outside their comfort zone too.
 
So!  On with the story!
 
My son is turning 2. He's cute and cheerful and a bit of a monkey and I see this tutorial come into my inbox from www.cakestyle.tv and I think That's It!  A Monster Party For My Little Monster.
 
But now I need a recipe for a rather large sturdy cake.  I could use a box cake mix, nice and safe, although I have watched enough cake icing tutorials to figure out that a firmer cake is more likely to survive my clumsy first goes with a palette knife. So I think of a lady I follow on Facebook and I can't remember how I found her page in the first place, but it's Janet of www.quaintcakes.co.uk  Every day her page is full of photographs and testimonials from happy bakers. 

The Quaint Cakes recipes I was interested in were £1 each and at the time there was a buy 2 get 1 free deal. So I purchased:

1. DEEP Madeira Cake Recipe Round 8" Tin (Detailed Method, Filling, Levelling & Crumbcoating with Vanilla Frosting - 31 Step-By-Step Photos)
2. Rainbow Cake (Multi-Coloured and Multi-Layered Round Cake. Recipe, Detailed Method, Levelling and Crumbcoating – 38 Step-By-Step Photos)
3. GLUTEN AND WHEAT FREE Victoria Sponge Cupcakes *

And I had many an internal argument with myself whether I should make the huge madeira (which genuinely sounds like great fun) or go with the rainbow which is bound to impress kids but will take much longer (I only have one cake tin), involve more work and surely has a higher chance of failure. 

I chat to my husband. He is helpful. "Keep it simple" he says

"RAINBOW CAKE IT IS!" I declare.

"Lovely," he says and turns back to his computer.

He is so wise. I love this man.

So that is now decided. I show him briefly what the monster in the tutorial looks like.

Image from Cakestyle.tv tutorial

"That's what I'm going to make" I say proudly.
"I don't like it" he says
"HUH?" I say irritated and confused especially since we just decided on the rainbow cake theme so easily
"I don't like the eyes on sticks" he says
"Well we don't HAVE to have eyes on sticks" I reply snottily as if that is obvious (it's not).
He starts talking craziness about having the face on the top of the cake and that's when I tune out... Did he not see the tutorial?  Okay so technically he didn't see the tutorial, but we're not reinventing the wheel here. I want to make THAT cake because the video literally tells me how to!
"We'll figure it out as we go" I say sagely while thinking Must Add Wire and Table Tennis Balls to Shopping List Or Maybe Use Cake Pops??


The BIG DAY came around.

The day BEFORE that day I am baking like a lunatic while entertaining the birthday boy and attending my daughter's ballet recital.  One massive cake batter (honestly I didn't think it was going to all fit in the bowl and I only have a little electric hand mixer) and one cake tin which is technically 1 inch larger than the recipe demands when I realise I only have 5 useable colours (Ivory and Black are not going to lend a lot to my rainbow) for a 7-colour rainbow cake.

Not. Going. Smoothly. 

But strangely, and my heartfelt hanks to Janet, I stuck to the recipe and the advice therein and my 5 cakes came out beautifully.

Being an idiot I liked to keep stacking and restacking them while they were cooling to admire my work and imagine my success story and I very nearly broke one of them! Gasp!  With new found respect for fresh cakes and mouthfuls of awesome colourful offcuts I got started.

At 1.30am I had finished piping on the fur. Lucky for me my husband is an owl and that time of night is no stranger to him.

"It's time to put on the face" I say with exhausted dread, "What shall I do?"
"Well, where is the mouth going to be?"
"Hereish" I say gesticulating madly around the side of the cake somewhere.
"Do that first, then call me."

He's a pro in a crisis, my husband. I do as he says.

Rolled red fondant is shaped in a big open smile (freehand with a knife), now I need white teeth. Unfortunately for the sake of some tiny white teeth I am going to have to open a whole huge pack of white fondant which seems so wasteful.

ThinkThinkThink.
Marshmallows! 
Snip snip snip and press and holy crumbs they actually just stick! And they look all three dimensional and cool. Big fat Awesome points to me.

Time to call in my brainstorming team.
"What do you think about the eyes?"
"Well, I don't like them on sticks"
"Yes, you said."
"Maybe just on top? Can you show me?"
I hover my table tennis balls (washed and drawn on with permanent marker) around the top front area of the cake
"Exactly." he says, "I like it"
"Boring" I think loudly, but actually say "What about some horns?"
"Sounds good."
Righto!  Off we go.
Two tiny red horns (because we have established I hate to waste, and red is all I have open aside from the marshmallows)
Squish, Squish eyeballs are on. Plop, shuffle a bit, plop and push and the little horns are on and My God. I Am A Genius.
And So Tired.

So I take a photo because if all the hair falls off in the night and I am left with the Baldy Cake I would not be surprised. Then I head off to bed.

On birthday party morning I open the fridge with Clever Daughter in tow and we gasp and laugh because there on the shelf is the head of a monster and he is Super Cool.  She keeps going back to look at him "one more time" which is so flattering but eventually making me pretty nervous.

Well the party came and went. The weather was glorious, the company wonderful and the cake rocked. My baby boy was transfixed when he was sat in front of it to blow out the candles.

A rainbow cake is a special thing because people get all excited when you finally cut a piece out. I think there was some Oohing and Aaahing but in my head it was a standing ovation. I Bloody Made This. Me! (with help from others) For My Little Boy.

So without further ado, here it is:

Isn't he a charmer?
And here are his insides:

And so delicious there was only 2 pieces left of what must have been about 2.5kgs of cake.

A brilliant day for my brilliant boy.


I am Tracey, Let's get Epic.


*Because my lovely neighbour has coeliac disease and I might like to make and have a cupcake with her now and then!