Of Birthdays

Last week my was my mom's birthday! I made her a cake!

I've never really decorated a cake before!

Yay!

Here's how it turned out looking. I promise it tasted better than it looked...

So, the stuff on top is just a basic cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla concoction. For the drippy bit I heated it up a touch (though the new microwave is a nutcase and heated it a bit more than I wanted/expected/holycrapthisisburningmyfingertipsoff)
The red part is just raspberry jam I thinned with some lemon juice and melted a bit before pouring it on and spreading it out.
It's filled with more of the white frosting and some more of the jam mixture.

The chocolate frosting is, once again, powdered sugar, cream cheese, butter, (but with cocoa, unlike the white part) and vanilla, approximately in that proportional order, too, actually. Oh yeah, there was a dash of milk in there somewhere to thin it down a bit. I'd never really (successfully)  made frosting before and the internet was down so I couldn't look it up, so I have a particular friend (you know who you are <3 ) to thank for my limited knowledge on the subject.

I think last time I tried making frosting with you, it actually ended up as cookies, didn't it?

The cake itself is just a basic cake mix (though I got the extra rich chocolate kind, so not quite as basic as it could be.) I was worried about it supporting the shape and keeping together on top of a filling (Oh, I should have got a pic of the inside. Oh well.) So, I figured that if I kept out one egg (egg is a rising agent and I wanted the cake to be a bit denser, not so fluffy, so it would theoretically be stronger.) I also cut back on the water slightly and made the difference up with extra oil to make the cake stay a bit moister.

It seems to have worked all right :)

Just don't ask about the calorie count. That would defeat the purpose of cake.



Oh, yeah, also, if you haven't figured it out, I did actually make it in safe, just far from on time. My biggest grievance is that I was stuck in an airport on the other end of the flight from the thunderstorm. I love thunderstorms. I wanted to see it : /