I am terrible at most domestic activities. I can't sew. I don't have a crafty bone in my body. If I dare to iron, I actually iron wrinkles in to the clothes...and frankly, I can't create beautiful cookies or cakes like that one, over there (look left). I can cook and make a halfway decent presentation of it...as long as I don't have to do anything fancy with a knife to make...you know...fruits or vegetables into teeny, tiny sculptures. But crafty things and baking pretty things that you'd almost rather just photograph than eat? Ummm...no. Notsomuch.
I learned that a pizza pan, while having holes to let air through, does not, in fact, make a good cooling rack for a cake. Especially a moist cake. Cake, even when cool, apparently sticks to things. Which is, I told myself as I tried not to weep, probably why cooling racks are rather, well, like racks and not trays. Less stuff to stick to.
Yep, the top of my cake came off. [sigh]
But! Nothing frosting can't cover, yes? Weeeellll...um...no. I mean, yes, if you add a bottle of sprinkles. After surveying the damage to the cake, I frosted it. With the flat of a shinto knife because along with cooling racks, I also don't have a proper frosting thinger. I don't even know what it's technical name is. It's just...the frosting thinger. I noticed, almost straight away, that the cake was crumbling into the frosting. Like toast crumbs in butter (eeyeck).
I had to walk away and bang my head off of the wall. Party planning and me just aren't good friends. I start with grand ideas (like saving lots of money and going DIY) and realize when it's too late that I do not have a skill. At all.
In the end, it was covered over with sprinkles. You know, rather like toothpaste in thumb tack holes. A loved it because, well, it was a funfetti mess of a cake and she loves her sprinkles, but I knew. I knew that I'd also forgotten soda (don't drink it, didn't dawn on me), chips, and other sundries. M ran a lot of extra errands on Birthday Party Day.
But there was my cake. Most of my mommy friends are talented. Last year, one of them made her daughter a Little Mermaid cake. And it was beautiful. Of course, my cake was tasty (hard to (*#^% up instructions on the back of a box that only has 4 ingredients all told), but dammit...it was my reminder that I am just not cut out for the domestic diva-dom. I don't even have the right tools for it. Baking without the proper accessories is akin to changing the oil in a dirt bike with a mallet and water. It just won't work.
The fact that I even use a comparison like that should tell you what I'm probably better at, shouldn't it? The odd mommy out is how I feel whenever I attend other parties, for sure. I don't talk the talk...but when A asked for a motorcycle, I told her she could have one next year and I would teach her (and Daddy) how to ride.
So next year, I'll be sure to have the right tools for changing the oil in her PW50 AND for baking a damn cake.
How about you? Are you a domestic goddess or a dirty disaster?
2 comments:
My youngest son has a snuggie (blanket with sleeves) that looks like I sewed it with a steak knife in the dark. He loves it. Just as A loved your cake.
Anyone with money can buy things. It takes love to make something from scratch even when you think you can't.
Well done, Phe!
Lylah - I remember the Snuggie post and I thought that was awesome.
A loved the sprinkles, that's for sure...
And yes, you're right. Of course, mine was from a box of "scratch", but hey...I made it, missing bits and all.
Thanks for the encouragement.
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