"Old Greg" and A Birthday Cake

Remember the "Chocolate Creme de Menthe" cake I made Aaron for his birthday? It was A LOT of work. Now, I absolutely LOVE baking...but that cake made me wonder why I love baking so much. While Aaron was out skateboarding (the skateboard was his birthday gift from me) with some of his co-workers on Friday, I decided that I'd start to make the cake. I put on some comfy clothes, turned up the new Justin Timberlake CD on iTunes, and went for it. Here's a list of what went wrong:

• I didn't get the stand mixer I wanted from our wedding registry, so I used a small hand-mixer to combine the ingredients. Usually the hand-mixer works great for everything I bake, but a cake of this complexity needed something more. I ended up getting chocolate cake batter all over everything in our tiny kitchen.
• Who sifts the dry ingredients that go into a cake? I mean, I understand the difference it makes in the end...but I don't think the creators of these recipes understand how truly ANNOYING it is. Maybe the mistake was when I put all 3 and a half cups of flour and 1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder into the sifter at one time. Maybe the mistake was registering for the wrong sifter. Whatever it was, it took more than 30 minutes (and lots of forearm strength) to get the dry ingredients sifted. I made a bigger mess sifting than I did mixing.
• After the cakes were baked and cooled a bit, I took them out of the pans and laid them on paper towels on the counter to continue cooling. When they were completely cooled, I intended to pick them up and place them on the cake plate to frost the inner layers. Guess what? I broke the first layer in half. Yep. I wasn't happy. By this time, Aaron was home and all he could do was laugh. "It's okay," he insisted. "Just put that one on the bottom and no one will ever know." He's so smart.
  
• I wanted to wait until the next day to frost the outside of the cake, so we put the dome over the cake plate to protect it from our cat, Hobbes. The dome was too shallow to fit over a 3-layer cake. The top layer of chocolate cake ended up all over the underside of the cake dome. Aaron put plastic wrap over the cake and covered it with a big plastic mixing bowl so we could go to bed. It looked silly, let me tell you.
• When I attempted to frost the outside of the cake the next day, it was extremely difficult (perhaps because the frosting had a total of 1 pound of butter in it). It took me 45 minutes to frost the cake.

The cake ended up looking beautiful...but I was so tired of it by the time we got it to the party that I think I took one bite of Aaron's piece and was done. I enjoyed baking Aaron's birthday cake because it was special, but it'll probably be a while before I attempt a cake like that again.

Speaking of the party...remember how on Friday afternoon Aaron still hadn't decided what he was going to be for that Halloween party on Saturday night? Well, when he came home from skateboarding on Friday night he'd had a revelation. He would be "Old Greg." I know what you're thinking. "Who's 'Old Greg'?"

Aaron and his buddies at work watch this British sitcom called "The Mighty Boosh." I can't stand British humor, so I never watch the show. In one of the episodes there's a character named "Old Greg" who is half man and half fish. Not to mention he has seaweed for hair, has hideous makeup on his face, wears green tights, a tutu, and white cowboy boots. Aaron and I spent a lot of time on Saturday visiting every thrift store in Rock Hill (and good ol' Walmart) in an effort to find the perfect "Old Greg" ensemble. By the end of the day, the only parts of the costume we were lacking were the most important parts: the green tights (which we probably could have found at Target if we'd had enough time), the tutu (the dance store in Rock Hill was closed by the time we got there) and the white cowboy boots (we found the PERFECT pair on clearance at Rack Room for $6 but they they only had a size 8). Aaron decided that instead of abandoning the entire idea, he would just wear jeans and be "Old Greg" from the waist up. It was a lot of fun searching for Aaron's costume but by the end of the process we were both exhausted. We got ready, showed up at the party, and Aaron's costume was definitely a hit. EVERYONE knew who he was. I think I was the only one at the party who didn't like the show. Who cares. I was married to "Old Greg" for the evening. I made him take off the costume as soon as we got home. It creeped me out. I'll try to round up a photo to post on the blog.

Sam has a Halloween party at school tomorrow...so that means Sam and Ms. Allison get to bake Brownie Surprise cupcakes today! I'll post the recipe later today.

Hmmm...now that I've written a novel, it's time for the boys and me to go to the bookstore. Sam wants to go play with the trains and castles at Joseph-Beth Booksellers at Southpark Mall. That means I get to look through a few more holiday baking magazines before I decide if they're good enough to buy.