The Computer cake

For years and years the kids have been bugging me about making John a computer cake. This computer cake-The thing was, John doesn't really like cake- he likes pie. So every year for his birthday, he gets pie. Generally raspberry pie, or key-lime pie, but this year, we decided why the heck not? It will make the kids happy and once and for all get them off my back about this thing.

I don't even really know where to begin? The fact that I have never actually taken a cake decorating class, which becomes painfully evident when I am attempting to decorate? The fact that I have spent quite a bit of time laughing at the cakes on the blog Cake Wrecks (link to the side) and thinking that my skill level, and the skill level of some of those cake decorators are not so far off? Or the time that I spent trimming down starburst candies to make the keyboard?

First you cut the candies in half, so you now have two candies roughly the same size as the original, just half as thick. Then you use your Scooby-Doo ruler to trim them down to 1/2 inch square.

Or what about the actual design of the computer itself? John and I had a good laugh. "So what do you think this thing runs? Windows '95 or something?" I think that cookbook was circa 1997 or something. I thought about updating my design, and making the cake black or something, but wow that be just awfully unappetizing.

So here's the final product in all it's glory.

Here's a side by side so you don't have to scroll up. I know, it's like seeing double.

So um in retrospect, things I would do differently would be to a) take a class, b) use a different platter, that lip was kind of a bugger to work with, c) not try do decorate as fast as I possibly could, in between carting the kids back and forth to their activities on my busiest day of the week, d) make sure the stupid cake was good and frozen when I try to decorate it so I'm not dealing with all those stupid crumbs.

The kids liked it. John ate exactly one bite. Christopher destroyed it when I wasn't looking. He used those little medicine cups that come with your cold medicine to make little "shot-glass" sized desserts, like they have at PF Chang's and TGIFriday's.

-Edit- I guess that whole side-by-side thing didn't work out so well. It looks good in draft mode. Sorry.