Comedy of Errors

This is one of those baking projects that makes you feel like a total moron. I was left wondering why we didn't just buy a cake from the grocery store. For Nick's birthday cake he really wanted a marble cake. He's slowly being weened towards chocolate, for years and years it was a white cake with white frosting. Now he's decided that a little bit of chocolate isn't so bad. I had also just received a new cake pan for my birthday from my SIL who understands my fascination with cute cake pans It's a bundt cake pan, with Christmas trees and a little train that goes around the bottom of the cake. Of course I talked Nick into having this cake for his birthday.If it were me, I would have done a lemon cake with a lemon glaze, but as he wanted marble and it was his birthday I was happy to comply. One problem was that the fact that although I spread the batter up the sides of the pan to encourage it to bake flatter on the top (which would become the bottom) it didn't, and so it is very rounded on the top, and you completely lost the cute train (my favorite part) Also, the marbling didn't look that great so I wanted to drizzle some sort of frosting over the top. In my head I imagined a smooth, green glaze (because they are Christmas trees) then I would sprinkle it with Christmas colors. I had seen glazes where you mix store bought frosting with white chocolate, and it is pretty and tasty (I'm not a fan of the powdered sugar + milk glaze- too sweet, and kind of flavorless) So I tried to do that. I bought green melting candies, melted them in my double boiler, and then mixed in a can of white frosting. Oh my. The result could only be described as "swampish". So gross.

I left it out on the counter because I thought it was funny and wanted to show my mom, and it was sort of turning into a science experiment. By the time it cooled down and we stirred it up, it took on the consistency of play dough. It probably would have tasted good between soda crackers, but I was too grossed out still from the day before and just wanted my bowl back, so it got thrown out.

I tried to salvage what was left of the melted green chips, (there was still a bit left in the pan) so I added some Ghiradelli white chocolate chips and thought I would just drizzle that over the top, but somehow the chocolate seized ( I must have gotten a drop of water in it somehow) and was unusable. That got thrown out too. So now the only options I can think up are melting down some more white candy melts (in a different bowl, that one seems to be jinxed) or just making the milk and powdered sugar glaze, but I thought the white chocolate would look prettier, and the sprinkles would stick better, and Nick would like it better so I went with that route. I even had large yellow star sprinkles I put on the tops of the trees. The total effect was okay at best, and the fact that not one single person in the house has gone back for seconds is a little telling, and mostly I am just grateful that Nick is more appreciative for the effort than the actual results. So ta-da! Here is the final result-