We have a baseball cake!

Hooray! I did it, i did it! Hubbie's tall birthday cake order has been fulfilled! (more on this story later)

Hubbie's cake has been made! And we are ready for a par-tay!

First, with a homemade birthday cake from Nigella's Feast cookbook you can't go wrong. I mean really, butter, eggs, and custard powder!! Where's the calories in that???

I played with the custardy middle and added 1.5 TBSP raspberry fruit spread to it.

Then i am a sucker for the olde fashioned Hershey's frosting, which they now call "Perfectly Chocolate" frosting in their website. I have it posted on my food blog at: http://brainsandtummies.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-favourite-chocolate-frosting-stuff.html. It's the same ol' recipe from the back of the can that my momma has been using for years for the b.day cakes she's made for me and my dad.

My secret ingredient though isn't Hershey's cocoa (sssshhhhhhhh!)--it's Wondercocoa brand cocoa. To die for, this cocoa. Makes the frosting taste so fudgy!!



A perk of being a pharmacy tech is the free pill counters you can acquire during your career. Best frosting spatula i've ever used!!

Once the top is smoothed, it's time for some heavy praying!

And after you roll out your fondant and get it on your cake, voila!



Now what ever you do, don't go thinking that just because you can roll fondant and transfer it without any problems that you're some kind of rockstar. You ARE NOT Duff of Ace of Cakes fame. Shoot, i am not even a Mel of Fat Cat Cakes. I am a rookie. Scratch that. A short season rookie. I barely make it out in the kitchen when it comes to making cakes as fancy as this. I made this mistake on the first cake...thinking i i could rule the world and all, eh, & i made up a little sugar water paste to glue the stitches (aka Twizzlers) on with and got this "great" (aka cocky, and just plain all wrong) idea that i was going to colour it so it would be the same colour as the licorice and it would fab and angels would sing. Well, you can see how that didn't work too well. Another reason to have two cakes--you can show off your new skills and newly acquired humility by decorating the second one according to your skill level! :o)

I also added some extra cocoa dust to the top of the first cake because i am an extreme goofball (and it's very late, so while sleep deprived, it sounded like a delightful idea at the time.) I think it makes it look like a baseball after the first few pitches and the pitcher has dirtied it up a bit. Of course, when i am serving it tomorrow, i will wonder to myself, "Why did i think it was a good idea to serve my in-laws cake that looks like a dirty baseball?"