Bake, decorate a cake and eat it, too!

After seeing the nice cake that Lisa made for her son's 2nd birthday, it made me think back to my cake decorating days.

Before I was married I used to bake and decorate cakes on the side for extra money. Only scratch cakes for me! At first it would take me hours to decorate one birthday cake, but as I grew more experienced it didn't take me that long. I did one for someone's wedding with Lily of the Valley (in icing, not real) cascading all over it and then transported it to her reception over the back roads of PA, in the BACK SEAT OF MY HONDA CIVIC! Man, I didn't have a brain back then! What was wrong with me?

When I decided to do my own wedding cake my father-in-law thought that was the stupidest thing he heard. He was convinced I was biting off more than I could chew and something would happen at the last minute to ruin things. I baked the huge layers in the professional ovens of the nursing home I used to work at, then spent about 2 days putting on the basketweave, then flowers. I REALLY impressed my father-in-law. He very willingly ate crow over that. Here's a picture of the picture...