I've watched countless Tasty and MetDaan videos and am entranced by their cake decorating perfection. Fondant application and effortless frosting flowers leaves me drooling and feeling like I could be the next owner of Cake Baby. So with high hopes we began our first trial: cake making.

Step One: Pop champagne. Mimosa courage.

Step Two: Do the damn thing.

Step Three: Eat all leftovers. Frosting therapy.

Lindsay whipped up the cake mix from scratch like a pro and we were well on our way to our new found skill as cake-makers. After it baked, it was time to make and apply the frosting in that smooth, perfectly textured way you see in how-to videos. I've read something that says when your brain watches an activity, part of it thinks that you are the one doing it. So, naturally, when we started the frosting, my brain was like "you've got this, we've done this so many times at 2am when you're laying in bed!". All too quickly did I realize that, NO, I have definitely not.

Our frosting mix turned into a lumpy, dense mess. It was so greasy and fell off the cake in chunks. Things were looking pretty desolate. A quick Target run (shhhh) made all the difference. We covered our disaster in nice, creamy goodness. One scoop of frosting for the cake, one scoop for our mouths. We still didn't get it quite perfect, but it sufficed for a first try.

Since we were unsuccessful at making even a base frosting, we decided to forgo creating detail with frosting and decorated the cake with real flowers instead. A spiral design came into fruition with random flower placement and turned into something actually pretty great, I think. You can never go wrong with pink flowers and eucalyptus. Extra champagne for our achievement!

Stay tuned for our struggles with calligraphy and re-purposing wine bottles next week.

xo,

Tam