Happy Balentine's!

Today I scrambled to get my work done in the office so I could leave campus promptly at 1pm. That done, I told myself that I would start slow with the baking. Take it in shifts. I'd do part mid-afternoon. Another step Friday night and then I'd do the rest on Saturday before people show up.

Sure. Good plans.

And then I just did everything.

I've been baking and chilling and icing and dipping and decorating and rolling and crying (not really, but almost) since 3 o'clock today. And I have to say, I'm tired. My back is sore and my arms feel jelly-ish.

But! I don't think I completely failed.

My goal was to recreate Bakerella's Valentine's Box of Cake. I follow Bakerella's blog daily, so I've been planning to make this cake for over a week. If you check out Bakerella's site, which I highly recommend, you'll notice that her box of cake is... well... perfect.

Mine is not.

But without further ado, here you go. Judge for yourselves.


I'm fairly pleased with my fondant first run. Fondant is the red stuff, by the way. The top and bottom are not bad, but the side pieces got pretty dry and corn starched by the time I got to them. I should have scrapped those pieces and used new, but live and learn! I might go back to the cake and redo that part tomorrow, but I couldn't face any more fiddling tonight. The arms, remember.

The cake balls (also Bakerella's recipe - you can find them linked on the same page) are so cute and quite delicious, but, alas, I failed a little bit making them too.

I read Bakerella's suggestion to add a little bit of icing at a time to avoid putting too much in the cake bit of the truffles. And I took that in. And then I put too much icing in the cake right off the bat. So, they are stinkin' moist and heavily cream cheesed, but still tasty. Next time I'll be more careful.


Honestly, how can you stay mad at anything that looks like this?

So now you know the highlight of my Valentine's weekend. Some friends are coming over tomorrow night to help me eat all this red velvet cake - did I mention it's all red velvet cake? - so, those of you who can't make it... feel free to be jealous all day long.