There's an EGG on this cake, WHAT. (September 25th, 2010)

Here it is, first cake of the year. One down. Inspired by brunch, in case that wasn't clear. Those who know me know that brunch and I go way back. In college, every sunday we'd get together, brunch and I - and anyone else who was around - and we'd just, enjoy each other' company, you know? Catch up.

Anyway - Kaila, Bob, Donnelly, Zach, Jack, Brunch and I woke from an impromptu sleepover last Saturday morning after a night of China Wine in the city, and we ended up making a Haus-style brunch complete with potato product, waffles, fresh whipped cream/strawberries, not one but TWO meats. Eggs, juice, you get it. This is more or less what it looked like:

We ate, we lounged, we pulled my trampoline across the lawn so that we could jump off the deck onto it. Not conducive to digesting, but depending on how you look at it, we didn't really have a choice.

But let's get into the cake decorating process. I used Kelly's recipe (Kelly is my cousin - she taught me everything I know about cake decorating - also she and her husband Scott are having a BEHBEH come December) for buttermilk cake and bettercream frosting. There may or may not be 3 pounds of butter in this 6 inch cake. Such is life. So here's what I'm looking at:

Some of the butter, lots of vanilla, Fat Daddio bakeware, cake round, Carma fondant I had previously colored yellow/orange, and a chai latte because they're hot and tasty. I used other materials but for whatever reason decided that these were more important than anything else.

I started by stacking the layers (I froze them overnight - much easier to work with that way) and glooping on some buttercream.

This is my favorite part - icing the cake into a perfect cylinder. It's very relaxing and it satisfies some anal retentive wuality I wasn't aware that I had.

Then Justin Bieber performed so naturally I stopped and looked at that -

Here it is, all finished and nice. I then rolled out the fondant and draped it over the cake, which creates this fondant skirt type thing:

Then I got to decorating, which in this case involved a glob of fondant as an egg yolk. More often than not people will tell you that fondant is gross but I found myself snacking on it regularly throughout this process, so to the fondant haters I say, y'know, reconsider maybe.

I used regular ol' store-bought Duncan Hines white frosting for the linework and whites because it's cheap, and it gets the job done.

By the time Kanye was apologizing to Taylor Swift for that thing he did, I was packing up the excess buttercream and chilling that tasty cake in the fridge.

People often ask if it hurts when I have to watch people cut into my cakes after working so hard to make them look awesome and the answer is YES it's awful. Cut to last summer, Kyle and Laura's wedding, the dismantling of the cake Kelly and I had slaved over:

In the end, though, it's cake and it's delicious - so I get over it. This wee's cake was murdered at Zach's house.

Jackson approves.