Making the cake

I was determined to do something special this year for the Little Guy's birthday cake. Despite my better judgement and a serious lack of experience, I decided to do a decorated cake using a shaped pan of Big Bird holding a balloon. The cake pan is a Wilton design from 1983, back when I was watching Sesame Street myself.

I found it at a yard sale, and it came with the original directions. Just to be on the safe side, I printed out a back-up copy from Wilton.


I made a basic chocolate cake. Notice the San Andreas fault in the middle--this sometimes happens when the oven temperature is too high.

The top of the cake was cut off to make a fairly even bottom. With the odds stacked against me, I figured the least I could do for myself was to make sure the cake didn't wobble all over..

Here's the cake pan. Isn't it fun?

And here it is, the pre-frosted cake. It came out of the pan without any major problems, and it's ready to be frosted.

And it's at this point that I began to have serious doubts about getting this done in a Martha-like fashion. The only other time I've attempted a cake like this was an absolute, yet tasty, disaster. So I did the only thing I could do: I lowered my standards. As long as people could look at the cake and figure out that it's Big Bird, I'd be fine. Right?!

Stay tuned...