i turned the big 4-0 this year! and unbelievably, i am perfectly fine with this. lots of my friends have completely gone of the deep end with the age panic. i, however, think i am better than i've ever been...like wine. no, not fruity and pungent, but better with age!
so, i decided to have this big party. huny at first was trying to plan a surprise party, but since he couldn't get the help he needed from my friends, he let it slip one nite and i took over. it caused a bit of stink in fact, which, to make another long story short, ended in me screaming "I WANT TO WEAR A PINK TUTU AND A TIARA!!!". (i did. want to. and did wear those two things for my party...but that's another story that revolves around my bedroom looking like a glitter faerie puked all over the place, or that we'd had a whole lotta strippers staying with us). we billed it as "beck's fantabulous fortieth pink party!!!". yeah, you guessed it...everything pink, including the guests. and food.
never again.
i thought i would try my hand at red velvet cake balls. heck my kids made them with the nanny and they were fantastic. my friend h. marie knocks them out like nobody's business, so with bakerella instructions, i set off to make three hundred pristine little pink confections. have i mentioned sometimes my ocd is more noticable than others? i'm thinking this would come in handy for an occassion such as this, like when i clean the station at work. everybody at work laughs, but we all know it's the best way to get good results.
i followed the directions and was at the ball dipping stage. the first i did with a spoon and it was a work of art. placed it in the center of the platter and went to balls, two, three and four, making a tight and tidy little circle inside to out. pretty pretty pretty.
ball five slipped off the spoon and got a dent in the side, so i fished it out of the almond bark and set it on a tea cup plate, where my rejects were to go. ball six must not have been rolled quite right, as it left a smal glob of cake in the bark. by this time the bark was hardening so i reheated it in the microwave, like the recipe said to. but forgot to remove the cake particles. and didn't notice...
let me spare you the agony of what ensued and just say this: i had intended to have these perfectly round, pink-tinged, smooth cake balls to drizzle hot pink squiggies on. and my guests would oh and ahh and delight in the perfection that were my cake balls.
not even close to reality.
i had cake wads. cake lugees. i had cake globs that were covered in almond bark AND funky little pink lumps that came from other cake balls, which apparently were attempting to sow their seeds in the melted bark. i would never imagined from the "simple" instructions and "appealing" pictures that i would have cake balls that looked like bloody eyeballs on a platter. this was not a birthday treat...this was a halloween freak show. after 60 cake plops (yes, this is what they were evetually dubbed), i gave up. i hid them in the basement fridge, and went to the store for angel food cake. THAT i know i can make. soon my kitchen was aglow with hot pink angel food (okay, one i bumped and it deflated, causing uproarious giggles from my children, who were immediately shot the stink eye and fled the baking disaster area), and the task was done. the color from the cakes made my kitchen look like a tim burton movie-and i thought it was beautiful. (And my bff jiffer was making a raspberry almond creme cake as part of my gift, so i knew i was safe. that and the 18 bottles of wine i bought for our guests). and i saved the day.
until one of my guests asked about the cake plops. and SOMEONE snuck them out of the fridge and laid them in the middle of the snack table. hideous and looking a bit like melted bird poop, they stuck to the platter...and then were consumed like a hot commodity. ugly as the back end of a cat, but dubbed the most dellicious snack at the party.
oh, and i ROCKED that tutu :)
