if i knew you were turning one, i’d’ve baked two cakes

I’ve never baked a cake before. My husband doesn’t eat desserts or sugary things. The kid barely knows what cake is. But for some reason, I decided I wanted to bake, rather than buy, a cake for his birthday.

Or rather two cakes, since he’s having two birthday parties.

Birthday party the first is for a few of my friends who are moms and have babies around Jonah’s age, a.k.a. his friends. We’re calling that one the playdate.

Birthday party the second is a brunch for my adult friends who are like aunties to Jonah. No other kids. He’s the star, and I get to spend some time with people who knew me way before I was anything like married or a mother.

So: two cakes. Banana cakes with cream cheese frosting, because the boy loves bananas and cheese.

Fortunately, my parents came into town for the event(s), so I had help. My mom has baked cakes before. I was always more a cookies/brownies kind of baker.

We followed this recipe, but with the frosting from this recipe. I made one sheet cake, and one layer cake. Just because. I wanted to try a layer cake. And I wanted a sheet cake for Scott to draw “Little Gorilla” on but now that I’ve made it, I don’t want to mar the flavor of the organic cream cheese frosting with that hydrogenated and colored stuff from the tube.

Drat.

Here’s the photo essay of my baking journey, from start to finish.

Ingredients prep / Mise en Place:

Let the batter begin:

Cream cheese frosting parts:

Recipe said to stick the cake(s) in the freezer for 45 minutes right after you take them out of the oven. That required some serious rearranging, and the sacrificing of much stored cubed ice.

Layer cake:

I forgot until after the baking that our oven is on a slant, so both layers are tilted, but by lining them up thinner side facing thicker, we got a straight across cake.

Thank you, Leila, for the late evening loaning of the cake dome! Good excuse to run out and socialize while my parents babysat.

(We got the flat cake covered via careful application of toothpicks and foil.)

The aftermath: