Kristi’s (Sort Of) 70s Birthday Cake

Another fortieth birthday cake…

…for another friend who is so beautiful, both inside and out!

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Figured this cake post might be a good opportunity to set the record straight: my cakes do not always turn out the way I initially envision them. And/or I run into all sorts of problems along the way.

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Cake Vision #1:

make a huge royal icing Kristi-face to cover the top of the cake.

I got this far. (Made two in case one broke… or had a lazy eye. See it?)

Issues arose
– brown seepage, cracks, globs because I tried to cover the seepage and cracks – but I pressed on and started making more swirls that I was going to put on the rest of the cake.

Unfortunately, what looked sort of 70s aqua and orange and mustard when I mixed the colors up turned Baby Shower turquoise and pink and lemon yellow as it dried. Especially when placed next to the dark brown.

Ugh!

Time to abandon Cake Vision #1.

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Cake Vision #2:

write a birthday message on the top, using 70s fonts,
and add some 70s-inspired designs to the sides.

I loved this font called Dazzle for the main message…

…but apparently I still need to work on my two-tone piping technique since my letters came out all green instead of green-fading-to-white like I was going for. Oops.

For the other text, I used Elephant Bells as my inspiration.

And for the sides, I’d planned to echo to the Dazzle letters up top with some stripety curvy lines…

…but using the basketweave tip like for the Dazzle letters, my wrist wouldn’t move as required (and it didn’t occur to me until just NOW, writing this, to use a different tip). Oops. So I opted for rows of stars (and a row of flowers) instead, reminiscent of Saskia’s birthday cake.

Cake Vision #2 was accomplished!

Or so I thought.

Before delivering the cake to my friend’s house, I wanted to snap a few photos of the cake. And that’s when my my biggest oops occurred. But this post is already long enough so I’ll write about that later this week…