Julia is moving soon, so today was her last playgroup with us. We threw a little going-away party, and I baked a house cake:
Isn’t it lovely? Except I didn’t read the pan instructions about using a pound cake mix until after my favorite Duncan Hines butter recipe golden cake was baking in the oven. Still, I persisted in believing it would all work out. But less than an hour after I finished decorating the cake yesterday, it looked like this:
Not good. Not good at all. I was terrified of what it would look like in the morning, so I decided to take pre-emptive house-saving action. I cut a cake board the shape of the back of the cake – no small feat, since it didn’t resemble the shape of the pan much at all anymore – and gently tipped it backwards. (Meanwhile, Carrie is hanging onto my pant leg, begging “Carrie eat cake? Carrie eat the cake please?”) Luckily, the bushes and flowers around the base of the house mostly stayed attached to the house. Unluckily, I was completely out of icing so I had to make another half batch in order to frost the bottom of the house. This is what it looked like when I served it this morning:
I can only imagine what it would have looked like if I’d decided to leave it standing up. Either way, it was tasty. It was a good playgroup. All the kids had a lot of fun playing together, and I know Carrie will miss Maddie in future playgroups, just as we’ll miss Julia!