Baking Day

Today has been a very busy day for me in the kitchen. For a ward baby shower, I had planned on making those mini cupcake cake-balls I made previously for my brother Ben's mission homecoming. I also planned on making chocolate covered caramels for the shower to use up leftover caramel from the caramel popcorn I made on Sunday. My neighbor/carpool friend came over this morning and informed me it was her son's birthday today. She then asked if I would make his cake for his party today and he wanted a monster truck named "Grave Digger" on it. Uh....I had told him weeks ago that I would help with his b-day cake, but I didn't know when his birthday actually was. It would have been nice to have more than a few hours notice, that's for sure. So, because I had promised him that I would help, I agreed even though I probably should have said no because it is such short notice. So I baked. From pretty much 12:30 this afternoon till 6:30 this evening I baked with few brakes in-between.

Here are the cupcake cake balls. I didn't take a picture of the chocolates. They turned out cute..and tasty.
Here is the birthday cake. I had it finished by 4:45. Christian didn't want"Happy Birthday" or his name or even his age written on the cake. He just wanted it to say "Grave Digger" because that is the monster truck he likes. It isn't my favorite cake I have made, but considering the time restraints and the fact there really wasn't any time for me to even think about how I should do the design, it didn't turn too shabby. A little sloppy, but not too shabby.Side view. I wasn't sure how to do the sides, but they ended up being my favorite part.

I hope Christian had a great birthday party and I hope that it tasted good. And I hope I don't have to make a cake in 4 hours or less ever again.

P.S.In all fairness to my neighbor, she did buy all the ingredients and she did pay me for the cake. I ended up making just about $3.75 an hour.