let him eat cake

This weekend we're having a birthday party for Seoul-boy since we were at the beach last week. He is very excited because it is a Star Wars themed party at his karate school. And so I asked him just what kind of cake did our little big man want for his party? His response?

"A lightsaber cake that YOU make, mommy, not from the store. And I want it to be red and I want it to have star wars people on the side of it"

*sigh*

Now first of all..Seoul-mama is crafty but Seoul-Mama doesn't 'do' cakes very well. For Seoul-girl's 3rd birthday, she wanted a Dora cake made by Yours Truly. Nine hours worth of decorating later, she had herself a Dora cake, albeit the piping stopped in the middle because I got tired and just decided to smear all of the colors like I was fingerpainting. Tasted good, though. But back to the story..

After much searching on the internet, I found a lightsaber cake that looked like something I could actually pull off. Except I needed a french-bread pan. A whaa? It's a pan that has two sides and is somewhat long..think of cutting a roll of wrapping paper in half and sticking the sides next to each other.

Wal-mart, nope. Target, nope. Bed, Bath and Beyond, nope. Michael's, nope.

Williams-Sonoma..why yes, of course! The cook's haven! The very expensive cook's haven, might I add.
When the saleslady, who no doubt was angling to be a contestant on Top Chef, asked me exactly what KIND of french bread I was going to prepare in my new pan, I retorted, 'none..I'm going to make a lightsaber in it, we don't really eat bread'.

It was fun to watch her expression change to confusion and then into mortification all at once. I could almost hear her thinking 'The nerve of this woman using this beautiful pan for that..amateur!'

Well, hmmpff. I could not be bothered for I had to get home and set to work.

Now can I just say, I am a cake box mix queen. And Duncan Hines is my mix of choice. But you see, I don't bake that much anymore because of Seoul-daddy's gluten-free predicament. I swear Duncan Hines tastes better than the 'other brands'. I'm not really sure if that is the real truth or just my truth. My mom always insisted on using Duncan Hines and my G-ma (her mom) used to make these yummy cupcakes with chocolate icing that were always Duncan Hines. And if anyone knows anything about the women in our family, you don't mess with the way it's always done, honey.
Tradition is tradition.

So after rigging the pan with aluminum foil to keep the batter from spilling out the ends I snapped the lid off of my Duncan Hines yellow cake mix box. Adding my eggs, oil and water, I mixed it all together and then poured the runny concoction into my new fancy-pants pan and into the oven it went to bake for 30 minutes.

Did I mention the pan had about a million tiny holes in the bottom of it..for ventilation...oh. I didn't?

Did I mention I didn't read the back of the box very well and added an extra cup of water to the mix? oh.I didn't??

Ten minutes later as I'm peering through the oven window I am horrified. About half of my cake batter has dripped through the holes in the pan and is now on the bottom of the oven! I spring the door open to pick the pan up and the slight movement causes my foil sides to fall off. Now we have what I'd call nothing short of a batter tidal wave. A Duncan Hines monsoon! There was nothing left to do but start hollering. LOUDLY, I might add. So loudly that I woke up Seoul-girl and Seoul-boy. More hollering. This caused Seoul-daddy to run in and grab a spatula and aim it at the oven. I think he thought he was about to slay Julia Child's ghost by the way he was posturing..

My lovely "easy" lightsaber cake was turning me to the dark side, Luke. Clearly the Force was NOT with me on this one.

Seoul-daddy decided to do the most logical thing, which is get out of dodge. He ventured off to the store to buy me a new box of cake mix while I stayed behind to sop up the gooey mess. They don't make mops for this job, no sir. Lots of rags, lots of wiping, lots of mess. I had to be careful. Very careful. I needed to get every last bit of batter because (also forgot to mention) I've had a fire in my oven before. Twice. Big fires. Also with lots of hollering.
Once we even got out the fire extinguisher.

So bless his heart, Seoul-daddy came home and by then I've calmed down enough to thank him for being the knight in shiny tinfoil by trying to slay the baker's dragons with a spatula and for going to the store for more cake mix. Destined to a late night of baking cake, I started to open the new box.

But wait.

It can't be.

It's not Duncan Hines!!?!!

oh dear...this really isn't going well at all...



Three hours later, I finally have the finished product iced and neatly arranged on the cake board. These homemade birthday cakes sure aren't easy but here's to hoping Seoul-boy is pleased.

If he isn't, I'll just blame it on the fact that the cake wasn't made with Duncan Hines..after all, tradition is tradition..

Want to see the finished product?? Here you go.....