Hi!
Recently, our parents celebrated their 25th anniversary!
My siblings and I decided to make a cherry-chocolate-layer cake for them! Our mom loves chocolate and our dad loves cherry so it’s always a great combination for them!
We also made a cake five years ago, for our parents 20th, as a fun homeschool assignment from them. Back then, I, as the oldest, was 11! And my siblings were young too! We chose a cherry-chocolate cake then too, which is partly why we went with that again this time.
Here’s the picture of the one we made five years ago. The bottom layer is homemade chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, and the second layer is homemade cherry cake and cherry frosting, with a chocolate drip.
Here is the one we made this year, it’s pretty similar but the design has improved a little! The bottom layer is chocolate cake from a box (there’s homemade chocolate frosting in the middle of that one) and the top layer is yellow cake from a box. That one is filled with homemade cherry frosting which is what it’s all covered in. The other decorations are both the cherry and chocolate frosting as well. The main thing I didn’t like about how it turned out was that it seemed like the cherry buttercream broke. I’d have to look online to figure out why but it ended up being kind of a weird texture. Other than that, and how I ripped the cake in one area, I think it turned out really nice! Mom and Dad loved it!
What’s something you liked about it (and why)? I like baking cakes! There’s a lot of fun creativity when it comes to deciding the flavors, how to incorporate them and how to assemble and decorate the cake. I also love the management and organization of all the steps, parts and the actual baking. Both the creativity and management are things that I really enjoy and that I’m pretty good at. And a finished, decorated cake always has a neat presence, which is fun, especially when it’s a gift! So I loved all of this in the cake we made here!
What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? I wish I wouldn’t have tried to control the project so much, at the expense of my siblings, and that I wouldn’t have done so much micromanaging and taking over of the more fun and significant parts. I really struggle with that when working with my siblings sometimes, especially on cooking and baking projects. I remember that I was like this for the last anniversary cake for our parents too. I want to control and have power over them. And at times during this project I’d do it subtly, acting calm but internally still trying to control. So I feel bad and I regret it all, I wish I wouldn’t have done this so much.
What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? One of my biggest takeaways was the reminder of needing to do better at not controlling, micromanaging and requiring power over my siblings. This is a bigger struggle than just in the kitchen, I have a hard time with this in other areas, but yes, it was a good reminder.
Also, a big takeaway is that I want to bake and decorate more cakes! I wanted to before this project but I’m still, if not more, fired up about it!
What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? I’m curious to learn more about making and decorating cakes, and I want to do more of it! I kind of got in the mood when our aunt brought a beautiful one (she’s known for her cakes!) to the 50th anniversary party for my grandparents. I’d love to get to her level- she has beautiful, detailed and thought-out designs, and her cake and frosting is so, so delicious as well! It’s a neat gift to give someone or just a fun project for a big occasion, and I really enjoy doing them!
Thank you for reading, God bless!
Lucy
