I am SOOOO going to hell.

OKay. I screwed up. (news flash I know)
On saturday I went to MIL's. We discussed HEr birthday, (on monday) and Laughed about my mother insisting on calling my grandfather a day early on his (the 23) so she could be 'first' to wish him happy birthday.

Well fast forward to today. SIL calls me. NOONE rememeberd to tell MIL happy birthday. Not her 4 kids, not their spouses (she has one girl and 3 boys, so its the boys wives who remember these things) and not her mom... I shit you not.

SOOOO, in my infinate wisdom, I decided the best course of action was a "SUPRISE! HAHAHAH BET YOU THOUGHT WE FORGOT" birthday party on saturday.

I have called all the 'girls' and told them that we are NOT to admit we screwed up. I have to call her mom and beg her to go along. She is going to be devistated when she realizes she forgot, so I am putting that off until tomorrow, so she has less time to dwell on it.

So, now I have to make a cake.

She is in LOVE with Coke. Coca Cola. SHe collects it like its going out of style

So, I am thinking. I need to do a cake with the coke theme. (although she might not let us eat it)

Should I do the boring red bullet (the circle with coka cola written in the middle)
or
a coke bottle? I think I can do the coke bottle. My biggest problem will be getting the right 'color' on the soda part. (and noone likes chocolate, its a white cake, with buttercream frosting, so I have to 'tint' the frosting the color I need.

or just a coke can?

Remember this is my second cake, but if you have a better idea, let me know. I tend to bite off more than I can chew, but did okay with the baseball feild, so I am confident. OVERLY confident.

and I ONLY do icing, no fancy crap. well, I will use air heads candy. But thats it! LOL

I will be making the cake on Friday, driving MIL to Lousianna on Saturday to get our taxes done, and then bring her home to the 'party'.

oh and since it has to feed 18 people (wow.. thats a big family.. LOL) it can be pretty big. I plan on making at least 2 cakes, maybe 3 to get it made.

ohhh you should do the bottle!!! I have no idea how but it would look awesome.

The bottle would be good, or cans would work too. If you did cans, you could do more than one cake easily without too much fuss since you wouldn't have to alter the shape of the cake too much if you used a rectangular pan. That way what you would really have to focus on is just icing the cake.
The only big problem you might run into is the red icing. It is hard to get icing a true red. Usually what i do is buy the red icing in the tube, and if I need to tint them more, usually they are all a pinkish red then I use either gel food color, I would love to use the powdered food color tint but can't find it up here. I haven't made too many cakes that use a significant amount of red yet, but I bet there are some tips online about how to get a true red.

I have heard that red is hard Kelly. Of course Green wasnt a picnic either.. LOL mostly since I buy butter cream and have to tint it. But I love the taste of it.

*sidenote. BR said "the icing was great on the baseball cake. I prefered the cream colored, but the green tinted wasnt alterted in taste too much and tasted alot better than store bought"

Brett said " I dont want to hurt your feelings, but that white icing just wasnt as good as the green"
LOL

I could do 3 seperate 'cans'. I just would be freakishly agervating trying to get them to all be perfect... thats what bothers me about doing them seperatly... I am a profectionist...

and the 'red' problem is why I almost want to do the bottle more than anything else. I just have to fiqure out what to mix to get a brownish color....

You can get Wilton gel coloring in one ounce containers and they have brown, I might add black, to get the brown darker, and a tiny bit of red to get the cola color. Or you could start off with a dark chocolate frosting for the cola (already brown) and add black to get it darker and add a teeny bit of red. I haven't done that color brown yet but that would be what i would try. Or you could even start with mostly black and add brown and /or red as the secondary colors. I always experiment with food colors since I am a stickler for wating the color to be just so.. if you add just a tiny amount at a time and keep going that way you can usually get it to where you want it.

I used to do cakes for family & co-workers kids on their birthdays. I love to do it, and haven't done it in a great while. I have always made my own butter cream icing. I do agree with Kelly, go with the Wilton colors. I have never used the gels, I always used the paste and they have a nice selection of colors. I like both the can and the bottle ideas, that would be so cool.
Oh, and I am a Coke freak too, I collect anything Coke.

gels, paste, powders, any of those food colors are the way to go, liquids just water the frosting down and make it runny...I use paste too, and I agree with buzznut that the Wilton has a good selection of colors that's why I use them..

Brookshires will sell their crosting, sometimes already tinted. They sell it by the pound, or used to

Really erin? That might be what I have to do. There are no places except walmart and a crappy grocery store to buy the stuff. They aint got no wilton stuff...

Hmmm.... I dont know what to do... LOL I might just have to see about Brookshires icing. That might be my best bet.

Either that or adding food coloring until I just get a crappy brown. ROFLMAO. that might work.. LOL

Cause I can assure you, the best I will get is regular ole McCormick Food coloring,

I'm terrible with these things, but good luck to you!

Okay, I just wonder what it would taste like if I mixed chocolate icing and a white icing? that would give me a less darker brown.

I know that noone really likes chocolate, BUT, they aint got to eat the icing anyway. when I buy a cake noone ever eats it cause its too sweet.
Thats why I buy the butter cream (no, I am not a traditionalist when it comes to making a cake, I buy ALL the mixings and frostings. ).

But when I made the baseball cake, everyone loved the icing and ate it.

LOL thanks rebecca!

Walmart has Wilton, in the fabric/craft section.....they have the wilton butter cream premixed, just like betty crocker.

Hey Chelle, make it really easy on yourself... after you make the cake, frost in white, then take a bottle of coke and a can of coke, and lay them on top and push them down! Presto! Instant Coke Cake

Okay, okay, want to make it more prettier? Get some of that red gel stuff in a tube and make a zig zag pattern around the edges. Told ya, easy!

LOL dee, I am thinking I might get those cans flung at me if I did that! LOL

No shit erin? well.... I am going to WM tommorow. craft section huh? who'da thunk that the good icing would be in the FREAKIN FABRIC section instead of the... oh I dont know... COOKING SECTION? GEEZE.

and people say they need a blonde to english dictionary to talk to me. Walmart needs an idiot to english dictionary to SHOP there.

Now, for the silver cap...

anyone ever tried to smush up those hard as hell little silver beads that you can buy for cakes??

ROFLMAO!

Use foil....or a real cap?

I love the idea of a Coke Cake! I want to see pics.

oh belive me karen, if I can pull this off, you will see pics till you are tired of hearing me brag! LOL

You could always make a real Coca Cola cake:

http://southernfood.about.com/od/chocolatecakes/r/bln274.htm

http://recipes.robbiehaf.com/C/101.htm

http://www.southernplate.com/2008/08/coca-cola-cake-oh-so-good.html

Heard it's quite popular.

I saw those lucky LOL and I thought about it!

okay, i found all the 'cake' stuff!! whoo-hoo! I even bought a 'cake leveler' that will come in REAL handy!

and a spatula with a raised handle

and I got a few colors of wilton. I got red, black, brown and green. Cause the top of the bottle has to be green... BUT I was looking at a coke bottle I have, and I aint got to have silver at all! I just have to have red. The caps are red now

OH and our walmart even has fondant. THAT would have made the red really easy. BUT I have heard it tastes like poo. so I opted out.

I am actually excited. NOW, I just have to find a place to put the cakes when I bake them. I would like to freeze them tonight. But my fridge freezer AND my stand up are so full you couldnt fit a popcicle in there. But I think I can cut the cakes better if I freeze them. Plus, I will be decorating tomorrow, cause the party is Saturday, so I need to get them done and froze today.

I couldnt find a peice of cardboard (wow, they even sell THAT at walmart) big enough, so I am going to put foil and such on top of a lid for those big rubbermade boxes.. LOL

Well, actually, I am going to wrap it in red wrapping paper, put saran wrap over that (I do that at christmas time with cardboard, to put cookies on that I am giving) THEN lay down foil and parchement paper. THEN decorate, then wehn I am done decorating I will tear/cut the parchment paper and/ foil right up to the edge of the cake. Since you cant move these cakes once I am done. They dont transport well. LOL

I hope I have red wrapping paper... Too bad I dont have some 12 pack boxes... I'd tear them open and lay them down on the lid.

You will have to post a pic chelle, what a cool idea...
I would have posted about red fondant, but you mentioned frosting so I didn't think to mention it. Just to let you know that fondant isn't really all that bad. I think a lot of people are afraid of it because of two reasons
1) they have never tried it
2) they have had some terrible fondant

You can work in flavored extract in the fondant to flavor it and of course you use a buttercream base to lay the fondant on top of. The only time it's horrible really is if it is not rolled thin enough and it is thick and chewy. If you roll it thin enough it's fine..

I use frosting if I can, but have learned fondant isnt' all that bad and gives a nice clean look, the drawback is that it does take work to get it smooth and smooth it on the cake, it's also expensive. It probably wouldn't be if I made my own fondant, but I dont' really see myself doing that so I buy it and it cost's much more $$ than frosting....

Anyhoo, I think it's a really cool idea, I am gonna have to start brainstorming soon because my son's 16th is coming up in March and I have to out-do the "Kenny from South Park" cake that I made last year.

Chelle, you're a great daughter-in-law to do this, so I hope your cake turns out great. Like Rebecca, I have nothing to offer as far as decorating fixins.

And about everyone fogetting to say Happy Birthday to your MIL...that was what tipped off my in-laws when we gave them a surprise 50th anniversary party. We were all so flipping busy cooking and decorating etc. the day of the party, nobody thought to call and say Happy Anniversary to them. LOL They admitted it a while later - as far as we knew we had successfully pulled off a big old surprise party without them knowing about it.

It's amazing what you can find in the wal mart craft section huh?

LOL Lori, Thats sad that you couldnt suprise them.

To add to my drama, that PIMA is now mad because I have never made HER a cake. No, instead I buy her a gift. she is such a drama queen.

This is only the second birthday cake I have ever made. and the last was last month! LOL

well there was the one last year, when we forgot MIL's BD till THE DAY OF! and it was a disaster. It was a triple stack that collapsed. so we made it into a swirly volcano thing and said the candles toppled it.. LOL


ANyway, I got the cakes cooked. One is freezing, the other... I dont know what to do with it. I literly have NO place to put it!

Now I am trying to fiqure out how to do the writing and then PUT it on the cake...

Its NOT the easyist writing (that is SOOO not how you spell easyiest.... ) so, I am expeirimenting. I know my method will NOT work, but I will come up with someting.

I havent made up the frosting yet. I know I will regret that, I should have made it already to let it set and get the correct color. I am going to do the red before I go to bed.

I am just wondering if I should put it in the fridge... I dont want it to spoil, by being out for 2 strait days (once I get it on the cake it will have to stay out on the counter) but do need the red to set.