Small Wonders: Cake from the Heart

I remember a time when there was no thought of a store bought cake. I will never forget the cake that my daddy(yes I'm an adult but a daddy's girl for life) made for my 11th birthday. It was a round strawberry layer cake with strawberry icing and sliced strawberries covering the whole thing.....mmmmm. Although I love to buy a beautifully flawless decorated cake to match any theme imaginable, there is nothing like a cake made from the heart. Believe it or not, it's the adults that seek the "perfect" cake, not the kids. I admit that I'm talking about myself when I say that I would rather have my cake made by a professional but there were certain instances that I've tried my hand in cake decorating. They may have been a bit lop-sided but the kids(and adults) still raved about them anyway. Thanks to the Internet, the "how-to" to any kind of cake decoration is a keystroke away. A few years ago I threw my daughter a Cinderella birthday party and refused to pay a hundred plus dollars for a castle cake that I wasn't that crazy about, so I went searching online. It's amazing what you can find online and how creative my fellow mothers are. This project became so much fun for me and my girls. Of course I had to have a trial run before the big day to make sure it would turn out okay and thank the Lord that I did. Hat's off to the professionals because even the easiest recipe took hours for me to complete...and I used boxed cake mix! I never knew how much went into making a cake since I've always loved a simple bunt cake for desert. But you can make a $100 cake for about $10 and your kids and friends will remember it forever. Here are some of the cakes I've made for different occasions. Warning....not perfect but appreciated and from the heart.