Making Lemonade...

We had Madigan's third birthday party on Saturday, and in preparation I purchased a cake from a home-baker. I put a lot of thought into the cake part of the party: first off, it's my favorite part of ANY party! Secondly, I like pretty cakes, but I'm not exactly skilled in that department.

I work in a town 30 miles away and I found a woman at the hospital who has recently started baking cakes on the side- Perfect! Not only would I not have to dirty my kitchen to create a cake, but it would look much better coming from her. Besides, I'm all about supporting local business, and I totally "get" women who work full time and also run a side business! Win-Win!

So per the birthday girl's request, a giant cupcake was ordered, with pink frosting and sprinkles. The baker had warned me that she'd never made a cupcake this size before, but she'd do her best.

This is the cake I picked up on Friday when I left work:

Beautiful! A ginormous, pink-frosted, sprinkled cupcake, complete with cherry on top. I thanked the "cake lady" profusely and we loaded the cupcake into my vehicle for the trek home.

Now, wether it was the 100+ degree weather, the heaviness of the cake, the vibrations on the highway or any other number of other unimaginable issues, this is what I found when I opened the box upon arriving home:

Gulp. The pink, frosted "top" was intact (although one side had frosting flattened from the side of the box it had impacted), but the bottom was a mess.

Holy COW! Madigan was with me, and she said, "Oh! A giant cupcake.... Sideways!"

I think I made some kind of internal-shriveling noise, and she said "What's the matter momma?"

I looked at her and said, "Your pretty cake.... it fell down! Mommy is sad!"

Madigan, the always literal, black & white kind of child that she is, said "... Oh well. Can I lick it??"

"Um... sure. Let's lick it." So we each got a fork and took a big bite. I texted the picture to the baker, who was also beside herself. She offered to drive over and attempt to fix it, and I declined. It's a three year old's birthday- it wasn't like it was my wedding or anything! So I decided to make some proverbial "lemonade" out of the situation:

I made the smashed cake section into cake-pops!

The next day at the party, as each guest arrived and looked questioningly at the giant, pink dome of the cake-top and the tray of cake-pops, Madigan was delighted to explain "my cake fell down then my mommy was sad. But we made THESE with it!" and would point her finger at the pops.

In the end, they were the best cake pops I had ever had!

:)