My Wife's Birthday

[cranky]

I mentioned this briefly in the fruity goodness thread but didn't want to get too far off topic there so I decided to show you guys here

As many of you know we had a bit of a scare a couple months ago and almost lost her. I'm happy to say she has fully recovered and fully back to what passes as normal so we are now preparing for our winter vacation which always includes her birthday, which will be Wednesday. In celebration of living to see her next birthday I have decided to do some special things. First I cleaned the garage to the point of actually being able to park the car in it.

It only took me a year and a half to achieve this monumental task

The next thing has a bit of a story behind it. Many many years ago she told me about a cake she had when she was a little girl that had purple pansies on it which she just loved. Every year she tells me she doesn't want a cake and every year I sneak off and buy one anyway . I have always asked different bakeries if they could decorate a cake with purple pansies and have always been told "No, we make roses", which seems like a stupid answer to me, after all pansies really do seem pretty simple. So this year I said "to hell with buying a cake" and decided I would make my own and and learn how to decorate it, and it will have purple pansies. To make things even more difficult on myself I decided to make it tie dyed as an extra surprise

So, I studied some instructions on flower making, bought some gum paste and some other supplies and proceeded to start making purple pansies out of gum paste in my free time at work. Once I had most of them made I brought in my spare mixer to work and started making cake. Since free time was short and cake mix is $1.57 I bought store bought lemon cake mix. 5 boxes of cake mix. The reason for 5 boxes is the 5 colors of tie dye, red, green, blue, yellow and purple. I mixed and dyed each box a different color, then placed the mix in a piping bag and piped them into cake and mixed up. It worked pretty well actually. Here is my test cake.

That turned out well so I made 2 more cakes, to be individual layers. Then things got busy and I didn't get the next one made so I had to stop at the store again and buy 5 more boxes of mix. This made another 4 layers. I stacked 4 of them on each other and iced and cut up the other 2 for the guys I work with.

Today I decorated the cake and it now looks like this

I'm actually pretty proud if this cake especially given it is the first one I have ever decorated.

[dukethebeagle120]

none of us should show this to our wives
they will all expect cakes like that
great job

[still_stirrin]

Amazing Cranky.

They look delicious, although you should stash the top layer in the freezer for next year’s birthday (after Wednesday, of course). Sorta’ like the wedding tradition of stashing the top of the wedding cake for the 1st anniversary.

You done good.
ss

[The Baker]

That cake is bloody beautiful!

My best to Mrs. Cranky.

Geoff

[Still Life]

Looks great! And I'm glad her health is back up.

[HDNB]

no shit.

Setting the bar pretty high there Cranky.

let us know if she puts the candles out with tears of joy for having her special cranky ol bastard put of such a display of love.

awesome!

[nuntius01]

awesome job. the pansies look great

[Saltbush Bill]

That really is something special, nice job Cranky

[TDick]

We are now preparing for our winter vacation which always includes her birthday, which will be Wednesday.
I'm actually pretty proud if this cake especially given it is the first one I have ever decorated.

Birthday Greetings to Mrs. Cranky from the Deep South!

[Bushman]

Cranky, let me give you some advice albeit a little late. I live on a lake, years ago I hired a neighbor to fly in to our dock with his ultra light plane and deliver flowers on Valentine's Day. He was dressed as the Red Baron with streamers on his wings. I can not top that so every year Valentine's day and all special occasions have been a bit of a let down.

[StillerBoy]

This is just amazing Cranky.. Congratulation Cranky, on your effort to show appreciation to her..

And the best to Mrs Cranky, and many more to come..

Mars

[cranky]

Thanks everybody, you are all too kind

I know this might be setting the bar too high but I've done that sort of thing before another thing that might be setting the bar high is I am also taking her to Vegas this weekend.

I actually caused a bit of a brew ha ha at work over this cake. The other day the highest overtime person at my work, who works 3rd shift, I work 1st, he was working his Sunday (double time) and what he had originally come in to work on was on hold so instead of send him home they put him on another all day job. My job is the kind of thing where I usually have an hour or two of chaos followed by an hour or two of waiting for something to break then another hour or two of chaos Etc... Whenever I had a few moments to spare I was in the break room baking, making flowers or mixing something. He saw me and went in to my immediate bosses and complained. They actually found it funny and kind of taunted him about it. When I finished the test cake they sent another guy out to talk to him while eating a piece of cake and telling him how good it was.

Today my station manager came in and called me over. He said " I hear you have been baking cake at work" I was worried I was in trouble but admitted to it. Then he said "Why didn't I get any?" He found it funny too that a guy known as an overtime hog and milkman was actually complaining about me making cake That's one of the reasons I like working here so much more than some of the other places I could work, the managers understand there are slow times and busy times and I am allowed to do crazy things during the slow times.

[sltm1]

That is the best of the best...you the man!!!! I am definitely NOT sharing this story with my wife LOL.

[NZChris]

That is very cool.

[Uncle Jesse]

Great work Cranky!

[zapata]

Well played cranky. It really is phenomenal.

[Shine0n]

Absolutely beautiful cake Cranky!

Great story too about the Co worker

[goose eye]

Yup love will have you makein dew or nots

Trinkets an doodads ain't much for makein moments
an moments is what makes life

I do pray that this is just the first of many more

As far as your co worker ole boy got as much use for them types as a goat with a side saddle

So I'm tole

[Bushman]

No way am I showing that cake to my wife.

[MoonBreath]

Dang good lookn cake..
Our best and happiest wishes for y'all on her birthday.
Every day is a bonus at our ages.

[nerdybrewer]

I'm really glad for you guys!
Congrats on making it another year Mrs. Cranky!
And Cranky - way to learn new tricks!!
Have fun in Vegas, and here's my Vegas advice:
Walk away with some of their money in your pocket.
If you can't do that then at least have a great time!!

[Kareltje]

[cranky]

Thank you once again for your kindness guys. Tomorrow is the big reveal. Today she decided she needed the car to get some things done before our trip so I had to take the truck to work. No biggie except that all the cake baking and decorating stuff was out in the car along with the cake Fortunately I have the cake in a box so this morning before I I went to work I took everything out of the car and moved the cake to the truck. The reason I did that rather than take it inside the garage is it's colder out there. The temperature outside has been 40-45F lately so the cake keeps well out there. My plan is to go out and get it first thing in the morning and put it on the dining room table then make a nice breakfast and wait for her to see the cake and see what she thinks The suspense has actually been killing me and several times I almost slipped up and told her about some of the goings on at work involving the cake but I managed to catch myself so she doesn't have a clue about it. I also plan on letting her read this thread once she knows what I have been up to all week.

[Saltbush Bill]

I don't often comment on your threads ..but ya done good in more ways than one

[bilgriss]

I have to say, that cake is far more beautiful than the one my daughter baked for my birthday yesterday. Glad you guys are celebrating!

[thecroweater]

this after your resent trials is a real happy ending story, really very happy for you both. That is one ace looking cake buddy. So ole work chum would have been happy with ya sitting there reading the local rag but had a real issue with ya baking your wife a cake during down time? Some strange people in this world.

[cranky]

Yes there were actually 2 complaints by high overtime people who have been known to come in on overtime and work on their own projects while on overtime but fortunately everybody else, including management, just thought it was funny.

[cranky]

We just finished breakfast and yes she did cry, then sat there for an hour and a half telling me how amazing it is She even took pictures then had me show and send her the ones I took.

I have several ideas that would make it even better like the butterfly I didn't get around to making for this one and candles going all the way around the outside on the tray and maybe even spelling the word "birthday" correctly

After we cut the cake and she sees it's tie dyed I will send her the link to this thread so she can read everything.

[MichiganCornhusker]

...maybe even spelling the word "birthday" correctly

No way, that would have made it less perfect!
Beautiful gesture, Cranky, so much to be thankful for!

[panikry83]

Happy Birthday to your wife, Cranky. And damn man, that's an awesome decorating job for a first attempt. I'd be happy if I could even ice a cake that didn't look like a puddle of mud when I was finished.