Another baby shower cake

A few weeks ago one of my husband's coworkers asked me to make a cake for another coworker, Erica, who is expecting a little baby girl any minute now. I agreed because I heart baking. Kelly told me the shower's theme would be either polka dots, daisies or birds/nesting. I had several ideas for the first two themes and one rather lackluster idea for the birds/nesting theme.

Alas, birds/nesting won. The color of the shower, Kelly told me, was Tiffany Blue (I had several moments of enjoyment while trying to explain to Tim, my husband, what Tiffany Blue is exactly). I started brainstorming and finally came up with the idea to have a two-tiered cake (my first tiered adventure!) and frost it with Tiffany Blue (or as close as I could get) buttercream. To bring in the birds/nesting theme, I used a rather poor hodge-podge Haystack recipe to make a nest. I molded the nest by keeping in a regular ceramic bowl, and when the morning of the shower arrived, I put the nest on top of the cake and placed Jordan Almond "eggs" inside.


For my first tiered cake, I think it turned out pretty well (mostly meaning "Hey, it didn't collapse!"). Everyone at the shower seemed to like it, and while it was not my best work, I was happy with the challenges it presented.

A baker's oopsie

I committed a cardinal baker's sin this week ... I can't even find the recipe I tried to base this creation off of ... and oh my, I don't even know where to start.

I was asked to make another baby shower cake ... this time, the color was tiffany blue and the shower theme was birds/nesting. At first, I was stumped. Then I had a brilliant idea. I'd use the recipe my friend Diane used two years ago at Christmas and make a birds nest out of these (often called haystacks):


I made a two-tiered cake, frosted it in tiffany blue buttercream and wanted to crown it with a haystack nest and put Jordan almond "eggs" in it. I set out a few nights early to make the nest, and my recipe (which I pieced together after googling "haystack recipe" and finding a bajillion variations of what I wanted to make) was not as successful as I had hoped. I used 1 cup chocolate chips, 1 cup butterscotch chips and melted that with 2 tablespoons butter. Then I combined this mixture with 2 cups of chow mein noodles. This looked really lumpy and dry, so I added a splash of milk, which did not really help my case.

I know, I know, I should have followed a recipe instead of inventing my own. And instead of leading you astray, I encourage you to google "haystack cookies" and find your own perfect recipe - many include nuts, oatmeal, coconut, etc. It's a crazy haystack world out there!

I formed my nest on wax paper nestled in a bowl, then I made little haystacks on a cookie sheet until I was out of the mixture. I refrigerated them. I took the haystacks to work the next day, where they were eaten and were deemed very yummy, but at the end of the day, I think they were crumbling and dry ... and I fear for the future of that nest. It's remained refrigerated and will sit on the top of the baby shower cake tomorrow, but I am not sure if it will crumble before the end or valiantly fight through.

Baking fail.