"Trauma", life at the Laders...

Last month St. Luke School held their annual auction. Now, I don't own a business or have any real skills, so I decided that I would donated 1 dessert a month to the highest bidder. It wasn't until AFTER I had committed myself that I found out that the person who had done this for the past few years is an actual trained chef. Great.

The first item needed to be ready to go the night of the auction. I worked for about 3 weeks to come up with a yummy key lime cream torte. I, of course, forgot the cake at home the night of the auction and Mike had to run home and get it after we got there. Such is my life, right?

So, my friend Laura informs me that my item is in the Oral auction. Oh, and it's first on the block. GREAT! It went for $450.00. OUCH. Guess brownies and rice crispy squares are out of the question, huh.

I have spent the past month trying to come up with a new dessert for April that tastes great and looks nice. The first thing I tried DID NOT work well, so I scratched that one. Next I came across the recipe for a fresh apple cake with home made caramel topping. I have made this cake about 7 times in the past month. I LOVED the taste of the cake, but you cook it in a bundt pan and how do you make that look nice? Plus you have to poke holes in the cake for the caramel sauce to soak into the cake. I took one to my friend Lisa's house and she showed me how I could make it look "pretty". I was hooked. This was the one to do!

Fast forward to today. Today's the day I said that I'd make it. Of course, I'm super busy and I'm just going to have to fit it in! I get the cake made and the topping on before I pick up the St. Luke carpool kids. I run home and whip up the cream cheese frosting and quickly frost the cake. It's all set to go. Of course, the base that I used was too big to fit into my cake carrier, so I ask Conner to hold the cake in the car while we pick up the other kids from school and then deliver the cake.

The finished product.  Isn't it pretty?

He had a travel pillow that he wanted to bring with him. OK, whatever. Apparently, as we were driving, it wasn't at the right position, so he pulls on it and the velcro breaks loose and the momentum drives it right into the cake. Yep. The cake that we're on the way to deliver!!!

Smashed cake.

OK, I can deal with this.  I didn't even yell at him.  Nor did I cry (yet).  I had to go get the girls from school, so we couldn't just go home.  As I was driving I was trying to come up with ways to fix the cake.  The first thing I needed to do was put the cake on a smaller tray so it would fit in my cake carrier.  Then I figured I could try to scrape off the frosting and refrost it.  Great idea in theory!  However, the caramel sauce had hardened enough that it was stuck to the original plate and in the process of trying to pry it off the cake broke in half.  Now I was crying!  I had no idea how to fix this.  I called Bob (the guy who bought it, nicest guy in the world, btw!) and I asked if I could bring one on Monday because this one was destroyed.  He insisted that I just bring it the way it was.  That it wasn't a big deal.  So, I loaded it up and took it out to him.  When I got there he asked if I wanted my cake carrier back and I just told him that I couldn't even look at the cake, so he'd better just keep the carrier! 

My hideous cake (I still can't believe that I actually gave this to someone!)

And that's the story of "Trauma, life at the Laders"!