Happy Birthday Eric!! Eric Turns 1!!

Today is Eric’s first birthday!! 
Happy Birthday, Eric!!

Lately Eric and I have been busy with birthday celebrations.  Not only have we been getting ready for his first birthday, but it was also Mauri's birthday last week.  I was able to practice my cake baking abilities on Mauri's cake, but it wasn't without problems.

To begin, I had planned on working ahead and baking on Thursday.  After getting a surprise visit from my aunts, though, that never happened.  My aunt Celia from Venezuela was here in Spain with her granddaughter, my Cousin Ingrid's daughter, Claudia.  They came to Denia with my aunt Carmen and Uncle Roberto from Alicante.  

We ended up going out to eat, and it was a great visit.  So, no, I didn't get ahead on making the cake, but I was able to see some family members that I hadn't been able to see in a long time!

Eric cried at first when they first arrived, just like he has been doing around strangers lately.  Once they were with us for awhile, though, he happily let them hold him.  He especially likes being around younger people, so he enjoyed watching Claudia.

Friday I spent most of the day baking and making frostings and ganache for Mauri's cake.  The plan was to make a camouflage cake since Mauri really likes camouflage clothing.  I had made a sponge cake with a camouflage design by spooning chocolate (brown) cake mix with light colored batter and batter colored with green food coloring into a cake pan in random patterns.  I baked it, and also baked a plain chocolate cake.

I layered those with different buttercream frostings, and covered it all with a chocolate ganache.

The problem came when I was going to try to cover it all with the camouflage fondant.  My plan was to make snakes of different colors of fondant, and to roll them all together.  It looked like it was going to work out just fine, but Eric woke up from his afternoon nap just after rolling it all out, and before being able to put it on the cake.  I forgot to mention that last week he had a cold, and he was a bit more clingy than usual.  So, when he woke up from his nap, he just wanted to be held. 

Mommy, of course, had to do just that, and I sat with him for about 10 to 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, though, my fondant was drying out.  When I finally got to it and tried to put it on the cake, it was so dry that it started to crack.  I tried to fix it by smoothing it with shortening, but I only made things worse.  I finally decided that I wasn't happy with it, and ended up ripping it all off.  Not wanting to waste all of the fondant, though, I tried to separate the colors as best I could, and I scraped as much of the ganache off it as I could.

I worked the colors into balls, and tried again to make the camouflage.  By that point, it was very hot in my kitchen, the fondant was a different consistency because of the ganache that got worked into it, and I couldn't get the colors to stick together as well as before.  I got frustrated, and ended up working it all together, and got more of a marble effect than the camouflage that I wanted.  I have a better idea of how to do it for next time, but at least I got a little practice.  Eric's one color of fondant should be much easier.
Over the next few days, I’ll find out, and let you know.  I’ll also tell you a little but more about the last few weeks.  I wanted to make sure to get a post up for Eric’s first birthday, though.  Once his parties are over, I’ll have more time to get caught up.

(To remind myself…)I’ll tell you about how Eric has been saying “mama,” how the weather is changing, and how he practices walking.  He’s also been getting into everything lately.  I guess that could be expected, though, now that he’s getting to be such a big boy!!