Anyone with a two-year-old can tell you that Elmo is for all intensive purposes, royalty. Carol, my daughter, was saying Elmo’s name before that of many close family members (to their disappointment). I knew three months before the party that it was going to be an Elmo theme. We were going to have Elmo invitations, Elmo decorations, and yes, an Elmo cake.
My master plan was to make the cake myself. I think being a working mom, I was feeling the mommy guilt big time and thought somehow I could redeem myself by making the cake. My husband was starkly opposed to this idea. He was firmly convinced that I should do everything I could to simplify the weekend and went so far as to check local bakeries to see who could make us an Elmo cake. If you know my husband, he rarely takes interest in these types of things. Unless it is about the Yankees or Syracuse basketball, it is really tough to get his attention, so his interest in this was unusual. He was unsuccessful at finding a bakery that could do what we wanted, so it was relatively easy to convince him (and myself) that I could totally handle it. How hard could it be? A piping bag…some frosting, this was going to be a ‘piece of cake.’
I should preface that when I say ‘make the cake,’ I really mean open a couple boxes of Duncan Hines cake mix and several containers of pre-made frosting. (I can and have baked cakes in the past, but figured Elmo alone was a big enough challenge for this particular weekend).
So here we are, the night before the party, cakes are made and cooling in the fridge. We have returned from dinner out with the family with a very cranky Cara. It is well past her bedtime and she is refusing to go to sleep in her bed so I curl up with her in my bed and she quickly drifts off. Fast forward three hours later as my husband is making his way to bed. It is 11 pm; I apparently also drifted off while the cake lies undecorated in my fridge downstairs….shit!
I head downstairs to tackle Elmo still thinking this should be easy…in a half hour I will be back in bed, sleeping like a baby. I started mixing the red food coloring into the white frosting. I start with five drops, stir…it’s pink. Add five more, stir…still pink. Add ten, pink. Another ten. Pink! Fifteen minutes later and entire bottle of red food coloring. I have very dark pink frosting, but it isn’t red. (Later than evening it occurred to me that I should have used food coloring gell, not liquid, lesson learned). Additionally, after all the stirring, the frosting was warm and not holding its shape well. Elmo is a red (not pink) fuzzy monster. Drippy fur wasn’t going to cut it. Despite the color and texture, I decided to go for it and create Elmo on the cake. Making the shape was easy, but he was pink and his fur was lack-luster. At this point, I decided I would run by the grocery store first thing in the morning while out on my balloon run and pick up some pre-dyed red frosting just touch up the cake best I could. It was 12:30 am and I felt defeated.
Cue 6:30 am the following day (if you have a two-year-old, you also know that sleeping in does not exist). I get up make pancakes, get the kiddo fed and seated in front of Elmo (don’t think about judging me). I run to the grocery store, no red frosting. Not only that, but they are out of helium, no balloons either…seriously!
I know that the party supply store across town has red frosting, but they don’t open until 9:30. It is not even 8:30. The party is at 1….ugg. I go home, still feeling defeated and work on getting the house in order. Once the party supply store opened I ran across town for the frosting, picked up balloons, grabbed some ice for the ice chest and was ready to roll.
I get home, open my fridge, pull out the cake, Elmo is red. Apparently overnight, the magic defeated-mommy-frosting-fairy visited my house and using her special powers, transformed Elmo into a bright red monster. WTF! (My dad, the every pondering scientist thinks that all that stirring the night before whipped so much air into the frosting giving it the appearance of being pink and once settled, reflected the actual color…I still have my fairy theory). So Elmo is red, awesome, I’ll take it! I do some touch up on the fur; slap her name on the cake. And that boys and girls, is how Elmo became red.
Carol enjoying some birthday pizza
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