What a Disaster!

Let's just say I am so grateful I am doing trial runs of Sam's birthday cake.  His birthday is a couple weekends away, and I want to make a from scratch cake for his party.  I have had great success at from scratch cupcakes for James' birthday last year, but when I have used that same recipe for a from scratch cake, I end up completely overcooking it and wind up with a disgustingly dry chocolate cake.  Well...for Sam's birthday, I looked around online and decided to go for this most delicious looking and sounding Vanilla Bean Cake.  My modifications involve using strawberry preserves instead of raspberry per my husband's preference and our mutual concern about the raspberries being too overpowering.

My vision for the actual birthday party cake involves a two or more layered rectangular cake (so there is enough for all our family) decorated on top with half sphere cakes that will be frosted to look like sports balls (basketball, soccer ball, baseball, etc.).  For my trial run, I decided to make one 9" round and one half Sports Ball to get an idea for the cake itself and then to practice my sports decorations.

My first mistake happened in pulling the cakes just slightly too early.  The 9" cake is actually alright...it is the sports ball that was slightly undercooked and stuck to its pan a little bit because I didn't wait long enough to flip them over.  As you can tell by my picture, I am starting off not the most happy in my attempt thus far.  However, can I say this cake is amazingly delicious...the vanilla bean really does intensify the overall flavor. 

Then let me preface the following by stating I have never in my life attempted a frosting other than glazes, ganaches, or powdered sugar based frosting.  So already this Italian Meringue frosting is quite intimidating, to me at least.  Getting the egg whites stiff while trying to time the sugar and water mixture to reach 238 degrees was difficult to say the least.  Next time I will get the egg whites going first and then work on the sugar and water mixture because keeping the egg whites slowly turning while I wait for the temperature to rise, I imagine, will be far less tricky than trying to continue to add small teaspoonfuls of water and stirring the sugar water mixture waiting for the egg whites to be ready. 

Up above I have already added the 238 degree mixture and am waiting for the frosting to stiffen and the bowl to cool to the touch.  Here is where I think I made a critical mistake...on top of the fact that I probably cooked the sugar and water mixture too high...I didn't wait quite long enough, I don't think, before beginning to add the butter to the frosting.  I am not sure how many mistakes I made but surely a lot because there is no way I could decorate with the resulting frosting...it was way too runny as evidenced by the picture below.

Ideally I was going to use a star tip to create the orange of the basketball and use black frosting for the lines; however, the frosting just oozed right out of the decorating bags.  Even putting the frosting in the fridge didn't allow it to harden up any.  Like I said, I am grateful I decided to do a trial run.  Go ahead and laugh now...I would too if I were you.

As the end result, though, the cake tasted absolutely delicious!  The whole combination of the vanilla bean cake with the strawberry preserves to the runny vanilla bean frosting on top was perfectly complimentary and oh so incredible!  My husband says I have to make this cake for Sam's birthday, that is how much he loved the flavor combination, and generally my husband is a chocolate lover, not unlike myself, so originally I wasn't even sure he would go for the possible idea of a vanilla bean cake.  It looks like I will need to perfect the frosting in the meantime though.  Perhaps I will have to put together some simple cupcakes or something and make frosting for decorating, so I can continue practicing until I nail this frustrating Italian Meringue frosting!  After all my son's first birthday cake cannot end up looking as horrible as the one above, I refuse to let that happen.

By the way, if anyone has any insight into perfecting the Italian Meringue frosting, I would appreciate any tips you have to offer.