Before I begin this post, I feel it is important to note the following:

What you will see below is the cake of my childhood dreams.  When I was young, my mom had a copy of Canadian Living’s “Kids in the Kitchen“cookbookwhich I would flip through occasionally, wondering how in the world one was able to cook.  Now, a decade later, I return to my humble beginnings to complete the pièce de résistance of all Canadian Living cakes: The Pool Party Cake(each word deserves a capital letter because, to me, it is a holy entity of awesome). To be honest, I’m a little surprised my mom didn’t make me this cake as a child; I guess there were very few pool parties to go to in Northern Ontario and my birthday was in winter…

When I first heard back in June that we were planning to have a potluck at work, I very nearly had a happiness heart attack.  I KNEW that the time had finally come for me to make this cake, and that the world was finally prepared to be exposed to its sheer wonder.  Also, the cake kind of doubled as a surprise birthday cake for one of my wonderful work supervisors, Jeremy, who was (against his will) getting a belated birthday celebration at lunch.

Let the cake-making begin: Buying all the candy supplies was the hard part – I spent a solid half hour in the Bulk Barn, carefully measuring out gummy candies and determinedly marching up and down the aisles in search of the elusive vanilla wafer cookie (turns out I needed to get them at Walmart).  A short time later, my shopping was complete, and with my new 9×13 glass cake pan filled with goodies, I waltzed (bused) home, anxiously wondering what the results of my cake attempt would be.  Due to some sort of miracle, the cake turned out perfectly.  Despite a minor meltdown that occurred when a deep crack developed through the middle of the cake, the process was rather uneventful and my neuroses was kept at bay for the most part…

Of course, my adventure to deliver cake to potluck continued this morning when I had to find a way to transport said item to school.  Normally I would just ride my bike, however, I had invested too much time and emotion in this cake to see it slide off my handlebars and run over by my Schwinn bicycle.  And so, my worried ass took a cab to school and, in an attempt to pay the driver with my debit card, almost granted the cake a death-by-debit-console-falling-in-pool disaster.  Luckily, everything except my sanity made it to work in one piece.

I would also like to note one final thing: if someone on Ace of Cakes somehow stumbles on this post, please give me a job and/or let me tour your shop.  I promise I would only freak out a little.

Hilary and Cake: an intimate moment. Also, note the wafer cookie entering my mouth…this was because of a failure in cake architecture that caused several half-wafer pieces to come unattached from their other sides.  Beware future cake-makers.

Some happy potluck-ers/amazing co-workers, pre-cake arrival, pre-food coma.

Arrival of cake for the birthday boy!

Happy Belated Jeremy!
(Thank you Iman and your ever-speedy facebook uploads for these last two pictures)

END OF STORY? I am addicted to making cakes.  Next time, I try conquering fondant.