Cake Anyone?

MMMMMMmmmm, cake.

I made a cake just last week. Dark chocolate.  We ate it warm out of the oven.  The cake was so tender you almost didn't need frosting.  Almost.  I had an almond cream cheese frosting hiding in the back of the fridge.  I say hiding because I can eat homemade frosting with a spoon.  So I was hiding it from myself. 

I dolloped the frosting on top of each slice of cake because the cake was so fresh the frosting would not spread on top. 

Fact of the Day: Fresh cakes can't be frosted.  Frozen cakes can.  Stale cakes can. No frosted cake you buy in the store is freshly baked that day.

I haven't had the opportunity to make many cakes lately.  I miss it sometimes.  I'll get back.  Instead of baking a cake this week, I created a cake.  A friend was having a baby shower.  I have always wanted to make a diaper cake.  A quick internet search resulted 2,080,000 results. 

Yikes!  I'm in trouble.

A few of the hits brought the same results: roll each individual diaper, wrap with a rubber band (gum band), stand on end, wrap additional rubber bands around mass of diapers to form "layer" of cake. 

1.  That was too much work for any new, under-slept, over-worked new mother to unwrap.
2.  That was too much work for an over-worked, under-slept house remodeler to wrap.

I had to make it easier on all of us. 

I got my layer cake pans out of the basement and started packing them tight with diapers. 

 
I was going to use the cardboard roll from inside the paper towels as the center support.  Yes, I would have had to unroll all of the paper towels.  But the day before, we finished the roll of garbage bags.  Inside was a L-O-N-G plastic roll.  Even better!  (Finally, the awful bags from the city have a purpose other than annoying me on garbage day!)

 Instead of rolling and wrapping each individual diaper, I packed them tight and curved them.  Then I tied the layer with some curling ribbon.

 
I was able to pull out the plastic center tube and use it to form the next smaller layer.  Then I could reinsert the tube and slide the next layer on to the cake.  

 

Each layer was tied tight with ribbon.  I tied all four layers together, so there was no fear of tripping and losing diapers.  (For me, tripping in any situation is possible and reoccurs too often.)

 

I added a few extra touches of colored ribbons.  There were so many cute ideas for decorations.  It was hard to stop at a simple ribbon. 

(Please don't judge me by the house clutter in the background of the photos!  Lately, I'm drowning in papers!  Glub, glub glub.)