"1983" - a shot at a second musician

if you know me (the real me, not my badger patronus, although they are equally sassy), then you know that i thoroughly enjoy john "singer/songwriter/guitarist/tweet-er/media whore" mayer. this year, he hosted his second annual holiday cake baking contest:

http://www.johnmayer.com/blog/permalink/5369

i technically submitted this one in reference to his song "1983" off his first album. however, i'm not sure it actually made it through because my email was rejected numerous times. although this was seriously heartcrushing, it might be for the best because i made this in a hurry. my mom labelled it "cute" (read: "A for effort?"). whatever, i had a rockets game to get to, COURT SIDE. the lovely gentlemen in front of us would have been super sad if i skipped out just to bake a cake.

but who knows, maybe my submission was accepted (musician #2 to see one of my cakes), maybe he loved it, maybe i will get to meet him....

"so, john, do you prefer onesies or two-piece pajama sets?"

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1.5 hours + a decade of dedicated listening withstanding terrible relationships with jessica simpson and jennifer aniston

i wish i was six again,

sassy badger

"bob dylan" - the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard

so, my greek professor is obsessed with bob dylan. and by obsessed, i mean for real:
http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/publications/dylan/dylana.html

anyway, i made him this cake which combines his 2 most favorite things, bob and greek. just so you know, this guy is passionate about absolutely everything he does. he took one look at this cake and within 1 hour, he had forwarded a picture of it on to bob dylan's manager, jeff rosen. i kid you not. the next day, rosen sent an email to me via professor palaima...

"the cake is great! what happened to the days when students would just give their teachers apples?"

ok, so that is cool enough in itself. then i received word again from palaima just today, this time he told me that rosen had shown the picture to dylan. i'm not expecting any word from bob himself, but seriously. BOB. DYLAN. HAS. SEEN. MY. CAKE. what?


TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2.5 hours, starting at 2 in the am + 3 hours of sleep = the best surprise a girl could ask for.


it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe,
sassy badger


p.s. - the cake says "what life, what joy without golden Dylan?" which (nerd alert) references mimnerus, a greek poet, who wrote "what life, what joy without golden Aphrodite?"

"tony the tiger" - they'rrrrrrre awkward

i made this one for my screenwriting section because our TA's name is tony. original, i know. anyway, it turns out that he really hates that reference because his ex-girlfriend gave him a tony the tiger shirt, and apparently, and i quote, "she was a total bitch." bitter much?

alright, so that was pretty awkward. but then... we went out after and his current girlfriend came along. she was totally cool, but she also had a few choice words to say about the ex-girlfriend. I JUST WANTED EVERYONE TO HAVE A GOOD TIME. OK?

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 3.5 hours + 30 minutes at hobby lobby + 1 semester of hard work probably down the drain because i brought up bad memories

beat it,

sassy badger

"boomhauer" - i tell ya what, man

this is probably the most fun i've had with a cake in a while. seriously, boomhauer is too cool for words... seriously.

fyi - that is proper screenwriting format there with the dialogue. don't you feel educated now? go write a screenplay, james cameron... preferably not about "blue cat people."

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2.5 hours and 13 seasons of an awesome t.v. show

mo' dough, mo' problems,
sassy badger

"lickitung" - take a pitcha first

here's a sad truth i've discovered: the nerdier the image, the easier it's going to be to decorate. i mean, honestly, lickitung has some of the easiest shapes and fewest colors i have ever worked with. thanks a lot pokemon artists! could you not set aside your gameboy and put your comic books down long enough to draw some more intricate characters? many thanks, sincerely.

we also ran into a bit of a transportation problem with this one, seemingly obvious advice to follow...

take a picture before the cake leaves the counter. we tried to illegally sneak this one into the school's cafeteria... in a tote bag... turned up on its side. let's just say, tote bags aren't nearly as icing absorbent as you might think.


TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours and 3 bloody hangnails (how else do you think i mixed pink icing?)

wash your hands and cover your cough,
sassy badger

"harry potter" - improv

real cake decorating involves nothing to do with sprinkles. amateurs.

i'm not totally serious, but once you start spending 4 hours on your cakes consistently, you won't have any idea how to handle something as uncontrollable as sprinkles. then in walks my baking OCD, and i spend about 30 minutes separating sprinkles into colors.

in short, get your decorating fix however you can. you will sleep better.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 35 minutes, which was 30 minutes longer than everyone else with my family

whip it, whip it good,

sassy badger

"george w." - slow down, yo

in his 8 years in office, there were probably about 1.6 million cartoons of george w. floating around. however, on the day that i need to put him on a cake, i cannot find a single one that works for me. BUT i had less than 3 hours, so i settled. i did not even bother to trace it, and voila! it looks nothing like him... instead it looks more like that guy from "the closer."* see:

also, with no time, i sort of didn't mix colors very well (or at all). no worries, "skin tone" looks like a spray tan at spring break, if mixed improperly - which is definitely what i was going for... and i just used whatever other colors i had. when did george bush not look good in a powder blue suit and magenta tie?

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 1.5 hours, a personal record with such subpar results. it's like you and dumbledore finding the locket so fast but then discovering it's not a real horcrux.

batter up,
sassy badger

*the actor's name is george william "g.w." bailey, who has the same initials as george w. bush. oh ho ho, the irony is not lost on me baking gods.

"dwight schrute" - do your googling

unless someone is holding the cutco spatula spreader to your throat, do not make a cake of a real live human being (paula abdul does not count).
i digress. if possible, find a cartoon or caricature on the internet somewhere. a lot of cake decorators recommend a great search engine called google. it can be found at www.google.com ... if you cannot find one, take james van der beek/michael cera/jesus/paula abdul to a six flags and get that creepy teenager to draw a caricature of the both of you for a mere 15 bucks. while you're at it, get your ridiculous name airbrushed onto a tee with some dolphins or something.
anyway, i was lucky enough to find a cartoon of dwight (also known as rainn wilson to about 3 people). then i just wrote the name of my soccer team in yellow, to coordinate with the tie (read: i was too lazy to mix a new color). finally, i added a question mark because we lost every game of our season. team work is dream work.



TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours + 6 hours of losing soccer games

get in the kitchen, stop your bitchin',
sassy badger

"the cheshire cat" - details, details, details

whoever drew the cheshire cat must have kept losing his crayons and so he just started picking new ones up. are four shades of purple really necessary? come on disney, stop hiring the crayon eaters.
on top of that, there were so many small details that never translate well to the cake pan.
solution: nix the unimportant stuff. no claws. no whiskers. no eyebrows. suck on that, crayon eater.
overall, this might have been my most challenging cake to date.


TOTAL DECORATING TIME (minus running to hobby lobby in the rain to get a #3 tip): 3.5 hours

happy baking,
sassy badger