Our “Nailed It” Cake – On Celebrating Failure

Hi, my name is Jamie, and I’m a Pinterest failure. There, I said it! I look at all the Pinterest posts from incredibly crafty, DIY, three-tiered birthday cake, themed birthday party, baking, sewing, decorating experts, and I feel queasy.

Full disclosure, I come from a long line of women who can bake like nobody’s business. My grandmother owned a bakery. My mother’s cakes have been the talk of the town for decades. My little sister followed in her footsteps, making amazing birthday cakes for her own children. Meanwhile, as a joke for my 20th birthday, my grandparents got me a cookbook titled “How to Make Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches without Burning the House Down.” Everyone had a good laugh, including myself. My talents don’t lie in the crafty, baking, DIY realm, though I still try like hell. And I’m ok with that. Until my own children’s birthdays roll around and I try desperately to make them the cakes they deserve. Add that to the fact that my son has multiple food allergies, including egg, soy, nuts and dairy, and I am really at a disadvantage. So, what’s a girl to do?

Thankfully, my 7-year-old daughter has recently started watching a baking show on Netflix called, “Nailed It.” If you are unfamiliar with this show, let me explain. They ask ordinary people to bake wonderful cake masterpieces, give them a ridiculously small amount of time to bake them, and throw in a few hilarious obstacles to ensure that these amateur bakers fail miserably. Our favorite part of the show is when time’s up, and they turn their hideous baking creations around to show the judges, and proudly proclaim, “Nailed it!” The kids and I laugh so hard.

This got me thinking about failure. We tend to learn more from our failures than our successes. What if the overachiever in me has kept me from trying and learning for fear of failing? What if I celebrated my failures instead? With my son’s 6th birthday coming up, I decided to put this new perspective to the test. The kids and I agreed to make our very own “Nailed It” cake for my son’s birthday. We looked through pictures and You Tube tutorials until we found our favorite cake. Then we went to the baking section at Michael’s for supplies. To be honest, I avoid this section of the store. It’s embarrassing enough to be the biggest baking failure in the family. I don’t want my lack of skill to rub off on anyone else in the baking aisle. But this time, we proudly marched over to the fancy fondant, the elegant decorations, and the unsullied baking utensils. We got our supplies, and went to the register.

“We’re making a “Nailed It” cake!” my daughter exclaimed to the cashier. She had no idea what we were talking about. But were we swayed? NO! We went home and started baking. I found an allergen-free cake recipe from the amazing blogger over at Belle of the Kitchen (link below)

We made three round cakes. I used make-shift cooling racks. As someone who doesn’t bake, I didn’t have any actual cooling racks, nor was I even aware that we needed them until it was too late. Nailing it!

Then, we needed to make allergen-free buttercream frosting. Google saved the day again when it lead me to The Pretty Bee for a killer buttercream frosting recipe (link below). We actually did ok with this part. First, we put the buttercream frosting in between the layers.

Then we frosted the whole cake.

You may notice that brown piece of cardboard under the cake. That’s there because I realized far too late that we needed a cake board to put the cake on for decorating. So, we improvised and cut a circle out of an Amazon box. Voila! Cake board. The kids turned the box into a robot after. The hole was the perfect size for their heads.

Then, it was time to decorate our cake. We found an awesome mirror galaxy cake tutorial on You Tube (link below). The kids just loved this lady. She made it all look so easy! But this was taking a lot longer than we thought. Thank goodness we didn’t have the same time constraints as the contestants on the show! My son needed to take a little break, but didn’t want to miss any of the action. So he cozied up in the kitchen doorway with Sammy.

I forgot to mention that my daughter wanted to try to make her own “Nailed It” cake. She used the cake tops I cut off to make the cake level. I think it was supposed to be a unicorn. She was quite proud. Nailed it!

So far so good! But now it was time for the glaze. We had a couple of obstacles to overcome with this part. The first, and largest obstacle was my lack of cake decorating skill. The second obstacle was difficulty finding the right allergen-free ingredients. This recipe called for white chocolate. We couldn’t find any dairy-free white chocolate on short notice, so we improvised. We used his allergen-free brown chocolate chips instead. Here’s something you might not know: brown chocolate doesn’t really take food coloring the way white chocolate does. So, instead of navy, electric blue, pink and purple, we got brownish black, blood red, and Nyquil colors. My son said, “Oh! It looks like blood!” Totally nailing it!

In the YouTube video, Rosanna gleefully flung black disco dust onto her masterpiece. We couldn’t find black disco dust, so we used pink sprinkles instead.

It may not have been pretty, but it sure was tasty!

Our masterpiece was finally complete! Here is a picture of what the cake was supposed to look like:

Aaaaaand here is our version. Nailed it!

I can’t believe how much fun that was. Not once did I fall into anxiety about how it was going to turn out. Every mistake was fuel for laughter and fun. Every “oops” brought us closer together.

All that was left was to stick it in the fridge to chill while we all slept. It was waaaaaay past our bedtime. We have a tradition to wake the birthday boy or girl up on their birthday morning with a cake, candles, balloons, and a happy birthday song. The kids went to bed while Sam and I decorated. The next morning, we proudly marched our “Nailed It” cake into the bedroom and everybody sang. It was so joyful! Then we had cake for breakfast. It was delicious!

Once again, for your amusement, a side by side comparison. Totally nailed it!

See those little bite marks in the side? My children are wild and wonderful creatures. I could go on about the lesson I learned with this new tradition (oh yeah, this is happening every year for every birthday now). But I’m sure you get it. We all learned about celebrating failure, and we had a blast doing it! Nailed It Cake for the win!

Seriously, thank you Netflix and “Nailed It.” You saved my anxious, unskilled baking butt! Thank you to Ashlyn, Rosanna, and Kelly for your delicious recipes and expertise. You guys are amazing!

And happy 6th birthday to this sweet, kind-hearted, kid. I super-duper heart-broken love you too, kiddo. Always.