My Nemesis: The Sphere Cake

So I have meet my nemesis, the sphere cake.  This cake was for my sister-in-law's surprise birthday at the beach.  She has done so much for me and this website that I really wanted to make the whole day special starting with the room decorated when she got up to a doughnut cake for breakfast and ending with a little birthday party after dinner with a ball of yarn cake along with her four cats on it.

I was able to do the first 2 pretty well.  The room was definitely decorated all over the place to where we were dodging things all day. :)  The doughnut cake was DELICIOUS.  I can't take credit for making the doughnuts though.   

But the cake...oh boy! My plan was to make the cake at home and transport it 4 hours to the beach.  I should have known when I tried the ball cake the first time and it collapsed that it would collapse after being transported 4 hours away.  I always say this is a learning experience for me and this one definitely was.  After the first ball collapsing I researched a better way to make it and I thought I had had it.  It looked like a ball of yarn which was exactly what I was going for.  I loved how the cats turned out and the board that they set on really looked like their wood floor at their house.  I even thought that I would take pictures of the cats before we left.  I hadn't dusted off the powdered sugar but you can still get the idea of what they looked like. She has 4 cats like I mentioned and I tried to use this picture to make them look like her cats as much as possible.

 

The actual cake was going to be a ball of yarn because she loves to be crafty like me. :) When we got to the beach late Friday night the cake looked OK.  It has settled a little but I thought it still looked ok and would be ok time we celebrated by Saturday night.  Midday the next day I checked on the cake and it had started cracking in the back.  I knew it wasn't going to last until that evening so we went ahead and had cake after lunch.  I feel really bad that this happened but I am happy it was for a family member and not someone else.

 The cake flavor was chocolate with a chocolate buttercream in the middle and was covered in chocolate ganache.  My brother-in-law said she loved chocolate so I made it a chocolate lovers cake.

To the ball cake:  You may have won this one but it ain't over. I will make you again and not travel so far and it will be perfect.  (Half sphere cakes:  I'm not intimidated by you.  You are much easier than your half sister. ;)  )