bandrouais's Photobucket Brett turns 28 album media

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:21:39 MST

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To start your birthday surprise, I preheated the oven. Oooh! What's going in the oven? :O

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:20:14 MST

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And now you know... Indeed, I add the contents of the box to the plastic container...

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:19:00 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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Now, combining the afore-viewed measuring cup with water coming out of this tap, we obtain...

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:18:09 MST

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... to add this ingredient. The box calls for vegetable oil, bit a little research on the internets told me I could substitute vegetable oil to achieve the same baking effect. Strangely, it said nothing about taste...

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:17:04 MST

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Because you can't apply a layer of this wonderful chocolate icing to the cake if the cake is too hot.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:15:58 MST

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This is cooking icing. It's not meant for writing letters on cake. But it was the best I came across, so I made do.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:15:13 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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Next up, I use this measuring cup...

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:14:14 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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Whatever's going in the oven is going to be mixed in here first. The mystery continues...

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:12:38 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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...to come up with this.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:11:12 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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Oil + cake powder = the above photo.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:09:42 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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...this lovely effect. Tasty-looking, isn't it? (grammatically, that sentence is incorrect - but I have long thought words ending in -ly too, could be followed by hyphens when used as modifiers - but that's neither here nor there - on with the project)

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:08:33 MST

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Next, I call on my friend, Mr. Previously Greased Red Cake Pan (disclaimer: name assigned temporarily for the purposes of this project), and I pour the mixed cake ingredients into it.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:06:37 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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Eggs are up next to go for a swim in our concoction.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:05:46 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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Woohoo! We have all our ingredients! Now we're ready to mix. But we have a slight problem: the plastic container is too small to accommodate the vigorous stirring required to mix all the ingredients together. No one wants a cake tsunami.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:04:05 MST

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Big mixing bowl to the rescue! I honestly thought about using it at first, but dismissed it as being too large.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:02:36 MST

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But in reality, the bowl is a very good size for my stirring needs. So I set to vigorously stirring, whipping, beating and - insert verb here - the cake ingredients.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:00:59 MST

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This is the beautiful result. I admit, I spent a few minutes admiring the effect, until I awoke out of my daze to realize that I needed to do something further with the mix to make it more cake-like. I was not done.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:59:29 MST

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Enter Mr. Oven (disclaimer: name assigned permanently). I inserted Mr. Cake Pan into Mr. Oven. Mr. Oven was hot. He knew this fact, but still blushed when Mr. Cake Pan told him of it. I worried about what would happen to the cake if I left it alone with them, but closed the door to the oven without much further thought.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:57:58 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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And set the timer. It's what the box called for.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:56:49 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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But the box lied. The cake only looked like this after 35 minutes. That's what I get for trusting a box. Let this be a lesson...

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:55:34 MST

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Eventually, with the help of a conceding Mr. Oven, the cake turned out like this, once I got it out of the pan. But that's not all. Mr. Cake had to cool off.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:53:38 MST

bandrouais posted a photo

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In due time, I was able to achieve the above effect. Mmmm, looks ready to eat! But we're not done.

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:52:16 MST

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And voila! The desired result. But wait, what *is* that blurb at the bottom? Is it supposed to be a green bug, making its way up the cake?

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bandrouais — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:50:38 MST

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It was supposed to be a :* symbol, with which you and I are so familiar. Reference the earlier statement about the cookie icing, and realize what must have happened to my nice, neat lines. Yes, they spread. So the :* / bug was scraped off, to achieve the message I was going for. HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY, BRETT!!!