Disaster!

I think the biggest disaster is that I always spell it "diaster."

Nah, not really. I think a volcano being attacked by a shark, giant octopus, wolf, The Cold, and an encroaching ocean is pretty disastrous. Oh! Don't forget the meteor and wrecked helicopter.

See, this is a cake that I was planning for Hillary's 19th birthday, and now it's 2 months past her 20th birthday, so to say this is belated is quite an understatement. Anyway, we love watching cheesy corny disaster movies together ("The Day After Tomorrow," "Absolute Zero," "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus," "2012" for example) so this cake takes its inspiration from all of those movies and more.

The cake turned out a little more cartoonish--maybe it was the fondant octopus or the light blue icy lava-- than I was originally picturing in my head, but it turned out really great. The "lava" and ocean are made out of royal icing, which made cutting into the cake a little more difficult than originally planned, and the meteor, octopus, and shark fin are all made of out Wilton fondant (why Wilton? Because it's cheap and no one was going to eat the pieces anyway). The volcano is chocolate buttercream, and the cake is coffee flavored.

Shout out to Sarah! For telling me how to make coffee cake, and to pass it on, I'll tell you now! (Because have you ever tried to google "coffee flavored cake recipe?" It doesn't work, I tell you!) OK, so you take your cake recipe (or box mix) and instead of putting water or whatever liquid, use double-brewed coffee instead. And my dad says there's some secret "thing" about double brewed coffee, like it will break the coffee maker or something...so I just asked him to brew the coffee for me.

So there you have it! The Disaster Cake. While not as epic as the end of the world, this cake was pretty grand, and according to Chris, the best tasting cake I've ever made!