A Picture Perfect Birthday

As you may have noticed, it is not often that I have a photo of the cake recipient to post along with the cake.  Catie is the daughter of one of my wonderful co-workers, Janice.  Actually Janice has two daughters for which I have had the pleasure of creating cakes for.  Now mind you the two are as different as day and night.  I do not point this out to say it is a bad thing, I mention it because it makes this story all the more special.  Catie's sister, Ally, is the planer.  She starts months before her birthday and plans each detail of the cake.  All I have to do is interpret her design through icing and baking to make it come true.  Catie on the other hand is as quiet and unassuming as a person can be.  She does not mention birthdays and is just thrilled if others remember the day.  So when Janice came to me and asked for a birthday cake, I had to throw the typical questions out there, of what does she like, how big should it be, what flavor, because unlike Ally who usually has a big custom design with bright colors, Catie is very different.  As I started firing off the questions like a sub machine gun, Janice just looked at me with her eyes getting bigger and bigger.  I stopped and backed it up and said chocolate or butter?  "Butter" she replied.  "Lots of people?" I asked.  "Just the four of us, Catie likes small celebrations," she replied.  Now for the big one, "What does she love?" I asked.  "her family, her job, oh, oh...." her eyes suddenly got bigger, "N. C. State.  She loves N. C. State."  Well that I knew I could do.
The other thing about this cake was that it was one to be done by the next day.  Normally I would not do that, but for Janice and Catie you bet I would do whatever I could to make her day even more special.  I got home and went to work, baking like a wild women.  The baking was fairly uneventful but when it came to decorating, I have to admit this was the messiest cake I have ever decorated.  I realized as I went to decorate I was out of bags.  For those of you who say run to Wal-Mart or use a Ziploc with the corner cut off, well I thought of that.  At two in the morning I found found that travelling to Wal-Mart by myself is not my favorite thing to do.  By the way I did try the Ziploc but it could not handle the pressure needed to squeeze the icing out and split in several places.  So plan B.  I had some parchment triangles and thought I would use those.  Although they worked it was difficult at best to them folded into the right shape to get a coupler attached and I did end up with icing all over me.  In the end however it all worked out and the N. C. State cake looked just like the block S it was supposed to look like.
I delivered it to the office and imagine my surprise the next night when these photos were shared on facebook for me to see.  There is Catie blowing out the candles when the family went to dinner to celebrate.  Also a shot of Catie and Ally as she cut her birthday cake.  I have to say the photos made my day and made me feel included in the family celebration.  Catie really seemed to enjoy her cake and her special day.  Happy Birthday Catie!
Oh, and one other side note, that I think Catie might like me to mention.  Happy Birthday N. C. State which turned 125 years old this year.