JDub's Iowa State Birthday

Ok... so those of you who might not know... my husband (aka JDub) is a big Iowa State Cyclone fan. Being a Cyclone fan can be kind of rare in these parts, (the Cedar Rapids area... being as it is so close to Iowa City, with the Hawkeyes) which can play to my advantage. I actually found an old-school Cy-the Cyclone- shirt from Old Navy for $2.97......... can you believe it?! I was going to take a picture of it... but JDub enjoyed it so much that he wore it right out of town yesterday afternoon. But it does look something like this!

He is an alumni.... which plays a big part on his passion for the Cyclones. So in thinking of what he might want for his birthday....... I made him a couple things.....

Yep that's right... with movable beak!

Bubba and Ceej are also big Cyclone fans.... mainly because they are too young to know any difference! But Cy -the Cyclone- is also pictured as a cyclone, or a tornado....

This is of course Bubba's favorite portrayal of Cy -the Cyclone. So this is why I chose to make JDub this.....

Now this was no easy task.... what I thought was going to be an easy boxed cake mix.... turned into quite a nightmare. I was able to salvage it! (Oh yee of little faith MOM!) But this cake was originally supposed to be the entire size of that plate.... around 9 inches.... When I went to take them out of the pans I not only dropped one of them (mostly on the counter top..) but it crumbled all over the place! Half of it was stuck to the inside of bottom of the pan (and YES I did use butter and flour to try and keep it from sticking.... I know , I know... I should have used shortening...) But the other cake shortly started to crumble along the way as well.

What I found myself doing was carving the most crumbly part out and trying to keep the surviving cake in one piece. Lets just say there was a lot of cake that didn't make it......

Its too bad I had a heavy whipping cream layer inside b/c I probably could have made cake balls out of it!

Any who, I think for the disaster this cake started as.... it turned out pretty good. Did I mention JDub bought me cake decorating nozzles for Christmas? I took it as a hint I needed to be making more cakes... Maybe I'll have to make one from scratch one of these days!