Nailed It - Mud Bath for Pigges

I am currently going through another baking phase in my life right now. As you know I love the show Nailed It on Netflix and I am currently now watching The Great British Bake Off also on Netflix. Well, this week I decided to have my own little competition with myself. I needed to bake a cake for Husband and I's 4th wedding anniversary and so why not make it harder than it needs to be with a timer?

Now, let me first start off by saying this was not exactly the same from the show and how their competition works and what I did. First, I don't have the cooking supplies they do in their kitchen. They have multiple mixers, and bowls, a freeze blaster chiller thing, a convection oven, and a huge pantry filled with all types of supplies. They don't care about cost they just get in there and bake a cake.

I only have one cake mixer and attachments, a regular oven, and a budget. Did you know fondant costs so much? I had no idea. 

I also had the pleasure of watching this specific episode Nailed It!  Season 1 Episode 3: "Head Under Water" multiple times. 

Since I didn't have the above items mentioned I also did a little prep work. I used fondant that was already colored to save myself from buying both white fondant and coloring. I had never made buttercream before so that recipe was also pulled up on my phone.  I bought a box cake mix, and I staged everything out on the counter. 

I then set my timer for 45 minutes and went for it. Now, this was the first time I have ever done something like this before. Yes, I've baked and made cakes but never with the items I was using. 

The first was the buttercream icing. I've seen it made on both baking shows but never have I ever made it before. When I was making it I tried to add powdered sugar to the mixer, hit the mixer paddle and threw powdered sugar all over the place. 

I had never made chocolate ganache before. Through this experience, I did learn that it is super tasty and super easy to make. You just heat up heavy cream and stir in chocolate pieces. Depending on what type of consistency you want out of your add or take away cream and chocolate. 

I had never played with fondant of any kind before that day. I had eaten it on cakes or pulled it off of cakes but never ever had I ever played with it. It tastes just like gummy sugar and feels like stickier playdough. It is as if playdough and silly putty had a baby that you could eat.

I, like most of the bakers on the shows, started off by forgetting something. I started off with making my cake batter and was like, why it is a big gray ball? It should be fluffy and nice by now? I checked the recipe and I had forgotten to add water. I fixed that and started to butter my cake pans, which was way messier than most shows let on. At one point I gave up on the butter stick and just used my fingers to get it the edges of the pan. 

I then did the classic mistake of overfilling my cake pans. In the show Nailed It! most of the time the cakes over flow and are raw. Mine did not do that. For mine, one cake finished before the second cake. I was able to take that one cake and put it on a cooling rack and in the freezer but the second one had to continue to cook for another like 8 minutes.

While my cakes were cooking and cooling I made the chocolate ganache with like 1 1/3 cups cream and a whole 8oz bag of dark chocolate. I made it and was like yeah look at me! But then it was like, now what do I do with it? Unsure what else to do I put it in the fridge to cool while I made my piggies and their parts. Once I made those parts I moved on to the Kit Kat bars. 

They were another fail because though I had bought 3 king-size bars, I lost about one half of the king-size bars worth because the pieces were cracked horizontally. During my assembly, I did end up needing to use like 5 of these broken ones but I had no choice. 

I don't know how or why but I also dropped an egg on the floor. I just remember thinking, "Are you kidding me?" 

So now I have like 6 minutes left, the second cake is in the freezer with the first one and it is time to assemble everything. Husband calls and wants to let me know he is on his way home. We talk for just a few moments and then I tell him I have to go I have less than 5 minutes left.

Now, this is the part where my heart for real starts to pound. I'm running around my kitchen pulling out knives to make the cakes even, putting on buttercream that is melting like crazy because the cakes are still too hot. I was adding the Kit Kats to the side of the cakes. Putting in the chocolate ganache in the top of the cake and my timer goes off. 

Beep Beep Beep! That's it, 45 minutes have passed in a blink of an eye. 

 Now what? Well, I finish up my cake, and it takes me about a full extra minute to add my piggy parts and put the bow around the thing. 

My sink is now filled to the brim, their powdered sugar still all over the place. However, I have a cake, it looks pretty cool even if some of the chocolate is leaking out. 

  

It took me 46 minutes to make the cake and 30 minutes to clean up after. While I cleaned up and waited for Husband to come home I put the cake in the freezer. 

Once Husband arrived home I told him what went right and what went wrong with the cake.I pulled it out and he was very impressed. We then sat down with a glass of milk each and had a slice. It was so sweet! Like, immediately turn your teeth fuzzy feeling sweet. You would only be able to eat a small piece. However, it did look good, I am super proud of it and would make this cake again. I would change somethings like my buttercream recipe and use milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate for the ganache oh, and not use a timer. 

Has anyone else tried to time themselves like this before? If so, how did you do? Did you make the timer? Let me know with a comment below!