Cake Nightmare

Tonight was my first cake decorating class. In class we watched the instructor show us how to frost and then make shells and stars. We then got to make some shells and stars ourselves...all of which went well. Our homework was to go home and practice. For next week's class we need to bring a cake (not iced) and three batches of buttercream frosting.

So silly me goes to the store and buys four cake mixes and two bags of confectioners sugar all the while thinking to myself...Oh this is easy....I'm gonna go home and make this awesome looking cake.

Well....the following is what actually transpired.

First....I made a triple batch of frosting...bad idea....three cups of shortening and 1 1/2 pounds of powder sugar later I had a semi decent batch of frosting.

Then....

The mess I made while reading and practicing from the instruction book.

The cake with the top leveled off.....everything still going ok.

My finished result....you can't tell from the pic but this is only a one layer finished product.

Here is what was supposed to be the top layer.

Notice the blobs of frosting mixed up in between the cake clumps.

The frosting just wouldn't stick to the cake and kept tearing chunks of it off. Wish me better luck in class next week when we actually frost the cakes in front of the instructor....