So, you see those ridiculously gorgeous layered cakes online, right? The ones that look like a unicorn sneezed glitter onto a rainbow? Yeah, I decided I was gonna make one. For my bestie’s birthday, no less. Go big or go home, I figured.
Honey, let me tell you. This wasn’t just baking; this was a battle.
First off, I gathered all the ingredients. The recipe called for things I’d never even heard of. “Butterfly pea flower powder”? “Edible gold leaf that won’t make you broke”? I swear, I spent half a day just hunting stuff down. My kitchen looked like a science lab explosion before I even cracked an egg.
Then came the actual “werk.”
I started with the cake layers. Six. Six different colored layers. The recipe said, “gently fold in the food coloring.” My first attempt looked like a swamp monster. My second was okay, but the batter was… weird. I swear, I remade two of those layers three times. My arm was killing me from all the “gently folding.”
And the frosting! Oh, the frosting. It was supposed to be this silky smooth, ethereal buttercream. Mine was either soup or closer to cement.
I was like:
- Too runny? Add more sugar.
- Too stiff? Add more… something. Milk? Tears?
- Color not vibrant enough? Dump more dye!
I was covered in food coloring. My cat probably had a blue paw. It was chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos.
There was a moment, hunty, a real dark moment. I was sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by sticky bowls and questionable batter, seriously considering just buying a cake from the store. Like, for real. I thought, “This is it. I’m defeated by a dessert.”
But then, something snapped. I was like, “No. I started this. I’m gonna finish this. This cake will not break me.” I blasted some Lizzo, took a deep breath, and just went for it. I stopped trying to be perfect like the video and just started, like, feeling it out. A little more of this, a little less of that. Trusting my gut, you know?
And then, the magic happened… sort of.
I managed to get the layers baked without further incident. The frosting finally decided to cooperate, after I basically threatened it. Assembling it was like playing Jenga with something very, very sticky. My hands were shaking.
But when I finally stepped back? And put that last sprinkle of totally-not-as-expensive-as-it-looks edible glitter on top?
Yas. Gawd. Werk. Hunty. Tea.
It wasn’t perfect like the Instagram ones. It leaned a little. One side was definitely more… rustic. But it was MINE. I made that gloriously chaotic, colorful tower of sugar. And when my bestie saw it? She screamed. In a good way.
And the real tea? It actually tasted amazing. Probably because of all the effort and near-mental breakdowns I poured into it. So yeah, next time you see one of those “easy” baking tutorials? Just know there’s a whole lotta struggle behind that perfect shot. But sometimes, the struggle is what makes it so darn sweet at the end. Werk it ’til you make it, for real.
