Watermelon Cake

A coworker asked me to make this fun cake, from Woman's Day magazine, for a family picnic.  It was really a last minute request and she needed it for right after we returned from July 4th vacation so I didn't have too much time to think about it.  If I had I would have done it a little differently.

Originally the cake was supposed to be upright on the rounded edge, but the cake and the frosting were just too soft.  The directions said to cut the round cakes in half, stack, then turn on its side.  So that's what I tried to do.  Even though I was wondering what's to stop these layers from separating and falling apart?  Fondant might have worked but I think it was too humid for fondant too.  So the cake ended up as shown.

If I had just thought about it for a moment I would have stacked a rectangular cake and cut the curve out from the bottom.  That way the layers would have been stacked horizontally instead of vertically.  I got caught up in the directions that were presented to me and should have used my experience to look at the cake a design a better solution.  Well, at least now I know not to blindly follow someone else's suggestion without thinking about first.  I guess that's a good lesson for lots of things in life!

In case you are wondering I used chocolate chips for the "seeds".  Again if I had actually looked at some watermelon pictures I may have chosen to pipe those on with frosting but it was a "fun" cake so I'm OK with the chips.

One last thing that hit me while I was trying to fall asleep after making this cake.  Can you guess what it is?

Look closely......

I'll give you a moment....

The stripes on the rind are going the wrong direction!  Apparently none of the guests noticed this either.  Phew!  And here I go pointing it out!  Oh well, nobody's perfect.

I hope you are having a great summer!  Now go enjoy some watermelon...or cake.