NGUPLUS

Fail boldly

Fail boldly in your endeavors
at least once
so long as it is worthy
and if you are sailing by the siren call of your own
inner guide
for that compass always steers true.
And even if the destination
is not where you intended to land
the journey is what makes you strong
and gives you interesting things to talk about
when you get old.
Fail boldly
and hate it
the taste of it, the smell of it
the hard reality of it
the humiliation and stress and sense of defeat.
Let it sting
let it ache
keep it close to you so you never forget.
Some people spend their lives running
from pain and trying to mask it.
I call them cowards.
Courage is not like you see in the movies
where the good guys win and the bad guys lose
where everything assimilates into
something dignified and sensible at the end.
Courage is much greater than that
because in this mean and petty world,
nothing is ever assured
and often, doing whats right means standing alone
while the rest of the world looks on and sneers.
But nothing silences critics like success.
Nothing shuts the gaping maws of the cackling hordes
like a man who failed boldly and got back on his feet to
win.
So wait
and train and plan and prepare
and when you win
win decisively.

I was asked to bake a football cake for a colleagues son birthday. Last year the birthday boy wanted a trash pack cake which was a challenge but turned out better than expected! I was a little worried that he would ask for something complicated but fortunately he wanted a football cake. His favourite team is Manchester United so I used red for the football. I made a football cake last year which was a little disastrous so I was determined to succeed this year. I also upped the stakes by making it a pinata cake by filling it with lots of M&Ms so that there would be a surprise when you cut into the cake. I learnt my lesson from last year and baked the cake 2 days in advance. This allowed plenty of time for the cake to cool before decorating and I managed a whole round sphere with no collapsing cake in sight! I baked 2 hemispheres using my Lakeland hemisphere tin and sliced each in half. I cut a circle out of the top half of each hemisphere and stacked the whole cake with icing. The gap left by the cut out circle made a cavity for the M&Ms to go in. I covered the whole cake with a crumb coat icing then a further layer of icing before covering it with white fondant. I couldnt find my hexagon cutter so I had to make my own by cutting out a piece of cardboard in the shape of a hexagon and used that as my guide. I cant draw and it took me ages to get something that resembles a hexagon!

The cake is chocolate mint as requested by the birthday boy and the icing is mint buttercream icing. I piped some grass at the bottom of the cake board and cut out the number 8 to represent his age. The birthday boy was really pleased with the cake. He had a birthday party and the kids were impressed with the M&Ms inside the cake when the cake was cut. I asked for a photo which you can see below.









I used Nigellas old fashioned chocolate cake and doubled her recipe. I added in 1 tablespoon of peppermint extract for the mint flavour.
The peppermint icing is made of 250g butter, 500g icing flour and 1/2 tablespoon peppermint extract plus a little green food colouring.
For the decorations - 2 packs of white fondant icing, 1 pack of red fondant icing, 2 bags of M&Ms.