Nailed It! Not! Well, Taste-Wise I Got Close, but the Innards Looks Like Cut Grass or Oscar the Grouch. Oh, I Tried, Oprah. Really I Did.

Several years ago, my buddy Dave brought me Oprah's blue devil cake...her favorite baker in Nanuet, New York. It was easily the best slice of cake I ever had in my life. Ah, but it was blue with white icing. I found a few recipes that claimed to be similar, so I tried my hand at making a Mermaid cake for Pam's birthday yesterday. The cream cheese frosting came out the right color of green, but the inside cake darkened in the oven. I said, "This is what you find when ye cut into a mermaid, sailors."

It was good. The cake and the frosting, although I didn't quite get the OH MY GOD feeling of the cake from Nanuet. I will keep trying. I found aquatic candies for the top and a mermaid balloon to go with it.

The cake looks like something that would fall of my father's riding lawnmower after he insists on mowing in the rain.

Ah, but I need to head out early this morning. 300 books ordered. Kids from Norwalk, Bridgeport, and Stratford Public Schools. Two special authors debuting their collaborative new book for middle grade readers. It should be exiting, and I simply hope all the buses I ordered pick up the schools on time and that the author-mobile pulls into the Westport Library when it's supposed to.

In the meantime, I must deal with I-95 traffic at the worse part of the day. Wish me luck. 

To my credit, this is what the cake looked like before we cut into it.