Easy lovely.

I had grand visions of making something lovely, a pristine, perfectly formed layer cake, covered in a smooth layer of delicious white frosting. You’d cut through the frosting to reveal a happy surprise – a rainbow cake, each layer a different shade.
I’ve never even attempted a layer cake before.

I was going to find the perfect recipes for the cake and the frosting and make everything from scratch. But then I thought, why not just do it? Why not stop getting caught up in the planning and the pursuit of perfection and make something mostly effortless. An easy lovely.

So: cake mix and jarred frosting.
The outside was sloppy, the layers clearly evident, frosting all over the place. The bottom layers of the cake broke, so much that I laid the cake on its side so it could maintain some structural integrity. It was not a beautiful cake.
But then I called the girls ‘round and we watched, anticipating as I cut the cake open.

Ooh.
It was even better than I thought, the happy surprise of rainbow layers I was looking for coupled with the awe on the faces of my girls.

And the face plants into the frosting because the littlest didn’t want to get her fingers dirty.