Happy Birthday, Rorschach!
Today, I celebrated the birthday of Rorschach, one of the main characters from my newest object of geeky obsession, Watchmen. We know from the documents at the end of Chapter VI of the graphic novel that he was born on March 21, 1940. I decided to celebrate by baking a cake and having my "Rorschach Special" for dinner.
I made the cake last night, using cake mix and a pan I already had in the house. I knew I wanted to make an inkblot design in frosting, but I only had chocolate frosting. I did have a bag of powdered sugar, though, so I looked up the recipe and made vanilla frosting from scratch. That was fun. I made the design by putting the storebought chocolate frosting in a plastic bag and cutting off one of the corners, so I could squeeze lines of frosting out onto the cake.
I knew I wanted a chocolate border that I could decorate with sugar cubes, but I wasn't sure what kind of design to make inside the border. I considered drawing the "butterfly/dog-with-head-split-in-half" inkblot, but thought that would just be too disturbing to put on a cake, so I decided to "scrawl my own design" instead. My own design didn't turn out to be very interesting, though. I tried to make the chocolate frosting symmetrical, but didn't do it perfectly. I made sure the decoration continued to be symmetrical when I added the sugar cubes and the candles. (I was lucky enough to find black-and-white candles at my local grocery store today.)
This is the way I had the cake turned when I was putting on the chocolate frosting.
Turned the other way around.
My "Rorschach Special" consists of baked beans, served over fried eggs and toast. I realize this is more elaborate and labor-intensive than anything we actually see him eat, but I like this meal. This is the third time I've made it; the first two times were the night I had the "Watchmania" discussion with some of my podcasting friends, and the night I went to see the movie.
Chlop. Thlup. Shorp. Lep.
Two of my friends came over to hang out and celebrate with me. One of them had accompanied me to see the movie. The other was interested in why I was having the party and in my Watchmen graphic novel. She looked through it while I ate dinner, and we talked about it. After I had finished my dinner, we lit the candles, sang (we sang "happy birthday, dear Walter" because I had told my graphic-novel-reading friend most of his backstory already by this point, and it was just easier to sing), and then I blew out the candles.
The cake was delicious, and I had a lot of fun celebrating. Happy birthday, Rorschach! :-)
I made the cake last night, using cake mix and a pan I already had in the house. I knew I wanted to make an inkblot design in frosting, but I only had chocolate frosting. I did have a bag of powdered sugar, though, so I looked up the recipe and made vanilla frosting from scratch. That was fun. I made the design by putting the storebought chocolate frosting in a plastic bag and cutting off one of the corners, so I could squeeze lines of frosting out onto the cake.
I knew I wanted a chocolate border that I could decorate with sugar cubes, but I wasn't sure what kind of design to make inside the border. I considered drawing the "butterfly/dog-with-head-split-in-half" inkblot, but thought that would just be too disturbing to put on a cake, so I decided to "scrawl my own design" instead. My own design didn't turn out to be very interesting, though. I tried to make the chocolate frosting symmetrical, but didn't do it perfectly. I made sure the decoration continued to be symmetrical when I added the sugar cubes and the candles. (I was lucky enough to find black-and-white candles at my local grocery store today.)
This is the way I had the cake turned when I was putting on the chocolate frosting.
Turned the other way around.
My "Rorschach Special" consists of baked beans, served over fried eggs and toast. I realize this is more elaborate and labor-intensive than anything we actually see him eat, but I like this meal. This is the third time I've made it; the first two times were the night I had the "Watchmania" discussion with some of my podcasting friends, and the night I went to see the movie.
Chlop. Thlup. Shorp. Lep.
Two of my friends came over to hang out and celebrate with me. One of them had accompanied me to see the movie. The other was interested in why I was having the party and in my Watchmen graphic novel. She looked through it while I ate dinner, and we talked about it. After I had finished my dinner, we lit the candles, sang (we sang "happy birthday, dear Walter" because I had told my graphic-novel-reading friend most of his backstory already by this point, and it was just easier to sing), and then I blew out the candles.
The cake was delicious, and I had a lot of fun celebrating. Happy birthday, Rorschach! :-)