<p>I’m going to be visiting my boyfriend (Brown '09) in March and I’m wondering if there’s anywhere I could bake a birthday cake. Any dorm with a spiffy kitchen and barely-there residents who wouldn’t mind an interloper making a German Chocolate cake? At Colgate, many of our facilities are availible to the community for a nominal fee. Any community kitchens at Brown? I simply shudder to think of a birthay party with no home-made baked goods!! How about in Providence? I know this is ridiculous, but bakery goods just don’t cut it…</p>
<p>I’m glad someone helped you out and will let you use their facilities in their dorm. </p>
<p>However, how are you traveling to Brown? Plane? Train? Automobile? Can you bring the cake already baked in the pan and then find a place to just ice and decorate it in Providence (you don’t really need a kitchen to do that). </p>
<p>Just so you know, the past two years, I have baked, iced and decorated a cake for my college daughter and MAILED it! It got there in one piece, candles affixed and all! The only thing different was that I iced and decorated it in the pan to give it structure for mailing. It was a hit. I have always baked and decorated cakes for my kids and I didn’t want them to not have that on their birthdays. This was for my kid who turned 17 and 18 while away at college, still young enough to get a home baked birthday cake from mom. Then again, you are never too old. </p>
<p>Mallomar, however, I was quite touched when last year, for my 49th birthday, my D who attends Brown was home and baked and decorated a cake for me…a first. :D</p>
<p>My friend’s mom just sent her a cake in the mail! It was delicious. She sent the icing in a little tub though and we put it on here. Good stuff, wish my mom would do that!</p>
<p>I’m a mom of a student waiting to hear from colleges about acceptances. Please explain to me how the cakes make it by mail in one piece! I know the US Post Office tries their best, but don’t they put boxes on top of each other and in their trucks, don’t things get bounced around?</p>
<p>CMA…I know this sounds whacky but I tried it and it worked last year and I did it again this year (this is for my other daughter who attends NYU, not Brown) and again, it arrived in one piece, decorations and candles intact, etc. </p>
<p>As I mentioned, I kept the cake IN the pan, which I normally do not do when icing a cake at home. Therefore, only the top was iced. I decorated it, wrote on it, etc. This was in a rectangular baking pan. I put Saran Wrap across the top of the cake with a wax paper sheet first so as not to stick. Then, I taped a sheet of bubble wrap on top of that. I bought a mailing box that was almost the same exact size as the rectangular baking pan so that the cake could not move around much within the box in any direction. Then I just mailed it and I told the roomie it was coming and to make sure my D checked her mailbox. My daughter was surprised to get a homebaked cake all decorated like old times, though maybe not as elaborate as many in the past. But it was still like a bit of home and a bit of mom right there on her birthday which were her first birthdays ever away from home (she was turning 17 during freshman year, and then 18 this year). She had friends over and lit the candles and so forth. I thought it was chancy the first time. But I had called the food services at her school about having a cake made and delivered as they had such a service. But the price they were charging was VERY high. My cake not only cost less but was way more meaningful as it was keeping our yearly birthday cakes by mom alive and just a hit with the kids and a touch from home. So, give this a try. Keep it in the pan and make the box be the same exact size as the pan pretty much. I’ve now done it twice with much luck! </p>
<p>Good luck to your kid with college admissions.</p>
<p>Don’t send candles with the cake if your kid is at Brown…it’s a $100 fine per candle, so if she’s 18, that’s $1800. Doesn’t even matter if they’re not lit.</p>