Father's Day in Deep Creek - June 2010

Every year my husband and I go to Deep Creek Lake in Maryland for a week with his family.  Even though it's only immediate family, it seems like we're increasing in number by the year.  There are six kids to start with, and 4 of the 6 have significant others that come along.  Then two of those four have one kid each.  This brings us to a total of 14 people in one house on the lake for a week.  Contrary to how it might sound, it's actually pretty fun.  And each of those two couples is currently pregnant with their second baby, so we'll be up to 16 people next year.  We may eventually have to do two separate houses!

Because we're vacationing with a small army, we can really pack it in when it comes to food.  Everyone brings a load of snacks, cereals, drinks, etc. to throw into the communal pot for the week and each night a different couple takes care of dinner for the whole group.  It's a big task when it's your night, but it's nice to know that you only have to do it once and that you're not going to spend a fortune on eating at restaurants for a week. 

When I was planning for our dinner this year I realized that our second night in Deep Creek was Father's Day, so I jumped at the chance to make that our dinner night.  It was a two-fold benefit - one, we got our night out of the way early and two, I got to decide on a really cool cake to bring for the three fathers in the group.  I spent about a week searching for different designs that were impressive yet realistic for a newbie, and eventually I had a light bulb - make a Steelers cake!  We're all huge fans and it would be fun to practice using piping gel to outline a pattern.  I used the standard white buttercream again, with devil's food cake.  I was really careful coloring the black parts of the icing, and while it wasn't pitch black like I wanted, it was definitely more important to make it edible.  Everyone really liked this cake and it was a great way to end our Father's Day at the lake.