Photostory Friday: Crazy Daisies

Hosted by Cecily and Mamarazzi

A bit overdue, but here are the pictures of the grand finale cake we did in my fondant and gumpaste class. Let me just tell you that this cake was a comedy of errors in the making. I iced and covered the cake before we left for the desert that Thursday night to keep it fresh (and minimize the work I had to do when we got back Sunday night for my class on Monday). I made the mistake of covering it with saran wrap.
I came home to a hug fondant bubble and wilted, wrinkly sides. I had ripped the fondant a bit in the first covering and had planned to recover it anyways, but this definitely made sure that I had to recover it. I stayed up till about midnight on Sunday making all of the daisies, only to walk into class Monday night and realize that I'd left them at home. Funniest part is that they were sitting on the table, right next to the cake! I did the garlands and borders and trinket box in class and added the daisies when I got home. The pictures don't show it very well, but I did a very light sparkly dusting on the cake itself to make it shimmer a little bit. (and to hide some of the imperfections in my fondant covering)
I really like the design itself. I combined two designs from the books to make this one. I loved the daisies spilling out of the trinket box on another cake, so I decided to use that for the center of my finished product. The cake itself was a yellow cake with vanilla flavored buttercream filling and icing under the Wilton pre-made fondant. We used that for class, and honestly, I don't think it's half bad. It has the taste and flavor of an airhead, in my opinion. All but one person at work liked the fondant. I guess it's all just a matter of taste. This is definitely one of my favorite cakes though, so bright and cheery.




Hosted by Cecily and Mamarazzi

Much Ado About Cakes

We went to Disneyland for my littlest brother's birthday instead of having a big party. He really wanted to go to Disneyland, and a big party just didn't seem to fit into the crazy baseball schedule they've got going. I seriously do not know how my mom does it. She's got to be superwoman, I'm absolutely convinced. Since we didn't do a big party, my aunt and uncle offered to do a cake for my brother at Easter for the family. Since I didn't get to make him a big, fun cake for his birthday, I got to make him a smaller cake for Easter. This is the first and only pre-formed pan cake that I have ever made. Some of the contours were a but more challenging than I had expected. But I am overall pretty satisfied with how it turned out. The little imperfections actually work for this cake, being a pirate ship and all. My brother was really excited about it, which was enough for me. The cake itself was a white cake with butter flavored buttercream icing.

This is the birthday cake that I made for my cousin Ariel. We almost always have a cake for her at Easter since her birthday. Since I've been learning to make cakes and can always use the practice, my aunt and uncle took me up on my offer to make the birthday cakes this year. My
Cousin loves bright colors and gerbera daisies. Her favorite color is green, which is why the accent border is green. I had a lot of fun making the daisies, even though I had to repair a few petals that I broke. Gumpaste gets very fragile once it dries...at least when I make delicate flowers. My cousin knew what the flowers were right away and absolutely loved the cake. It was a gluten free dark chocolate mix with an irritating but delicious cream cheese filling and butter flavored buttercream icing. All the decorations are gumpaste or a gumpaste/fondant mixture.

Hello

Apparently I'm not entirely past that whole blog writing apathy thing yet. Working on it. Time seems to be short these days. Or rather, I just have too much with which to fill it. But don't worry, I'm still here, I haven't disappeared (contrary to what my lack of posting might indicate)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Ours was rather eventful what with the ground rolling for 2-3 minutes. Longest earthquake I've ever felt (that I remember) The fiance was sitting down and wasn't feeling well so I went out to the back patio to get him a glass of water. As I was standing there, it felt like the table was moving....or I was moving. I'm usually really fast at this stuff and hyper sensitive to earthquakes, but this one took me a moment. My whole family was together, gathered throughout the house, wondering when it was going to stop. My mom was leaning against the door near where the fiance was sitting, and ended up having to sit down in the fiance's lap because she got so dizzy. I wasn't inside at the time, but it was a rather entertaining story. The water in the pool sloshed a good 5 or 6 inches over the side, it was crazy.

I finished my fondant and gumpaste class, I learned a lot and am having a great time with all the new creative possibilities. As for the class itself, I relied on my visual learning and the pictures/instructions in our book. By the end my teacher was speaking primarily in Spanish, but at that point it wouldn't have mattered if she was speaking Swahili, because I had switched to visual learning. I definitely won't take another class there, but I'm glad I got the fondant and gumpaste under my belt. I will have 3 new cake pictures up later this week.

We're rapidly closing in on the one year mark to our wedding. Things are starting to get going, still have a lot to do though. I couldn't be more excited about everything, it's so nice when everything falls into place :)

The Language of Fondant

It's a good thing I didn't write this post last night, or it might have come out sounding frustrated and even a little bit mean.

I had my first fondant and gumpaste class last night. I guess I should have taken into consideration where I was taking it, but it didn't really cross my mind. I have a new found compassion/sympathy/empathy for ESL students and Spanish speaking students who come into schools where English is the main or only language.

My teacher kept switching between English and Spanish, but even when she was in English her accent was so heavy and she spoke so softly and mumbled her words, it was difficult to understand her. Thankfully, the two girls across the table took pity on me and translated when necessary, but even they were confused at times. She is definitely not nearly as good a teacher as my last one. I think I can still learn and make it through the course. I will not take another class at that store though. I'll drive to another store up by where I did my student teaching if I have to.

On the upside, fondant is fun and I'm glad I am learning to use it. It's definitely a cool medium to learn.

Photostory Friday: 2 am

Hosted by Cecily

2 am

Never fails.

It doesn't seem to matter how prepared I am,

how difficult the design is

how quickly I work,

You will find me in the kitchen

surrounded by icing, decorator tips and couplers,

spatulas, toothpicks and icing bags,

until

2 am

Results like these? Make it all worth it.


Hosted by Cecily

**Hopefully it's apparent, but this is a surfboard, modeled after my future father-in-law's board, the board which our friend Shawn loves. The cake is for Shawn's last day working with us before heading to a new job.

The Many Reasons

... I've been so remiss in posting:

Lots of baking, cupcakes to be decorated. Wouldn't those baby ones be cute for a shower? I had a lot of fun piping the clown bodies into different poses.














My first ice cream cake for the bf's dad's birthday. (full post on the making of this cake will come soon)





Had to hang around with these guys for a bit and see the new routines.

And then this cutie just begged for some fish. The bf, his nephew and I obliged.





And of course we had to go visit the mouse and help save the galaxy from the Evil Emperor Zurg. I hit L-4 with a score of 264,800. I love that game. :)

And of course I have this beautiful little
girl to keep me and the bf quite busy.

Photostory Friday: Let Them Eat Cake

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

I know I've been rather scarce of late, but I have an excellent reason. (aside from just being way too busy for my own good) I've started taking Wilton cake decorating classes at our local Michaels. I've always wanted to do this, and with classes 50% off this month I just could pass it up. Here is my first cake that we did in class on Wednesday.

I brought it to work on Thursday and it was devoured rather quickly. It was a white cake with strawberry pie filling and extra almondy flavored frosting. And I do mean extra almond. See, that can happen when a certain girl (me) misreads a recipe. Teaspoon and tablespoon are two very different measurements, in case you were wondering. It still tasted delicious, just extra almondy. Almond extract reminds me of Christmas, so I love the flavor and scent. Here's a picture of the filling before I layered the cake.

I was up till 12:30 icing this and getting all my class buttercream prepped, but it was so much fun! The next day we found out that one of our guys was leaving today because he got a job to pen a screenplay for a major motion picture. Totally random, but really exciting. I immediately decided I wanted to practice my new cake skills. I knew I wanted to do a film reel and found some great ideas online. I was thinking about a few other things, and the bf suggested a screenplay sheet cake. It all turned out really well. I came home from class around 8:30 and worked until about 2 am. I finished everything up last night and got to bed by about 11:30. Later than planned but much earlier than the previous nights. (I'm still in need of sleep though)
The screenplay turned out pretty well...that was the first one they cut into. Dave was very surprised and very thankful that I'd taken the time to do this. The bf helped me carry them over to their office. They were all really excited to see two cakes. The film reel is still my favorite, I'm thrilled with how it came out.
Both cakes are devil's food with colored vanilla icing. The black circles on the film reel are colored chocolate icing (started as vanilla). The "film" is fruit-by-the-foot. I got the idea to use that from one of the websites I found when looking for ideas to help me out. The best part is that I made both cakes using just the things that we have learned in our first two classes. Everyone really enjoyed them, both visually and tastily. (shut up, I'm tired and allowed to make up words if I want) And Dave was really excited, which was the best part. I would really love to design and make cakes as a business someday, and I already have people at work commenting about it. So much fun, I'm so glad I finally decided to do this. I will definitely post more pictures as I make more cakes! I'm slowly building a portfolio. Three cakes already in about as many days. I'm ready for a good long nap!

Today's Photostory Friday brought to you with inspiration from the lovely ladies below. Check it out and play along!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek