It's been a while...

since I last posted and I've completely blown my New Year's Resolution to post at least once every month - oh well, only another 2 weeks til I get to start it all over again ha ha.

Lots of little distractions have been going on that have meant I've not been doing much in the way of baking or at least not a huge amount.

This week though I did make a horse head cake.  Nothing as macabre as The Godfather horse head - of course this is what's been in my mind all week whenever I thought about doing it, but as it was a for an eight year old girl I'm sure it's not quite what they were after!

I originally thought I'd do a full 3D horse and set about baking 4 1/2 sheet cakes of red velvet but as the end cake was to feed 20 people and not 200 I decided to scale it down a bit - okay real reason is I panicked that I wouldn't get the proportions right!  I started trying to draw a horse sitting down, on Thursday night, (cake due for pick up on Friday), I am the proverbial lastminute.com worker - well the advantage to that is extremely fresh cake :-)  Anyway, I fast realized that I can't draw a horse, insert lots of expletives here any ones you like as I'm sure I used them all and I also made up a few new ones too.  So, with the reassuring voice of reason of my husband - what he actually said, "was that looks sh*t, why don't you just do the head?", I decided that I'd do a horse head and made a template and went from there.

Friday morning all was quiet, except for me munching on some Dove peppermint bark squares well a girl needs to keep her strength up, and my iPod blaring to keep me company, and I set to work on carving the sheet cakes into a horses head.  The photo's will follow - no I didn't take any as I was carving as I'd probably have either cut my fingers off (yes I did use the biggest bread knife I have in the style of Buddy from Carlos Bakery and no my delusion knows no bounds!) or got the lens covered in red velvet and cream cheese frosting crumbs.  Alright, real reason is that I made one huge unholy mess whilst carving.  There was cake everywhere and I do mean everywhere, there's no way I could have recorded that evidence.

I got the cake done in 3 hours, well all up until the bridle and then I had to head off and do some mummy duties at the 4th grade winter party at school and then come home and finish the cake before the swim team chauffeuring began - just one of the reasons I've not been caking recently. 

By some small miracle, I got the bridle rolled and cut and attached and removed, scrapped and redone all before it was time to hit the pool and I was quietly pleased with it I don't mind telling you.  It's not often I feel that way, I usually feel like I'm going to throw up before cakes are delivered or picked up but not this time, maybe it was just the exhaustion taking over.

The cake was picked up and they loved it.  And I had just enough time to descale the kitchen of red velvet cake before the girls' friend arrived for a sleepover - it's all go in the burbs!

A close up without his ears - they wouldn't fit in the box!

Not so close up and with the ears, although I think I like him without them and it's okay to say that because he can't hear me ha ha ha!

Christmas cakes coming up, watch this space....

It's a Jungle Out There!

And all of a sudden it's been months since I posted anything....  Hmmm, my New Year's Resolution was good for 4 months, maybe I can redeem myself for the last half of the year?

I made this cake back in April for a neighbor's friend's baby shower - are you keeping up with this?  The cake is carrot cake, filled with real cream cheese frosting, real as in not Neufchatel or fat free but real, honest to goodness you can't count the calories REAL cream cheese.  Well, when you're adding 2lbs of powdered sugar to the cream cheese a little thing like full fat really pales into insignificance!

The design for this cake came from the invitations for the shower - I was going to make a palm tree to go on top too, but well, I forgot - how bad is that?  However, I think it would have been too crowded to add a tree too, don't you?  I knew you'd agree.

For any eagle-eyes out there, the giraffe's legs are in the cake, they really are....

As my 7yr old learned when I was baking this cake, carrot cake has real carrots in it!  Which means it's healthy and does count as one of your 5 per day ;-)

The animals are all edible, (even the ears on the giraffe which are spaghetti noodles), they're a mix of gumpaste and fondant.  Everything else is fondant too.  If you can't eat it, I don't use it!

The initial request was for the finish to be cream cheese, which it started off as, but I just didn't like the shade of blue, so I covered it in fondant as I could never have let it leave my kitchen the way it was, told you right at the beginning I was a little OCD when it came to cakes!

♫ Here comes the bride....♫

or rather, the wedding cake....

Of course, way back last year when Marge asked if I'd make her wedding cake, I truly didn't think that I ever would actually do it!  I told her I'd love to make it and that wasn't a lie, I was more worried about COULD I make it!  I mean, cakes for birthdays are special, but if it's not exactly what you wanted it to be (not that anyone has complained or told me this, at least not to my face), you usually have another go at getting it right the following year.  Not so much with a wedding cake, it's pretty much a one shot deal, unless of course your name is Kody Brown who currently has 4 wives and therefore 4 weddings, but that's a whole other conversation.....

I had planned many a sit down with Marge and her Stu, Stu BB as he's known in this household but for one reason or another we didn't really get to do that.  So, whilst they were here for another event (one which shall remain nameless as my team got beaten!) I prepared some cake and various fillings for them to try and low and behold 4 weeks before the wedding we had a cake flavor and fillings for each of the tiers, phew! 

We'd talked about some designs and colors etc in the passing but nothing really that formal, nor concrete. 2 weeks before the wedding I managed to tie the bride (aka Marge but I won't be able to call her the bride forever, will I?) down to color and final'ish design for her cake.

All systems go... well after the PTA Spring Carnival that I was heavily involved in both the planning and execution (and believe me I did think there was going to be an execution as the night drew to a close...) which happened to be wedding minus 1 week.  Now, this was a hectic time and tbh I think it's best that it was like that as I didn't have time to dwell and worry about the best way to do the cake until the day before the wedding.  Actually, that's a little fib.. I did bake one of the layers on the Thursday morning, but then had to clear up and head off to the bachelorette party (hen do) which started at lunch time, wonder who organised that so early in the day.... ahem.... Anyway from there to a PTA meeting in the evening and home to fill the tier that I'd baked earlier. 

You'd think with all of that activity I'd be fast asleep until the Jessica alarm came bounding in, but alas no.  3am - bing wide awake so I got up and started in on making the gumpaste flowers and some other decoration bits that needed time to dry.  It was actually quite theraputic in the wee hours of the morning not quite so much come 7am when the rest of the house wakened.  The girls were excited as they were heading off for Spring Break to Myrtle Beach, so I cleared away again (for that read I shoved everything to one end of the table and put the rest on the dining table out of the way) and spent some time with my babies before they headed off for the week.

Friday I got the other layers baked, filled and covered with fondant ready for the decoration.  Thankfully it was an evening wedding and the earliest I was allowed to deliver the cake was 4.30pm so I had lots of time on Saturday too to finish up.  Unfortunately not enough time to fully clear away the horrendous mess I'd made in the kitchen, dining room and breakfast table before showering and getting ready for the wedding and cake delivery.  Funnily enough it was all still sitting there waiting for me when I got home too :-(

We got the cake delivered to the venue and they were still setting up which meant we had to wait for almost 10 minutes which consequently put Stu in a cold panic that he may not have time to get to the English Pub before the ceremony started (but we did).  Got it all in place, in it's beautiful setting at the front of the dining room and off we set.  I was really nervous until I met the florist on the way out and he said 'awesome cake'. I'm thinking he's seen quite a few cakes in his time and this settled my nerves almost as much as that icy cold pint of Stella :-)

Okay, are you ready for some pics? In true style of my photography, the pictures are pretty dire, but I think you can still see the cake okay, you can, can't you?

From the front

From the top

All 3 tiers are vanilla cake.  The top and middle tier are filled with white chocolate buttercream and the bottom tier is filled with whipped milk chocolate buttercream layered with dark chocolate ganache.



From the back....
Oh, and the back has some lego panels with the lego bricks tumbling out, naturally ;-)



It's not just the Queen of England that has 2 birthdays....

Jessica's official birthday is on Wednesday which is a pretty tough day to coordinate for a party, so we went for it this past Saturday.  She had her 7th party at Splatter Rocks which is a pottery, painting, tie-dye, mosaic place.  The venue was pretty cool the actual party kind of lacking but that's from the paying adult's perspective - always a harsh critic where dosh in involved!  From the girls' point of view, everyone seemed to enjoy it.  The majority painted a tile which will have holes drilled in and ribbon threaded through for them to hang where ever they want to, or rather wherever their parents say they can.... Other choices were a unicorn, flower, turtle or snake.

Anyway, less about the actual party and onto the cake.  Jessica is a fairly tough customer when it comes to cake.  Most children choose chocolate or vanilla cake - not the Jedi, she requested marble cake with a red velvet & vanilla cake combination (she originally wanted rv & white chocolate but changed her mind).  The cake turned out pretty well.  Any bakers out there will know that the consistency of red velvet cake batter is waaaaaay runnier than regular yellow cake batter, mostly as it has vegetable oil as the fat and not butter!  Still, I did it and although it looked a little pink in places, there were definite pockets of white and red so I'll take that as a success.  The design request was for a lego themed cake, but different to the lego cake I'd done before - okay then....

This was a pretty last minute cake in that I started decorating at 8.20pm on Friday night (cake due next morning).  There's been so much going on recently outside of baking - now I've mentioned this before, but I really do do other things besides baking and making an almighty mess in the kitchen - that I really only had Friday night to get on and do the cake.  Alright, throw in a healthy dose of procrastination and you get the picture...

So, with the girls in bed, I started.  The marshmallow fondant just wouldn't co-operate.  I don't know if it was the temperature outside (it was 84F here on Friday), or if I just didn't nuke the marshmallows for long enough, whatever the reason, I had it on and off the cake several times before wanting to throw it all out of the window.  I even contemplated throwing the whole lot out, cake and all and buying one on Saturday morning from Publix, such was my frustration!  However, I put my hormones back in check and got on with it, just as all self-respecting mums do.  I wasn't particularly happy with the end result of the green marshmallow fondant but well, sometimes you've just got to go with what you've got!  The bricks were fun to do, and yes, yet again, I cut them all out to the sizes of real lego bricks.  (I'm thinking of making a silicon mould for these little things (not exactly what I was calling them on Friday night but that was the sentiment), I mean, really how hard can that be?  I'm almost positive there will be a youtube video, if not several, on how to do it.)  A saving grace was that Jessica didn't want her cake to look like the previous lego cake, which meant way less dots to cut and apply individually which was a time saver.  As it was, I finished the cake at 1.30am and after a very rough tidy and clean of my work area I hit the hay. 

6.45am Saturday morning, my bedroom door flew open and there was Jessica asking if she could a) see her cake and b) was it time to get ready yet?  No was the answer to both. 
6.50am - Jessica again, wanting to go downstairs to see the cake - reply = yes, but don't touch it!  Squeals of delight and awesome rang through the house from my little Southern Belle (oh yes, she's an English born all American Gal!).

We got to the party with everything remembered, except for cutlery to eat the cake with, all that had RSVP'd arrived and a fun time was had by all.  Especially Jessica who was completely overwhelmed (and just a tad obnoxious - only I am allowed to say that!) with all of the wonderful gifts she received - thank you to all who came and helped celebrate Jessica turning 7.



Jessica's 7th Birthday Party cake



Of course, thoughts have now turned to what she's going to have for her 'real' birthday cake for her official birthday! 

What a curious plan.....

For most of Feb (okay the last week of it) and 1st week of March, I summoned all of my sneakiness and subterfuge (pretty easy really for a Gemini) and managed to throw a surprise bridal shower for my friend Marge who is, spookily enough, getting married ♥

Being as how she's marrying an Englishman, I thought it only fitting that the shower be some form of tea party.  I checked this out with one of her colleagues (sneakiness part one) and she suggested a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and that's exactly what I went with. 

Operation MHTP phase one was to rid all local Goodwill Stores and by local I mean within a 20 mile radius of my house, of all of their mis-matched teacups, saucers, teapots and side plates.  Phase 2 was making mad hatter hats - well the youtube video I watched made it look so easy and it only took her 5 minutes - suffice it to say it took me a little longer :-)  I did have to make 4 of them though.  The initial plan was to make 2 -one for the bride and one for me but once the girls saw them of course they needed, not wanted, one each too, hence 4! 

Phase 3 was the making and baking of food, my favorite bit.  For a traditional tea party finger sandwiches, with the crusts cut off are a must, naturally!  There were a couple of platters of sandwiches, 2 quiches, kahlua & chocolate fudge (YUM), white cupcakes with raspberry coulis and white chocolate buttercream - nuff said, and caramel cupcakes with caramel icing, oh and a chocolate swiss roll with raspberry & whipped cream center. I'm not kidding when I say we had enough food :-)

Here are a few pics, these were taken by Jessica who was chief paparazzi until she was allowed food and then we never saw her again and that's the reason there are no late night photo's of the shower, truly it is....



Head table part 1



Need I say more?

 



 

The bride to be (or BB) with her usual wine glass!









Catch up!

Well, that resolution lasted well :-)  Broken in the 2nd month!  But, that's not to say I've not been baking, I have, I've just not been that great at either taking photo's of the delicious creations or blogging (should that be bragging? don't answer that) about them.

Let's see, what did I make in February? .... I did a last minute Superbowl cake, which was red velvet and cream cheese whipped frosting, and looked like well a football field!  This year it was the Greenbay Packers going head to head with the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The names were at either end of the field with their logos in fondant - but I didn't remember to take photo's of this, d'oh!  So you'll have to take my word for it that it looked pretty good and smelled even better!

Of course it was valentines day too last month, so for the girls classes I made cake pops and jammy dodgers with heart shapes instead of circles cut out - you'll need to take my word for the jammy's though as I didn't get a photo of them (are you seeing a pattern here?).  The cake pops I did though.  These little yummy things were chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream and pops to look like mini cupcakes.  The bottoms were dipped in milk chocolate and the tops in pink and then scattered with mini hearts ♥.

February was then consumed with a variety of girls scout and school (PTA) things... and planning a surprise Mad Hatter themed Bridal Shower for bride to be Marge ♥

Moving along swiftly to March....

MOM... Phineas and Ferb are laying on the grass doing nothing!

Lazy Days of summer with Phineas & Ferb



Wow - 3 posts in the one month, I am keeping to my new year's resolution :-) 

This week I've had a lot of fun making a Phineas & Ferb cake.  Now of course I'd heard of them, my girls watch Disney channel in between the adverts of all the other channels that they surf whilst watching the one they're really watching!  But, I did have do to a little research on them and that meant hours of web surfing flickr.com for ideas and other cake blogs & websites - not too arduous a task except well a few things did suffer because of it, namely the laundry, and well is it really terrible to serve reheats for dinner just one night of the week?  Stu seems to think so!

Of course I've still no idea who's who except for Perry the Platypus and that's only because he's a dead give away.  He might well be Agent P in the cake but I'd know that tail anywhere, lol.

As with most cakes I'm asked to do, my first thought is, okay this is going to be a challenge.  Usually followed by what the F was I thinking, how am I going to do that?  And, then I settle into it and color the fondant and gumpaste and get in the zone.  Getting into said zone absolutely always involves loud, good music (and this isn't subjective, my music is good!), no children no matter how good they are at helping and a clear space so that I can spread all of my stuff out and be able to see it and still spend 10 mins searching on the table for it because it is so cluttered - what can I say?  I'm messy. 

I made the triangly headed one first, I'll call him Phineas ;-).  The head was the easiest part, a square fondant cutter cut again to get the triangle and the bottom of  a massive icing tip to curve the mouth, so far so good.  Then it was onto Ferb.... hmmmm not so straight forward.  I rolled the fondant/gumpaste mix into what I'll call a sausage shape and not what it truly looked like(!), several times until it genuinely looked like it could become a person.  I tried 'glueing' fondant ears onto the side of his head but they looked plain daft so I pulled a little out of the sides of his head and well, I think they looked alright.  His nose was easy as was his mouth.  I also made the tree trunk out of chocolate marshmallow fondant and marked it to resemble bark - it really does okay?!  Feeling quite pleased with myself I estimated that the amount of time I'd need to make the rest of the bodies, leaves, and toadstools was (as per usual) no where near the true time it'd take!  End result, all time went to the cake and the Brownie & Daisy movie night party had non-homemade snacks and candy for dessert - they definitely didn't complain.

Alright, ready for some more pictures?




 

Agent P





Ariel view - I love that Agent P is hiding behind the tree!



♫ Pink Wheels keep on turning...♫

Okay, so a little poetic licence if you please....and yes, I'm now singing Sweet Home Alabama and probably will be for the rest of the day - you are so lucky you're not in the same room as me ;-)

Ever since I made the beaver cake for Nicholas, Abby has been thinking of a cool cake to come up with for her birthday and this one didn't fail - a rollerskate!  I was very excited to make this one - I know I'm easily pleased but it was a very fun cake to do.  It's a lemon pound cake stacked and carved from a 1/2 sheet cake.  Honestly, there's no end to my delusional state but it worked, and pretty darn well too if I say so myself!

Everything is edible, the wheels are rice crispie treats (home made of course) covered in fondant, the silver is lustre dust mixed with lemon juice - often I use vodka for this as it dries quickly and doesn't leave a taste but well perhaps not for a 7yr old's cake.... Okay, so the only bits not edible, or rather not recommended edible are the polystyrene blocks under the front and back ends to help suspend the cake.

Colours were chosen by the birthday girl and for a roller disco party I think they rock.  There were also pink & purple cupcakes in vanilla to complement the skate but again you'll have to take my word for that.  Well y'all have seen cupcakes before, right?

Is there an app for 'I love my iphone'?

Here goes one of my New Year's resolutions, that I haven't yet broken or abandoned... I'm going to make at least one post per month, fingers crossed here goes....

It's been a strange week here in the 'burbs of Atlanta.  It snowed last Sunday and we were all excited at the prospect of no school on Monday - we got our wish, five-fold - school's been out all week, the roads have been treacherous for the most part of that too.  The end result has been cabin fever, which is a very real and very traumatic form of psychosis!

A good part to being stuck home is not the endless cleaning that I could have been doing, where's the fun in that y'all?  But, I had time to make Stu's birthday cake.  What other kind of cake could I have made for the guy who has his iphone attached to his hand most of the waking day, but an iPhone.  I had fun doing this one.  It's all on a x3 scale - yes I measured meticulously and then set about cutting out the squares for the background apps and then making the icons to go in them, and no I don't have a cutter that's 2.7cm square they just don't exist!  The only cutter I had was for the music notes, all others are originals by my hand.  There are a few details missing, i.e. the chrome trim & buttons on the side and the white writing under each app.  These were the extra supplies I was going to pick up this week, along with his other birthday gifts but are all still in the stores right now as the roads have been horribly icy.

The cake is 13.5" x 6.9", 3 layer chocolate orange cake with chocolate orange whipped buttercream.  Cake balls with the trimmings to come.  The girls are making the cake balls, it was the trade off for them not 'helping' with the big cake, this might be the only post for January as I'll be cleaning the kitchen into February (and as always I had to google how to spell Feb!).....

Thanks for looking!