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!

♫ Fa la la la la....♫

Where has this year gone?  It's now December for crying out loud!  So, with time a-ticking it was time yesterday to wedge the laundry room door closed, out of sight out of mind and all that and get on with doing some holiday cakes.  I've started small with some cupcakes - well they take way more time than anything else as everything has to be so small to fit on the top.  For that read, they take more time which means less time to do laundry, are you with me now?

The cakes themselves are regular yellow cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant tops.  Now I've been using this same recipe for a good while now, so much so that I can make it without the instructions, smarty pants huh?  Well the fall usually comes after some silly show of pride and fall I did, or rather the 6" cake did.... I used 1% fat milk in the recipe instead of whole milk (that's what I usually use).  Well you know it's the season of over indulgence and I thought if I could save a few cals here and there it'd all be to the good.  Regardless that the recipe has 12oz of butter and there's another 6oz in the buttercream, ahem... Anyway, the recipe like all scientific formulae didn't like being messed around.  The cake took way longer to bake, of course I kept checking it every 5, then 10 mins past the time it should have been ready and yes I ended up with a divot in the centre of it, d'oh!  So what did I do?  Well, what any self-respecting baker would do.  I cut the cake in half, filled the sink hole with the oh so yummy buttercream and turned it upside down for the cut side to be decorated, 'ta da'.  And, yes, it does completely, utterly and unquestioningly blow away the calories and the reason for trying to reduce them in the first place, but what the H, it's Christmas, or nearly.  The Coca-cola ads have been on so it's definitely on its way!

Everything is edible and everything was hand cut/made by yours truly.  How cute are these?  I've got loads more designs to come, these are just a taster but first I need to get on and do a baby shower order due for tomorrow.  Pop back early next week to see what else has been going on in my kitchen.

Here they are individually too.