First Cake I Sold

I was asked to make a cake for a friends sons 3rd birthday.  She said he likes spiderman.  So, 3 days in advance, I baked 4 cakes, 2 10x3 " and 2 6x3" cakes.  All cakes were vanilla.  I baked, allowed them to cool, wrapped them, then put them in the freezer.  Then the night before the cake was due, I pulled them out and make some vanilla buttercream icing, and some royal icing (for glue).  I torted, carved and dirty iced the cakes, and decided to do only 3 layers on the bottom and 4 layers on the top.  The top, I also decided to put some Oreo cookie crumbs on the filling for some extra goodness.

I made 20 little cars, and 80 little wheels, this took a while.....I thought I could make the buildings stand tall but they wouldn't because the fondant was too soft, so I folded them over...ah well, you do what you have to do eh!!!  The road is black fondant with white strips cut out...and the buildings were just different colors with some windows, some had doors and a handle too....They I cut out the words, wrapped the bottom in yellow/red rope I made out of fondant.....But then I noticed a few tears and flaws in fondant, so I got out my cutter, and now the cake has some stars to cover all the sins :)....I sold it for $50, and she even gave me a $5.00 tip!!! Sweet!!!  I am off to make my first million...lol!!

Two More Cakes

For this cake, I wanted to make something simple for our dessert so I decided to try a Chocolate Fudge Tort and topped it with Chocolate Whipped Cream Icing.  The only fault was I didn't tort it (cut it in half midway), as the icing was so good, it would of been nice to have more of it!!!  This cake was gone by the end of the night as the last bit of it was left on the kitchen table and our cat decided to lick off the icing.

I  made a Spice Cake topped with Peanut Butter ButterCream, but didn't take any photos, but it was very good!!!!  Next time I will use either a regular buttercream, or a cream cheese icing, and the spice cake doesn't need anything else.

Next was Coltons First Birthday Cake.  For this cake I was so excited, I baked my cakes on Thursday, but didn't freeze them, that was the first problem, I wrapped them and put them in the fridge....ALWAYS freeze your cakes, it makes them more moist and lets you decorate them with ease.  The next mistake was making the Buttercream icing on on Friday and left it in the fridge.  The reason it was a mistake was on Saturday I came home and had the house to myself...Trevor and the 3 kids were out at the campground, and Colton was now asleep and I had the whole night to do this cake....WELLLLLL....I pulled out the icing, and re read the recipe only to find out that the icing needs to come to room temp.  before rewhipping or it will curdle...  Well it took almost 4 hours for this to happen and it still curdled.  The taste wasn't the greatest, and  I was sadly disappointed in this cake.  The moistness wasn't there as I didn't use a simple syrup before I refrigerated it and the icing was curdled so the test was off.   I wasn't even too impressed with the cake design....yet again, another 3 am adventure, questioning why I am doing this....But to get perfection we must try and try again!!!

I do like the little train I made, carrying his name...that was my favorite part!!!  The humidity was high so there was quite a sheen on the cake!

Been a long time but lots of Cakes

So its been awhile since I blogged, but hey its summer!!!!  I have done tons of stuff so far this summer with the kids.  Campground, WaterPark, Play dates...lots of fun!!!!

Here are some Halloween Bags I sewed up to sell at the campground store.  It was a neat design, I used a pillowcase pattern and attached some straps.  If you look inside there are no seams to be seen .. tricky eh!!!

Next onto some of the beautiful cakes I have made.  The first one here was for my daughters 6th birthday Party.  I always start out with the grandest ideas, then somewhere around 3 in the morning, while looking at a mess of a kitchen and a table full of stuff, I question why I do the things that I do.  However, when the final product is done, I am super happy with the results and I give myself an A for effort!!!!
Here are some shots of the cake I did for her!

I made her a purple, 2 tiered, chocolate and vanilla castle.  I made the pink flowers out of gumpaste and used some royal icing tinted green for the grass and  to glue them on.  I rolled the top of the pillars in melted purple candy melts then into those sprinkle hearts you find at the grocery store.  I made the cakes a few days ahead and froze them, and made the buttercream icing the day of.  It was delicious.  The fondant, I used a cobblestone press to make it look old school.  I put a furry little crown on top with a couple of princess figures I bought at Toys R Us.  The kids loved it and Madison was in heaven!!!!!!

Two Cake Attempts and my baby girl' SK Graduation

Here is an attempt at decorating a cake for a party that Madison went too.  Again, I had problems with my buttercream icing being too warm, and the decorations not holding up well.  I was pretty happy with my roses, because it took me a long time to get it right.  And although they are not perfect, they are a far way from where I started.  The colors of course are her favorite colors.  :)





Here is a picture of my beautiful baby girl and her teacher at senior graduation.  She was so proud, what a day.  I would love to say I didn't cry, but of course I was crying the minute it started.  I am such a lush :)

And finally, here is my last cake I made, I was pretty happy with it.  I made a 3 layer vanilla/chocolate sponge, with chocolate ganoche and strawberry puree filling on the chocolate layer, and a buttercream on the vanilla layer.  The flowers were all made by using gum paste.  I did them the day before, shaped them and let them dry and then put them on the cake after I frosted it.  Again, I found it hard to decorate with the buttercream as it was really warm :( ... I especially liked the gumpaste roses, they took awhile but there very nice to look at!!!

Beachday!

Well, after a few days in the house, the kids are having some cabin fever.  The weather here is HOT, HUMID and yucky and I have had no desire to go out.  Considering the past week we were gone from dawn to dust 5 days in a row.  It was nice to stay home for a few days and catch up on the normal household chores.  Anyways, today we are going to the campground for a swim.  I even put on my bikini 8) .... but whatever, who cares, I am wearing a bikini!!!  The kids will be so happy to have me out there swimming with them, they don't care at all, although she likes to say things like "You look nice Mommy, but your bums a little big...no offense"....lol....what a kid :)  The little guy still has a runny nose but I think its from teething, so I gave him some advil and he is napping right now.  I will take him out in the lake too, nothing like fresh air and sunshine to ward off any illness.  And depending on how tired I am at the end of the day, we may even take the 2 little ones to see a movie, they want to see Toy Story 3!    In another few weeks my little girl will be 6, and a week after that my little baby boy turns into a toddler and is celebrating his first birthday.  I think its time for another baby!!!  Right Trevor??????  Lets have one more PLLLLLEEEAASSE!!!  lol!!!

Canada Day

For Canada Day, we spent our time at my husbands family campground.  Trevor is a licensed pyrotechnic, so he is legally allowed to blow stuff up :) ..  I am usually a ball of nerves until the show is over as there are so many things that can go wrong with fireworks.  Here are just a few pics of the weekend.  I will post more, once I get them off my camera :) ... Here is me with my littlest Colton, almost 1 year old now :(  .. guess its time to have another one ;)

Ah....gotta love a man in uniform!  Especially when its my husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Family

These pictures were taken in June (I think).  Colton is growing so fast.  He just loves to stand up against things, and dance.  He is a lot of fun to be around.  He loves to tell me tons of stories too :).   When we go to the park, he gets really excited to go on the swing or to stand up against the climbing wall.  Madison loves to push him in the swing and tries to help out anywhere she can with him.  So cute!

Fathers Day Cake

So, I decided to give it another go, practice makes perfect right? Well, I decided to make a Strawberry layer cake, from a Wilton recipe and I made buttercream icing, from the Wilton website as well. And I made some chocolate ganache too for the filling. I did some chocolate covered strawberries too to top the cake off. I had made the Strawberry Cake before, but in 2 8inch pans, this time, I doubled the recipe and used 2 10inch pans.
The cake turned out too moist and the buttercream icing was too sweet. I used basketweave decorations as I wanted to get really good at it. Overall, it was hard to eat, icing too sweet, cake too moist :( .. the best part was the chocolate covered strawberries!

My Second Cake

For my second cake, my husband and I decided to be quite ambitious! Since we are avid watchers of Cake Boss, we decided to a 2 tier pound cake, with 2 cakes on each tier, square then cover with Fondant. We had some amazing ideas in our head, and since it looked so easy on the TV we figured, how hard could it be. So off to the store we go to buy our supplies, the cakes I baked looked nice enough and although too sweet, the buttercream icing I made also was good. Now here where I went wrong. I first of all, didn't put enough icing between the layers, which if you have ever eaten pound cake, it needs a lot of something between the layers. Second, I thinned out my icing using milk (poured by eye measurements and used my mixer to incorporate) and poured it on the cake. It was sliding everywhere. Then after about 2 hours, finally got the fondant on, it took that long to roll out and it was horribly difficult to get it to stay put and nicely smoothed out on top of all the mushy icing. I had purchased some edible sheets and had music notes printed on it for the top of the layers, and my husband did a hand made out of cereal treats to look like it was coming out of the cake. The cake ended up looking, ok, but it wasn't tasty, it was dry :( ... Ah well, only my second cake.

My First Cake

Well, for my birthday I got the Wilton decorating tip set, so I thought I would give it a try. Since my wedding cake was basketweave, I looked up online how to do this. I did it too! I was so happy, I did only bake a cake from a box, but I was able to decorate it myself. The only unfortunate thing was when I went to show someone the cake, the board bent and the cake dropped on the floor :(
Here is a picture of my first cake!!!

The Cake Bible

I recently ordered my own (YEAH) copy of The Cake Bible, and Rose's Heavenly Cakes, both books by Rose Levy Beranbaum. After reading several sites, and doing a ton of research and making some cakes that, well, were just OK, I thought these books might be exactly what I was looking for. So in few days, they should arrive and then I will starting baking. I also joined a blog called Heavenly Cake Bakers, where, twice (or 4 times) a month we all make the same cake and post our pictures and our results. I thought this was great, as it would give me a chance to make something that I might not ordinarily make, and of course another reason to bake :). I have tried a few different cake recipes and icing recipes, mostly from the Wilton website. They were good, but standard cakes. I am excited to read Rose's books as they sound divine!!!! I hope to one day open my own little bakery or General Store, and sell all the things I love to make. In the late summer, I start my canning and I can dill pickles, sweet pickles and both raspberry and strawberry jam. I also love to crochet and knit and quilt! I am excited as this blog will be a nice place for me to post my trials and errors and end results!!!