Half 'n Half

This year I was asked to make the cake for mother's day and my mother-in-law's birthday for our family's celebration. I wasn't sure how I was going to do both, since we didn't need two whole cakes. When it all came together though, I was super happy with the outcome.

I made my mother-in-law's birthday cake with flowers because she loves to garden and grow things! She is also one of those people who makes you want to bloom right where you are planted.

As for the rest of the mothers that we were celebrating, I just wanted something that was complimenting to the birthday side with bright and cheerful colors.

Wedding Cake

Yesterday, I went to Harps in Little Rock to order my wedding cake. I had expected to walk and look through some books and then tell them what I wanted. I was pleasantly surprised when the worker picked up the books and led me to a table. She sat me down and told me to begin looking while she got me some cake to taste. I was thinking...a small piece of cake or two...not even close.

Out she walks with this tray!










There were five kinds of cake and three kinds of icing to mix and match.

So I am sitting there looking through three-ring binders full of pictures of wedding cakes now eating this glorious cake and thoroghly enjoying myself, when I thought...poor Brian should be involved in the process of picking what will be his wedding cake too. (Yet another thing I love about him...he is actually interested in wedding plans and quite helpful with all the details!) So I text him a couple of pictures of different designs, so that he can help me with this decision. Of course, I can't help but torture him with a picture of all the cake that I am getting to try, not sure he appreciated that much (good thing he has a sense of humor!).

This is the one that we both liked. We changed up the details and colors a little, but you will have to wait until the wedding pictures are done to see all of those.

Spring Fever!

I had a request for a hiking/camping cake for a relatives birthday. As I was making it, I thought back to all the camping memories that I have. There aren't many as an older teen/adult (unless you count field time in the military...haha), but many great memories as a child. Anyway, I went about making this cake which had a lot of firsts for me. They wanted an orange cake, so I made about three different cakes before I got the right taste (or what I thought might be the right taste as I have never had orange cake before). I have also never used other foods beside cake or icing to decorate.

The trees trunks are Honey Wheat Pretzels with green icing piped around the top. I used gramcrackers covered in icing for the tent and the chair. The little marshmellow is really a marshmellow...which brings us to the only unedible piece on the cake and the is the toothpick that the marshmellow is on.

With all of this camping and outside fun on my mind, I found myself wishing for the summer and sunshine more than ever before. Spring break is just arond the corner. Maybe I can get my fill then, but that's another post altogether.

Spring Fever

I was doing good with this whole Missouri winter thing until a few days of 45 and 50 degree weather! Now it's on my mind. To say I have spring fever is a gross understatement. So the other day when a friend asked me to make a birthday cake for her husband, who loves the outdoors and hiking/camping, My fever got even worse! But anyway, here is the finished producted. Needless to say, the first sign of nice weather this is going to be me!

This is the first time I have tried to put some other type of filling besides a spread inside a cake. This cake ended up four layers of chocolate cake with strawberry inbetween two and whip cream icing in the middle layer.

It was by far the hardest one I have done yet. The strawberries made the cake shift and move and my whip cream icing losted its fluff so after I had gotten the outside iced the cake fell and I had to do some repair work. But here is the final product.

Busy doing nothing.

So I haven't updated in forever...no excuse. I am not busy, just so "not busy" that there is nothing to write about.

How about some pictures of the latest cakes? Thats always better than the boring going on around here~

This one is strawberry cake with buttercream icing, but I put strawberry jello in the filling between the layers. It turned out really yummy!

This small cake was left over from cupcakes...I try never to waste an opportunity to practice, so here is my practice. I didn't make the icing for this particular cake so it is a little well un-coordinated color wise but hey practice is practice right!!!

This one was before I started class...you can tell because it isn't flat on top...it slopes!  :~P I really like the simplicity of only two colors, but I think smaller lines would have been more ellegant.

The first cake I made at cake decorating class. We were supposed to write Happy Birthday on it, but since I didn't know of anyone's birthday, I just left it blank.

Well, that is my life for the past couple of weeks. CAKES...very interesting hobby...my commander and 1sg had tons of fun with me taking baking classes as they call them. But hey it makes mondays something to look forward too.

Maybe I should coordinate a little better!

The color scheme on this cake is off. I think that there are too many different ones and they don't really go together, but I had icing left over and since I don't have a big fridge I actually made the cake specifically for the icing this time. I had certain things I wanted to practice too, so here it is.

This is the first time I have actualy used roses that I have made. I have practiced them a lot...just to scoop them all back into the icing bowl to do it again. Mostly because, I don't really like a lot of icing on my cake, so I think everyone else is the same. Haha...I have learned that is not true.

Here's another experiment...

I have been atempting to create a filled cupcake. This is a raspberry filling. I had a little trouble though because it was too thin. Cream cheese and things with that consistancy work great and are really easy with this new cake decorating tip that I have...jellies or jams would probably work, but I think they would be too sweet so I used fresh fruit. It was interesting to do, but tasted great and had a different look too!

Then I got tired! HAHA. Here are the rest that I didn't fill.

Practice makes perfect

So I have stopped baking for a minute and started practicing!

 Here are just a couple of the designs that I have tried out. I am not great at any of them yet especially making tight roses, but I am working on it.

Anyone have a favorite icing flower that they have used in the past?

You know its a bad day...

Not even gonna go into it. But here is the product!

It isn't one of my greatest...I like the design, especially the weave, but I think it needed the stars on the bottom layer too. You might be able to see, the top layer is offset (not intentionally), so that kinda throws it off too! And I am still having trouble getting my icing consistency right. If you look close you can tell that the white icing is too thin, and the brown icing is a little too thick. Any helpful hints would be greatly appreciated!

Decorating brownies

Ok, so I really think that brownies never turn out...well...cute. You know they have that brownie pan that seperates the brownies as they cook, which I think was such a smart idea. But as I have established in earlier posts, I am WAY too cheap to buy it!LOL. So I have tried a couple of new things.

1. I now dump my brownies before I cut them. It helps a little with the breaking tops and crumblings.

2. I have tried to use a spatula to cut them, but I think that a really big knife would work well too.

3. I have cutened them up! (Is that a word?) Anyway, I have tried to make them something more than just plain brown.

So here they are...

Third times a charm!

Good thing this was my first time!

This is my first atempt with fondant. It was fairly easy, but i made a few mistakes along the way. One thing is for sure...there is no patching up with fondant! But it was a fun try.

I decided to use the leftover icing for leaves...kind of a funny green but it worked ok I guess!

More self prescribed therapy

Here are a couple more cakes that I made today.

It was one of those cakes that I hated while I was doing it. Couldn't get it done fast enough! It was a little more dfficult than I was used to.

So after I got done with that really annoying butterfly, I did a funny cake with the leftover batter I had.

Both of these turned out better than my last cake!

 I was so frustrating at the time that I just started

 slinging icing everywhere....

VERY THERAPUTIC!

I highly recommend it as stress relief, but definately not for show! Yikes!

Beauty

Here is the newest creation of mine...it took me all day because I had to take a break after and sometimes during each step! But it got done...nothing fancy. Just a couple of designs that I wanted to try.

These cupcakes were really the left over batter from my cake. But I hate to ice cupcakes so I tried this new way and loved it. No trying to make it smooth or get the right amount. It is great...just fill the icing bag and pipe it on in a spiral. It looks a little more decorative and yet it is SO much easier!