I nailed it!!

 Their faces say it all!  My nephews were completely thrilled with their How to Train Your Dragon cakes.  No amount of failure in the kitchen seems to diminish the joy a cake creation can bring, but I was unable to fully relax and enjoy the completion of these cakes until a couple of days had gone by with no emergency room visits.  What, a story?  You knew there would be!  It all began with an innocent google search.
  

I think Robin will agree with me that we wouldn't be able to do what we do without alot of help from the internet.  From the thousands of Google image searches to the wonderful advice from professionals at Cake Central and other hobby blogs, there seems to be unlimited resources for anyone with cake ambitions.  I tend to be pretty trusting so it didn't occur to me that anything could go wrong with a little tip I discovered late one night.  Someone suggested to stand a nail up in the center of the cake and it would magically keep the cake flat with no dome to slice off.  For good measure, I put in five nails... 

The trick worked like a charm, but I forgot about the nails which, by the time I remembered them, had sunk and been baked into the bottom of the cake.  I could only find three, though I did manage to locate five empty indentations where the nails had been.  The cakes were served to the children and guests with warnings as I was hopeful, but not entirely convinced the cakes were safe.  So far, no reports of perforated bowels, so ummm...all's well that ends well, right?  Hey, don't look at me like that...I learned my lesson!  Go ahead and look at those happy faces again!

Jacobi 

No class?! No problem!

Do you want the good news first or the bad news?  Good news is....we have an extra week to perfect our skills!  Our cake decorating master teacher had a family emergency and cancelled the class, but we didn't get the message until we showed up with our frosting tools and cupcake dreams.  I convinced the manager at Michael's that it would be in the best interest of their company to open up the classroom for us anyway so I could spend extra time studying their cake manual and practicing my technique.  The bad news is....I am not entirely convinced it made any difference.

Jacobi's Funny Farm

I was pretty sure my flowers were not going to look like the pictures in our handy dandy manual, even though I tried to follow exact instructions.  So I rebelled a little, or went a bit crazy. exploiting the freedom of having the room to ourselves without the pressure of our sweet instructor looking worriedly over our shoulders.  You can't see them well in the picture, but the white rosettes on my sad silly sheep were actually, 'woolly' pretty, even though she doesn't seem to think so.  The cow was quite as angry as she looks since I mutilated the top of the cupcake with my too stiff frosting.  Hey, my squashed chicken kinda reminds me of my husband Doug after his angioplasty!  I finally had to stop after the poor piggy pleaded for help.



Robin's Pretty Garden

I have since been diligently trying to follow Robin's obedient example and will make sure to follow the rules next time so she won't be embarrassed my me.  We should be having a make up class with the same assignment next week so I have a chance to redeem myself.  However, after making more than 50 drop flowers on my practice board this morning, only one would have looked at home on one of Robin's beautifully executed cupcakes.

Jacobi

Despicable Me? No, the Cake!

Week two of our Wilton Cake Decorating class is over and I'm ready to move on! I mean, don't get me wrong I loved that we actually got to decorate cakes instead of cookies. The only problem was the assignment. Dimensional Decorating. There is only so much you can do with a big #12 tip and have it look cool. Jacobi pulled her cake off and managed to produce something cute and fun. She's a cake master. Look at that concentration and attention to detail.

You go girl! My cake on the other hand seriously looked like it belonged as a feature on Cake Wrecks. I'll show you the picture...just don't laugh...okay go ahead and laugh, I did. I felt a little frustrated with our instructor who assured me my icing was the right consistency only to tell me after I had tried to spread it on the cake that it was too stiff. UGH!!! After I struggled to get the cake frosted, without a crumb coat, I began practicing my design. Which the instructor assured me was a good one, only to tell me halfway into my disastrous creation that, "Perhaps something not as ambitious for your first cake might have been nice." UGH!!!

As I finished my lovely two hearts tied together with a bow (in case you couldn't tell what it was) I let out a sigh. Which caught the instructor's attention. "It's......(LONG PAUSE)....nice....maybe next time you could practice the bow before you put it on the cake." UGH!!! I had been practicing for 15 minutes and actually felt fairly confident in my bow skills, not that you can tell. With a deep breath I decided to focus my attention on my shell border and dots and try to ignore the hideous blob of frosting sitting on top of my cake. The only thing that kept me going despite my despicable cake decorating was knowing my kids would happily eat it no matter what it looked like.

Robin

No kids and no cake.

We just went to our very first Wilton cake decorating class.  As much as I love my kids' noses in my cake business and tripping over my feet in the kitchen, it was quite pleasant to get away.  I can't speak for Robin, but I for one am glad it was just cookies today because I don't feel obligated to post pictures!  The highlight for me was when our teacher came over and showed my cookie to the class as she very sweetly said,

 "There is no such thing as an ugly cake or just one way to decorate.  I am here to teach you a technique so I need to show you how to do it a certain way...but I am not saying it's the right way nor that you have an ugly cookie {cue the sidelong glance and longish pause} and I really encourage creativity; the important thing here is to be consistent with {cue the ~possibly imagined?~ briefly raised eyebrows} whatever it is you are doing."

Well, anyhoo, I was kind of happy with my neon green baby slug border. 

Jacobi 

Its a jungle out there....in the kitchen

I just have to say that this may be the coolest cake I have every made! This cake ROCKS! And I don't mind saying so.It really bothered me that the kids devoured it in a matter of minutes and tore into my little animals like they were the animals. I mean this cake took a lot of work, I'm just saying that maybe we could have had a moment of silence before consuming it like ravenous jungle creatures. If you want to know the truth this cake took ALL WEEK to make and I shed many tears over it. I almost had to check myself into loony bin and don a straight jacket or join a fondant-gumpaste support group. I'm telling you my anxiety level was through the roof as I tried to craft the perfect animal (my first few attempts didn't even resemble living creatures).Eventually, with lots of support from my kids and hubby and hours of watching You Tube videos I finished my little herd. The hard part was over or so I thought.

With the house quiet I started making the buttercream but something went horribly wrong. I followed the recipe exactly but the frosting was soupy. Not fluffy or creamy but soupy. I cried. I searched the internet for answers. I cried. It was Sunday and I didn't have the supplies to start over. I cried some more and pulled myself to together and started dumping in more powdered sugar....anything to thicken to sugar soup. It seemed to work so I frosted up the cake, stuck it into the fridge, and went to lay down.

Fast forward an hour or two. I'm still recouping in my bed from the buttercream disaster and the kids come home. The first real sound I hear is "OH, NO!!! MOM, I'M SO SORRY. I'M SO SORRY. SORRY...SORRY....SORRY!" I knew by the frantic pitch and accompanying thud that my precious cake with the precarious icing job had landed on the kitchen floor. It had taken a beautiful swan dive off the top shelf of the fridge. I couldn't even get out of bed to console my daughter or asses the damage....I was paralyzed. My sweet husband sensing my predicament brought the cake to me. Quickly I pulled the pillows over my head and meekly said, "I can't look please take it away." He assured me that it was still edible and in "fine shape" but I couldn't bare to look. I knew that my cake making days were over and that my birthday boy would have no cake.

But like all good cake decorators I managed to pull myself together, drag myself out of bed and face the cake, which actually had survived the fall. We renewed determination I slapped on the fondant, threw the animals in place, and sang Happy Birthday to my little guy. With vision of straight jackets out of my head I'm ready for my next adventure.

Robin

'Tangled' in the cake

Disney's Rapunzel never had this problem!

 When we are not eating cake for breakfast, our typical diet is relatively healthy, so once that grocery legal white sugar drug arrives in the house, we lose our heads a little (and a few hairs).  Clearly, kitchen safety needs to become more of a priority while baking with my children.  So, here's a review for me to refer to before the next cake-tastrophe.  The kitchen experts at Kraft's number one rule, of course, being:

Before you begin roll up long sleeves, tie back long hair and remove loose clothing that might get in the way or catch on something.

Closely followed by number two...

Wash your hands and dry them well, wet hands can be slippery.

...which we should have known to translate as:  ALWAYS buy extra eggs!

If you can't quite reach the countertop, use a sturdy stool or wooden step to help.

I know 'sturdy' is the operative word here, but I would like to emphasize 'stool' and not Great-Grandma's long wooden plank bench with which the kids like to slide one end over and bridge the kitchen counter to the dining table.  No amount of clever efficiency is worth a head injury!

Keep cabinet doors and drawers closed so you won't bump into them.

We really need to post this reminder on the floor so I don't get another goose egg.

Wipe up spills as soon as they happen, wet spots can be slippery.

Gee.  Wet spots can be slippery?  Thanks for the news.  Grateful as I am for this informative direction, I should quit for now since I was trying to follow this rule in the first place!

While I was occupied wiping egg varnish off the bench, floor and out from between my toes, Tia volunteered to take a turn with my new hand mixer.  My $14.99 bargain works great except that the low setting just seems to mean 'quieter' and not a slower speed.  So the drama all played out silently as she became mesmerized by the creamy batter and leaned in to take a closer look.  Distracted by painful contact with my cabinet door, I didn't realize how completely and suddenly she got caught up in her cake theme, until I no longer heard the whirring of the beaters.  My heart went out to my poor daughter, who was genuinely scared, minimally hurt, and painfully tortured by her mother's uncontrollable laughter.  What a brave heart to give me a smile as I rallied the paparazzi with a promise to her that "It will be funny later, sweetie!"


No, she didn't lose her hair, it is safely braided behind her!

Jacobi

Pretty in Pink

January, the start of a new year, a time for each of us to reevaluate our lives and make resolutions to eat less sugar, exercise more, go to bed earlier, turn off the computer and reconnect with our families. Sounds good, right? Perhaps, but it isn't happening around here!! Nope we are starting out our year with some lofty sugary aspirations that will require total commitment. This type of complete devotion requires one to taste test every imaginable buttercream recipe while devouring spoonfuls of cream filling. The only running will be to Walmart for supplies or after a toddler for stealing gum paste flowers. Complete devotion requires one to sacrifice sleep in order to create amazing works of edible art in peace, usually between 1-2am. Finally, children must be ignored, chores left undone, and laundry piled high in order to give cake blogs, fondant tutorials, and various internet recipe searches their due attention. It's going to be a good year. Having said all that I present to you.....my first cake of the year!!! Actually, if truth be told this cake should have been the last cake of the year 2010, but the birthday girl didn't mind waiting. This cake went off without a hitch. Of course, I did assemble it well after the munchkins went to bed. However, looks can be deceiving. What this picture doesn't tell you is the number of times my 2 year old put his hand in the butter cream or how many times the fondant was dropped on the floor or....well....I guess I can spare you some of the details. Let's just say it was a good thing this was a "family party."

Normally I'm a bit of control freak, and I don't mind saying so, when it comes to decorating my cakes. After all it's my hobby. For the sake of family unity and passing on creative fulfillment to my children I'm starting to let them "help" just a little. My first baby step was to let Elaina make the smash cake. She did a great job and it wasn't as hard as I thought letting her join in on my fun. Next time I'll do better about letting her make her own creative choices...baby steps...baby steps.

Robin