Cake Decorating

Many of you know that I want to someday be a professional cake decorator and that I have been taking cake decorating classes to learn the basic skills. Below is a progression of some of my recent cakes.

This first up is one that I made in class. I personally think it is something my grandma would like, but at least I was able to learn all the different flowers. (And yes that is a bird that you see at the bottom of the cake - not my style, but I figured since I had made it, I might as well put it on).



Next we have the first of my fondant cakes. This is another one that was made in class. Since we were trying out different techniques, there really is no theme to this one, and as a result it is hideous.



Next, I convinced Mike to let me make a cake for his birthday. I had already decided the design of the cake and asked Mike what color he wanted for the main color. He said "Black". I thought that might make things a little more difficult but felt up to the challenge. As I added the black food coloring to the fondant, the consistency subtly became crumbly. By the time it was black, it would just crumble to pieces if I tried to roll it out. So I tried various methods of moistening the fondant to no avail. After kneading it and adding things to it for about an hour, I finally gave up and threw it away. Hence the cake below is a nice minty green. Of note is that due to the time spent dealing with the black fondant of death, I had to put this cake together in about 30 minutes since I wanted to finish before friends arrived for Mike's birthday party (by the way - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE, I LOVE YOU).




Finally, I offered to make a baby shower cake for one of my friends. I really wanted to go all out for this one, and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. First of all, I made a complete mess of the entire kitchen with the main concentration being on the table.



And I apparently went a little crazy with the paper towels (they are just so convenient).


Now to the cake...I made these little baby cowboy boots to either go on top of the cake or on the side as an accent (Our friends are from Burley...need I say more as to why the cowboy boots?).



Unfortunately there wasn't any room on the platter to display the boots on the side of the cake and I had already made a bow for the top, so I ended up displaying them below.


Here is the final product. My friend wanted a springy cake, so I feel like I was able to achieve that. It was a bit time consuming, but also a lot of fun to make.




The inside of the cake was chocolate with raspberry icing. I am not going to lie, I was a little sad when we sliced into it.

A Visit From the Parentals and HP

My parents and sister came up to visit us and we had a really good time. Below are some pictures of us hanging out. First up, we have some pictures of the fam playing Settlers. Mike must be losing in this first one.



I don't think there is anything that I can say that can explain why my 52 year old father is giving my husband bunny ears. Also, nice fake smile Mike.


It is exceptionally rare to capture a real smile from my mother on camera (compare with top photo), so take a good look. Also, I have no idea what Heather is doing.


It was the weekend of the Masters golf tournament so we had fun watching that. My dad is sporting his Master's green attire.

This is HP and I making what we believe to be the sign language letters K and P. It might take a while to explain this one, so let's just say that this stemmed from watching the Masters and then continued on because those are my mom's initials.

Apparently my parents are VERY excited about that chocolate Easter egg.

We also dyed Easter eggs. Since we only recently posted last year's pictures of Easter eggs, you can feel free to compare the workmanship between the two years. Of note is the pink and purple glitter egg which you would perhaps think was made by a five year old girl. In all actuality it was an ugly pink and purple painted egg that my mom had made, which was later transformed into a real beauty by using all the glitter in the kit to cover it.