Cookies for Cousins

Tis the season for cookies. Two of my sisters and their families are coming over for Christmas day dinner. I said "NO PRESENTS!" and they agreed. I did tell them I would make the kids some Christmas cookies.

My beautiful gal helps flood the cookies.

Merry Christmas Everyone, and God Bless Us All!

Cookies for Teacher

Our daughter's teacher is new. Wet-behind-the-ears, just-graduated new. So young. Man, I am getting old.

Isabel thinks he's super. For Christmas, we decided to make him a cookie bouquet for his first-ever year of teaching.

She made him a card too.

Hope he likes them!

The Eagle Has Landed

I've been asked to make an Eagle Scout cake for a friend's son and other Scouts all getting their Eagle Scout Award in January. This is Jacob's old Pack and Troop before we moved away 4 years ago.

After showing them a few cakes I could possibly make, we narrowed the field down to two. One of them involved two square cakes and an Eagle on the top made (see the cake made by Cake Central Member klbright here) of rice krispie treats (aka RKT.) I figured there's no time like the present to practice that Eagle. The bottom two cakes would be a breeze.

Here we go.

Look, it's GONZO!

Gonzo was covered in brown and white homemade marshmallow fondant. Then my daughter and I made the individual feathers using leaf cutters and a cutting tool.

Isabel draws the "mouth" with a food color pen.

Here Isabel uses the tool to striate the cutouts, making them look like feathers rather than leaves.

He's kind-of squat. This was using only one batch of rice krispies. I will most likely use two, to make him taller and thinner.

I tried working with luster powder, but it kind-of failed. He just looks like someone punched his eye. Tee hee. This is why I practice.

Bye Bye Gonzo. Om nom nom!

1969 Wilton Cake Decorating

Ah, 1969. A good year. :) I volunteer at the local library's book store. It's a great place to find books for CHEAP prices (10 cents up to $3) that you don't have to return or worry about late fines.

Cleaning books, pricing and shelving them is fun, especially when we get first dibs on the books we're processing. Imagine my surprise when this passes through my hands.

"Modern Cake Decorating," by Wilton; 6th Edition published in 1969. The cover's not the greatest, but the book itself is in great shape.

I LOVE looking at it. Some of the designs are so dated they make me laugh aloud, but for the most part, a lot of the tricks and lessons are the same 41 years later.

Today, we're mortified is we can't get a super-smooth finish on cakes. Check these ones below out.

Hee hee!

The also show some neat borders and designs I've never seen before.

There's the rose.

There's a detailed section on making figures with royal icing.

My son saw this and begged me to find the pans and legs, etc. Yes, they are available on E-bay. No, I will not be paying $50-$85 for it, but it's pretty awesome, no?

Here is another display of making figures with royal icing.

I am excited about owning this book. Total cost?

$1.00

I love the library book store.

Happy Halloween Jack!

Cat got your tongue?...and lips?

Much Better!

Just a quick (tall!) cake for the kids for Halloween.

Have fun and be safe this weekend!

My Sister's Cake, Wedding Day

Congratulations to my sister

Brenda and my brother-in-law Freddy!

Hello!

My Sister's Cake, Day 2 & 3

Day 2, Wednesday, was pretty much the same as day 1. The same exact recipe, the same exact pans. Oh, I made strawberry filling.

Day 3 was not Thursday. On Thursday we spent the day at Island's of Adventure with friends. Day 3 was Friday. I baked two 10"x3" chocolate cakes. I also made three batches of butter cream icing and one batch of peanut butter icing.

I torted and filled the two 12" cakes with the strawberry filling, stacked them together and crumb-coated (dirty iced) them.

I also stacked and covered the chocolate cakes in peanut butter frosting, and stacked and covered the 8" cakes in butter cream frosting.

That night, my sister Brenda and our friend Heather came over to help finish decorating the cakes with the fondant I made this week, and the gumpaste flowers we had all 3 made in August.

Heather

This is the 12" cakes already on the cake board with butter cream shells on the border and wood dowels inside to support the top tiers. I will be taking the cakes over to the reception hall, two hours away and assembling them there. Wish us luck!

My Sister's Cake, Day 1

This cake, my sister's design, will be huge. The bottom tier is two 12"x3" almond butter cakes, each torted (is that a word?) and filled with strawberries, and then covered in buttercream icing.

The middle tier, two 10"x3" cakes, will be chocolate with peanut butter frosting.

The top tier, two 8"x3"cakes, will be the same as the bottom tier.

That's a lot of flippin' cake.

The pan for the bottom tier holds about 12 cups of batter. This meant my doubling my normal recipe and I ended up using 10 eggs, 6 sticks of butter, 5 cups of sugar, 6 cups of flour, vanilla and almond extracts, baking powder, salt and milk. For. One. Cake. Which I have to do again tomorrow.

I did have enough batter to make one of the 8" top layer cakes. Not as tall as normal, but I might be able to make do without creating yet another batch (after the second batch tomorrow.)

I need to empty the fridge, or borrow someone's. Holy Moly.

Gifts and Carrots

As I was driving home yesterday from Wal-Mart, I drove by my front door. I hardly ever do this. My garage is on the side of the house on another street. I see my front door maybe once a week. As I drive by, I see a box there. Oooh, a box! Wait, a box? It can't be my Gymboree order; it's only been one day. A box? My birthday *is* Friday. Oooh, present!!

After unloading the groceries, I race to the front door. The box came FedEx and I recognize the last name. She's a fellow letterboxer. Wait, did I miss a memo? Why is she sending me something? Did I sign up for something? Did I forget to send something to someone? Color me confused.

I opened the box, read the note and squealed. She sent me this because she was helping pack up a house and she knew I would use it. She wanted to make sure the belongings she was packing up found a good home.

OOOOOH! AHHHHH! It is so pretty. And HEAVY! And Pretty!

What a wonderful gift! This definitely will get used. As a matter of fact, one sister asked how large it was. I have a feeling Sis wanted to see if the wedding cake I was making for her would fit. :) (Sorry, B. Your cake is ginormous.)

I was *just* thinking, as I was driving home yesterday, that I had carrots I needed to use up (I hate food going to waste.) Tonight, I made a carrot cake (my favorite) and used the pretty stand.

THANK YOU, AMANDA (from Seattle)!!!

Wicked

As you know, or not, I am a fan of both the book and the musical "Wicked." I saw the show twice in Jacksonville last year and was smitten.

It's been, what, two weeks since I baked a cake? Ha! Lord. Anyway, I decided I wanted to make a Wicked cake.

I printed the musical's logo/poster and then traced it on to wax paper. I spread out my various colored fondant and used the wax paper as my guide, as I poked trough the way, on to the fondant. Then with that little knife below, I carved out the designs.

I baked a chocolate cake and frosted it with a peanut butter frosting. Mmmmmm!

The entire cake was covered in marshmallow fondant that I made myself and colored green. I didn't take a picture of that; wish I had. Then I started placing and fitting all the fondant pieces I had cut out, like a puzzle.

Elphaba's nose and lips were done with food coloring pens and red edible glitter for the lips. Glinda's eyes were hand-drawn with edible food color markers too.

Ta Da!

I also used leftover green and black to put a little decorative touch to the bottom of the cake. (i.e. hide the faults.) :)