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!