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.) :)

Wedding Cake Redux

Remember that post where I said I would not do a wedding cake? Right. Well, immediately after that post, my older sister calls and asks me if I would be available to do a wedding cake in October. I told her no, that I was sorry but I was not comfortable making a wedding cake for anyone and to say sorry to whoever had asked her to ask me. She then said "No silly, for ME."

She getting married on 10/10/10.

AAAAAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKKKK!

I agreed but told her not to be mad if I mess it up. She poo-poo'd the idea of me messing it up.

This weekend, she and our friend Heather came up to help with making gumpaste flowers for her cake (hence the roses from the previous post.) The roses were actually the hardest thing, because she chose very simple 1-D flowers.

We made a practice mini-cake while they were here. The one she wants will be three layers, taller (more cakes stacked atop each other per level) and hopefully not as crappy.

I look pretty exhausted. (We had a full day of going to the cake supply store down in Orlando, then Michael's, then lunch, then drive back and go to Wal-Mart to grocery shop, to then bake a cake, clean the cake mess, prepare mini-meatloaves and mashed potatoes, then clean up the dinner mess, then start decorating the cake. )

Our friend Heather.

Then, of course, we ate. :)

Roses

I made some gumpaste roses this Friday night.

Weekend Quick Kakes

On Friday, we had dinner with my husband's immediate family (parents, 3 siblings/spouses/nieces/nephews, paternal grandma) and I brought along those Mexican-themed gum paste pieces I made.

Since a cheesecake was requested by the birthday boy, my M-I-L made her recipe and we just stuck the pieces on the cake.

There was also a request for a strawberry cake by the birthday gal. Since I was traveling and had the Maine Cookies to make, I declined making one beforehand. They had purchased the strawberry Pillsbury boxed cake and frosting. You will remember I tried it once and was not a fan. TOO SWEET, too runny.

I went ahead and baked them, stacked them after putting fresh strawberries and icing in the middle, and iced them. The bottom ribbon decor was done with a plastic baggy and an old tip my M-I-L found in one of her drawers. It was rough using the super-runny icing, but for a boxed cake, it came out OK.

Cookies for Maine's Nautical Past event

I volunteered a cookie bouquet as a raffle item for a letterboxing event: Maine's Nautical Past, coming up this weekend.

I better hurry up and get these mailed! Not all are going. Some of the "mistakes" are staying right here at home. :)

(clicky-clicky makes the pictures bigger-er)

That crazy nation one with white blobs went right into David's stomach, while the anchor with the brown poo (supposed to be a rope, but it melted) was promptly eaten by yours truly.

Here's the bucket I decorated for it.

I won't mail it like this, obviously. I'm mailing it all separate and PRAYING it all arrives in one piece!