about me.

i just thought that i would write a few things about myself that you may not know. of course having to do with cakes.

- i LOVE cake, but i do not like chocolate cake. if i am utterly desperate, i will eat it, but i can go without. i find this weird, because i love chocolate. oh well, one less thing to help me gain weight.

- i often fall asleep at night thinking about designing cakes. it drives me crazy when i am really tired but i cannot turn my brain off.

- i am not very good with icing. i have a hard time smoothing it out and i have high expectations of myself... like perfection. i am not perfect - i know this is not a shock. but i expect it when it comes to making something.

- while i am creating in our kitchen, i have to constantly clean up after myself. i always have to tell myself to get the cake (or whatever i am working on) into the oven and then i will have time to clean. this is a hard concept for me. i don't know if it's because our kitchen is so small and there is no room when i am caking, or if it is because i thrive on organization, or because i am a bit of a clean freak. i can have truck stop toilets (well not that bad) but dang it, my kitchen better be clean!

- nothing to do with caking, but i still don't know how to spell toilet (spell check saved my life) and i often have a problem with vacuum. yes, i am 30.

- i am not a great cook, but i can make a mean dessert.

- a year and a half ago, lining a cake pan with parchment paper was too much work and 'how could anyone ever have time for this crap'... well now i do. and i love it.

- a year and a half ago decorating a cake consisted of call DQ to get an ice cream cake. (i still love those!)

- my husband and i argue often when it comes to decorating a cake. it's messy, chaotic and our kids are ALWAYS, ummmmmm, being kids?

- i often get confused because i have 25 things going on in my brain at one time, baking, icing, leveling, filling, changing a baby's bum (my hands are like sandpaper because i wash so frequently. so don't worry, if you get a cake from me it will be e-coli free! should that be my new catch phrase? kidding!), tinting, cleaning, lunch, snacks, getting pans out, putting pans away, making flowers, people, characters... it goes on and on and drives me until i notice i am standing in my kitchen, useless and not doing anything except staring at something, usually the mess.

- i usually leave things until last minute. bad habit and i would probably have less stress if i started working on things sooner than later.

- i love licking out the bowl, except i use a spatula so i can get most of the batter.

that is probably boring and long enough so i will stop there. i really love decorating and coming up with ideas for cakes. i feel like every cake i make is a huge accomplishment and i love watching (in a non-creepy way) people enjoy my cakes. i am thankful for this God given talent and i pray that i will be able to do it until i am either perfect at it (and then continue on with decorating), or really, really old!

the cake that got me...

well it has been a really busy summer. i haven't done much caking at all, i miss it, but we have been so busy i haven't had time to really do anything. i am glad that fall is on the horizon, the beautiful crisp, clean air is coming back, school is starting and routine is coming back. i have enjoyed it, but i really miss having some structure in our lives.

our littlest man had his birthday near the end of august. while we were staying at my parents house, i decided that i was going to tackle at topsy turvy cake. they are big, and i couldn't justify making one for the heck of it, so i thought that it would be the perfect birthday cake. i had the idea all ready, the colors and where i was putting what. so i started to bake.... and bake.... and bake. 9 cakes in total. here they are.once i had them baked and cooled, they went into the freezer so that they would be easier to carve. so the next step was fill, stack and carve away. carving was really fun because it was a neat shape, and i am pretty nit-picky so i had a great time looking over the shape of the cake all too often.my next step was to cover them with a crumb coat, chill, and then cover with another coat of buttercream, then chill again. once that was done it was time for fondant. i was so excited it was going so well!!!! it was getting late and i was tired but i just thought that if i could get them all covered with fondant i would be laughing in the morning... well i tried to cover the biggest set of cakes 3 times and at 2:30am i finally decided to call it and go to bed. i was just getting more and more frustrated and i knew that wasn't helping me at all.

i finally got back to the cake around lunch time. i still had about 5 hours to finish the cake so i was in good standing. once the cakes were covered, all i had to do was decorate and that usually goes by a little quicker. so i figured i had LOTS of time. being as i was so frustrated with the biggest cake, i decided to try and cover the smallest one first. it went well and into the fridge it went. then i thought i would work on the middle tier so IF i ran out of time, i could at least use two tiers.

i guess i should have explained the process of actually covering the cakes with fondant the first time. once the buttercream was chilled, i sprayed my cake with a bit of water so that the fondant would stick to it. when the fondant tore, as it did the first three times, i had to remove the fondant, (which removed a lot of the buttercream) scrape the excess buttercream off the fondant, re-mix the fondant back together, wrap it, bag it, and then recover the cake; crumb coat again, chill, and then regular icing, and chill. i was sure that when i did it in the afternoon i would know what i was doing as i had already had a go with it 3 times before.

so onto the second tier. first attempt, RiPpEd fondant. so i repeated the entire process above again. by this time i was really annoyed. i calmed myself, telling myself that i can do anything my mind says i can. so i took a few deep breaths before i re-rolled the fondant and applied it to the cake. all i saw was more ripping and my mind was telling me to swear (under my breath of course!) and punch away................. ahhhhhhhh, relief. it felt so d.a.n.g. good! i was flying all over my kitchen, my cupboards, my floor. i didn't care. i was a total psycho for about 30 seconds.

i slouched down in the corner, totally defeated and called my hubby. "can you please come home and give me a hand for a minute." "what's going on?" he sweetly asked. "i am having trouble with the cake." "well babe, i am really busy and i can't get away right now. what is happening?" i responded, "it looks like someone punched the shart out of the second tier." he asked "well did you?" "ummm, ya." then he started to laugh and told me not to worry about it, we'd get a DQ cake. FINE WITH ME! then i called my mom. she came over and told me to scoop it into a bowl and we would eat it like that for supper and for our little man's birthday. so we did!

well of course i had the top tier left over and the bottom tier.... frozen in my freezer. so i attempted to make the cake again. i baked another middle tier, three chocolate cakes, froze, filled, stacked and carved... again.

crumb coated, chilled, frosted, chilled and then tried to cover with fondant again. this time i made my own fondant. i called an expert and asked why it kept ripping and she thought it might be because it was too dry. so like i said above, i made my own. i tried a recipe that i used for a tinker cake and didn't love, but figured it was my first try with new fondant so i need to try it again. well, it looked like elephant skin, but it didn't rip!!!

i prepped the bottom tier with dowels, and placed the top tier on it. i didn't really like how tall the second tier was looking but i was going to go with it. then i place the top tier on. it looked retarded. no, seriously. again, enough for one night. i left it and when we got home from church i decided i would take the top and middle tier off and cut the middle tier about 1-2 inches up and then replace. then it would look more proportioned.

well i forgot there was doweling all throughout the cake and the top layer just about fell apart in my hands, so i decided at this point to call it quits. i know, shocking. but i had tried enough, and i know what i will do next time (if there is ever a next time for this cake!!). i let the kids have at it and it was the highlight of this caking experience! blow out your candles little one!

no strings attached

my girlfriend wanted an acoustic guitar cake for her hubby's birthday. it was a fun cake to do and a lot easier than i thought it would be! i was really happy about that; i was a bit nervous to attempt this one.i was lucky enough to have my Mom with me again on this job. we ran out of time and ideas on how to get the strings to attach and stay straight. we even cut the strings off of my husbands "camping"guitar that was buried in the garage (we haven't been camping in years!) and tried those out. still no luck. BUT we figured out how to do it next time!

bunnies, flowers and butterflies - oh my

this 4 layer chocolate cake with oreo filling was done for a sweet little girl who is getting big. this was her request for her cake. it took me a while to come up with the idea in my head of what i was going to do, but i was very happy with the outcome.

cookie truffles

alright. here they are with the recepie.
*take 180z of your favorite boxed cookie (any cookie would probably work just fine) oreo, fudgeo, chocolate chip, coconut cream - whatever tickles your taste buds. crumble them up, personally, i like to freeze them for a few minutes and then chop them up in my food processor so pieces are nice and small.
*next add 4oz of cream cheese to the cookie crumbs. mix well.
*once combined, take mixture by the teaspoonfull and roll into a ball.
*place in the freezer again for a few minutes until set.
*in the mean time, melt 18oz of chocolate chips with one tbsp of shortning in the microwave or on the stove.
*once melted, remove and stir until all chips have disappeared. take balls out of freezer and drop into the chocolate.
*place on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper and let set again. take out a few minutes before serving.

cupcake in a jar

i didn't invent these but whoever did is amazing! they are so cute! these were vanilla cupcakes with raspberry and Bavarian cream and then they were topped with chocolate and vanilla icing.

lots to do

well hello my friends. i haven't been on here in a while and i have a lot to update, including a really great recipe for some super easy truffles! first of all, my girlfriend asked me to do a 10th anniversary cake for her and her hubby. she wanted something that they would all enjoy and represent them as a family. so we came up with the idea of a boat. i have never, obviously, done that before. but it was a great challenge and had quite a few firsts that went with it.... like trying to make people!

my Mom made these.... ummmm.... creepers! it was late and we couldn't stop laughing. she wanted them to be realistic. they were a little too realistic in a really creepy way. needless to say, she felt a little rejected when i rejected them.

this was the boat that we came up with. it is more "fun" instead of "realistic". but it has their family with them and they are doing something they all love, together. i was glad that they were happy with it. it was cute.