14 posts from February 2008

This past Saturday was "Graduation Day" for our cake decorating class.   We were supposed to bring three things to class - a cake, roses, and drop flowers. 

My mom and I both decided (independently) to make chocolate cakes.  I was to make the roses for both cakes (14 total), so I chose pink, since brown and pink usually look very nice together.  In order to give them enough time to dry and so that I'd have time to make them all, I started on the roses on Thursday night.  I made 6 roses before I literally couldn't squeeze my hand anymore.  So I went to bed :) 

Friday, I frosted the cake and made 8 roses (with no hand pain!).  I also made about 30 drop flowers.  I only needed like 11, but I wanted to have enough in case I broke some or something. 

So we carted all this stuff to class, only to discover that most of our classmates had already decorated their cakes!  Our instructor had told us the week before that we would be finishing the decorating in class, so we brought the parts. 

Anyway...she showed us a couple new things (sweet peas, leaves and vines) and we decorated our cakes.  Mine turned out pretty well, I think :)  My mom did the leaves on mine, since I still hadn't quite gotten the hang of it when it was time to do them

Show us your favorite childhood toy.

This is Bear.  Bear is a handmade "Care Bear" who has been with me since I was 2.  He's well loved, obviously :)

When was the last time you surprised someone else?

I'm thinking it was Friday night, at the bar with Will.  I answered one of his questions in an unexpected way, I think....

List three things you'd buy with your last $20. One practical, one frivolous and one of your choosing.

Do I get $20 for each category?  Or $20 total?  'Cause I don't know how much I could get for less than $20....
And what's the difference between "frivolous" and "one of your choosing"?

Let's see...
Total of $20
Practical: Lunch (~$10)
Frivolous/My Choosing: new earrings (~$10)

$20 for each category
Practical: gas for my car
Frivolous: new shirt(s) at Target
My Choosing: lunch at Sam's Bar & Grill

Show us something that's got you hooked.

Alton Brown - Good Eats, Iron Chef, whatever....I can watch him for hours. 

My second cake was made of cherry chip cake mix with cherry filling in between the layers.  It was *gone* when I left work at 4:45 today :)

Anyway....we learned how to make the last steps of the roses in class on Saturday, so I had three roses on the top of this cake :)  They weren't fabulous roses, but they're roses :)

We also learned how to make drop flowers and shells.  So I did a shell border in class, then came home and did a whole bunch of drop flowers to put on it before I left for work.  My wrist is freakin' sore now.  Those things take a lot of strength and endurance.  My elbow was sore when I woke up this morning.

So I got up this morning and put the drop flowers on the cake before I went to work.  I discovered that they weren't quite dry enough, though, so I'll have to be sure to make plenty of them early enough that they'll be dry for Saturday's class.

And here's the finished cake!

How did you celebrate Valentine's Day?
Submitted by Stephen.

By watching Terminator while baking a cake and cleaning my house.  Not too bad, really.

What's your morning beverage of choice?  Coffee, tea, juice?  Homemade or store-bought?

Diet Coke!  If it's really cold, I might have decaf hot tea, but that's about it.  I'm just starting to drink coffee (with loads of cream and sugar), so I'm not really up for that in the morning.  Plus, I don't own a coffee maker.

So my mom asked me a couple months ago if I would take the Wilton Cake Decorating class with her at JoAnn's. So I said, sure, it sounds like fun.  We got all signed up, and class started a couple weeks ago.  We did our first cakes this week, and I thought I'd share.  (And point out that my Vox neighbor Food/Crafts/Books Girl has taken the same class - read about it here)

Honestly, I'm not terribly impressed with the instructor, but she's okay.  Not great, but not terrible.  She likes to tell stories about her family that are pretty vaguely related to class, which is a little annoying, but I'll live.  We were supposed to make either an 8-inch 2 layer cake or a character/shaped cake for the first class.  If we did the layer cake, it was supposed to be frosted already.  So I made the layer cake....and forgot to spray one layer with non-stick stuff.  It turned out mostly okay - it's missing some of the bottom, so I just plopped it on the cardboard and called it good :)  The frosting part was...tricky.  Apparently many of us in class had the same problem, which was that our frosting was too thick to spread easily.  Ah, well....live and learn, I suppose.

When we got to class, we practiced making stars and wavy lines....my arm is going to be *so* sore, since I have no hand strength anyway.  This should definitely help that :)  We learned how to make the center part of roses, which I'm not so hot at.  I need to practice this week. 

The cake we made was supposed to be covered in a rainbow design with someone's name and age on it.  I thought it looked stupid, so I did this:

I used a cookie cutter (like they suggested in the instruction booklet) to make lines in the frosting and then traced them with frosting.  Then I did the inside details free-hand.  It looks pretty good, I think.  I promised the cake to people at work, so we'll see how it goes over.

Then I get to do it all again next week!

Show us your handbag, satchel or laptop case.

How about both?  :)  My sister gave me the purse for Christmas, and I love it.  It has a ton of room and it fits over my shoulder without sliding back down. 

The laptop case is Case Logic, from Wal-Mart.  I really like it too, even if it does get heavy :)