Red Velvet

In order to perpetuate my new-found love of decorating cakes, my friend let me make her a birthday cake (isn't she so nice?) ;) Her only request was red velvet. I've never made or eaten red velvet, so I searched for recipes and found a 5-star recipe on Cake Central (where else?) Do you know how much food coloring goes into a red velvet cake? THE WHOLE BOTTLE! Yikes!

I'm still having trouble with my new pan, though I love it. It's a tall 8", and I still am having trouble getting the time/temp right to cook the inside without burning the outside. The cake ended up ok (correct me if I'm wrong, Malisa), but I was getting nervous at the end.

I decided to make a 3-layer cake just to be fancy. And red velvet cake is *crumbly*! But I put on a crumb coat and it worked out ok. The icing wasn't smoothing down very well, so I got out my hand roller and tried that. It worked wonderful! What a great, easy way to smooth a cake. I impressed a diamond pattern on the side using a bamboo skewer (again, another good tip from Cake Central). It's not the original design I had in mind, but I like the way it turned out. I was going to add some more flowers on the side and top, but didn't like it when I started, so I took them off. My kids liked when I made mistakes, 'cuz they got to eat anything I scraped off. :)




Here's a close-up of the butterfly.


Ah, the butterfly. It's made of royal icing. I wanted to try something new, so this was my something new. Did you know royal icing breaks very easily? At least mine did. I made 4 butterfly wings, and they all broke. So I made 7 more. This time only one broke as I prepared the body. So I had 3 butterflies ready to go. I put one on the cake, and Eldon ate another (w/o permission) and broke the other one in the process. So I hoped and hoped that the butterfly wouldn't break in transport because I didn't have a backup. And it didn't. Wahoo!

The first five

Another chain letter! Let's see how it works out.


The first five people to leave a comment on this blog will receive something made by me.
However there are some limitations
1. I make no guarantee that you will like what I make.
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done this year. (might take a while)
4. You have no clue what it is going to be, poetry, shoes, bags or a little invention of my own. I may bake something and mail it you . Who knows? Not you that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. It may blow your mind!
Here is the catch, if you choose to do this. You must post this on your blog and be ready to make something for five people too. This will be fun! When you receive the fabulous item I make you, you must post a picture of it on your blog.

My detective

This morning while I was in the shower, Jessie got a hold of the calendar and started drawing on it.  Eldon took it away from her.  As I was looking for it this morning, he told me what happened.  I asked him to get it for me, but he couldn't find it.

Well, Eldon has been reading detective stories lately (ie. Encyclopedia Brown), so instead of looking for it, he set up his detective agency to look for it.  Not so productive.  Jessie was the bodyguard.  They finally started looking, and after about 15 minutes gave up.  

Eldon: "I looked everywhere"

Me: "Not so, because if you haven't looked where it is."  

Eldon: "Maybe someone came in the house and stole it!"

(Enter disbelieving Mommy stare here)

Eldon: "Well maybe Jessie knows where it is."

Me: "Did you ask her?"

Eldon: "Jessie, do you know where the calendar is?"

Jessie: "You put it in the art closet."

Lesson learned: Good detective work involves asking questions.  Silly kids.

Valentine's Day

Since I took my cake decorating class in November, I've really wanted to practice and become good at cake decorating.  Good, useful skill.  So I made a cake for Valentine's Day.  

First - the inspiration:

Next, the results:
Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Our family doesn't really love cake, so I wanted to make something that we would actually like to eat.  I went to Cake Central and looked up some recipes.  Many people talked about white almond sour cream cake, so I decided to give it a try.  Basically, it's a white cake mix with extra flour, sugar, egg whites, almond extract, and sour cream.  For the filling, I got some frozen strawberries that we picked this summer and added sugar and a thickening agent to make a gel.  And for the icing I used a cream cheese recipe.  I cooked it up in a 8" tall round pan.  I just bought this pan, and I *love* it!  You only have to cut one top layer off, so you get a taller cake.  Gorgeous.  I had a bit of trouble cooking it.  I cooked it for an hour like the cake pan said to, but it was still gooey in the middle, but perfect on top. I put aluminum foil on the top and cooked the cake for another 30 minutes before it was done.  I'm so glad it came out looking good.  

Then after it cooled, I cut off the top, torted it, put in the filling, and frosted the cake with pink icing.  Although I like the taste of the cream cheese icing, it is not a good decorating icing.  I had a hard time getting it stiff enough.  I think it was softening in the warm kitchen.  Plus, I could not get it smooth.  Again, just too moist.  I finally got it "good enough" and put it away for the night.

This morning I got ready to decorate it.  Again, the cream cheese icing was a failure.  I knew I couldn't make the roses with it, but I attempted the swirls.  There was only a short window of time that the icing was at the right consistency.  Then I'd have to put it in the refridgerator for a short while and work on it again.  But we got it done.

The roses were even more of a headache.  First, the icing was too thin.  So I had to dump it out of my bag and add more powdered sugar.  Then it was too stiff.  So I had to dump it out of my bag and add more water.  I finally got it down ok and made the roses and leaves.   I'm happy with the results, but boy, it was a lot of work!  Now I just hope it tastes good.

And as beautiful as my cake turned out, it could never match the beauty of my valentine's gift:

Aren't they beautiful?  A dozen white roses and 4 red roses (one for each child).  I have a great husband!

And now, in parting, a couple of pictures of Zachary.  James was playing with him and he was smiling, but I couldn't get him to smile for the camera.  Oh well, he's still darn cute!

This is what you get when you ask a boy who loves to read to set plates on the table.  Notice I said "plates", because he apparently didn't notice.

Just an update

I wanted to post some of our recent pictures.  Zachary was in his bed looking so sweet and peaceful, I thought I'd take some pictures. Unfortunately, by the time I got the camera, he started waking up.

Getting fussy....
Definitely fussy.
And a great big yawn.

Well, they're not the cute photos I was hoping for, but he's still darn cute!

And the basement is finally painted!
James has worked hard getting the walls taped and mudded.  It's painted in Belgian Cream -- that's fancy talk for white. :)  As much as I didn't want white walls, it just really looked the best.  Now we have to fix the carpet and put up and paint the trim, and the basement will be usable again!

Last night the girls wanted to sleep together.  So I took a picture of them before James moved Jessie back into her bed.