Harmony's Birthday!

I know, I know. I didn't post last week, but I have a valid excuse. I didn't go to class.

Thursday OR Friday.

*gasps of disbelief here*

I decided that being with my family was MORE important than going to school. And for the first time I hardly felt guilty. My daughter was turning 6 years old, and our schedules are so busy that the best time for the party was on Friday at 10AM. My husband's mother was going to be coming in Thursday around noon, and my brother in law was coming in Thursday evening around 7PM. I figured I could bake the cake Wednesday night, work on the cake Thursday and then go to class, and then finish Thursday night if I needed to. I probably could have handled JUST that and had things go as planned but, as usual, I just HAVE to make things challenging for myself. Marc's other brother was supposed to be coming up sometime Friday, and his birthday was the day before Harmony's, so I wanted to make him a cake, too. I also had a guest coming who is on a dairy and gluten free diet, so I wanted to provide her with a treat, too.

So, three cakes. Before leaving for class at 1:45. Right.

I decided on a flourless chocolate cake for the gluten/dairy free guest. This is best warm out of the oven, in my opinion, so I decided to wait and bake that off Friday right before the party. I baked Harmony's cake's, filled, and dirty iced them Wednesday night. I made the fondant and cut the base, covered and stacked, and added all final touches to Harmony's cakes Thursday morning. I finished around 1PM. Marc's mother got in fairly early, so she helped entertain the kiddos. Marc asked me to stay home from school, and I had so much to do that I finally, after several suggestions of doing so, stayed home from class. I made and baked Nick's cake Thursday night, then wrapped and put them in the fridge to keep until I was ready for them. When I learned that Nick would be in Friday evening, I decided to finish the cake the next night.

Friday morning I made the flourless chocolate cake. I substituted unsweetened, all natural applesauce for the butter in the recipe. It only required chocolate, sugar, applesauce, and eggs. It turned out wonderfully. I baked four of them in ramekins so she could just have her own dessert. I unfortunately didn't get a photo of these. :(

Harmony LOVES dinosaurs, and she has really been wanting the Ned the Brachiosaurus car for her Dinosaur Train toy she got for Christmas. Dinosaur Train is a show on PBS, for those of you unaware. I keep getting people without young children commenting on my photos on facebook going, "Cute cake, but why dinosaurs and trains? I don't get it." This video explains the premise of the show in a rockin' intro song. haha



So I used her toy train and tracks to surround the cake and added a gift of Ned the Brachiosaurus to the train as a surprise. The cake itself was the scenery from the show, places they visit, with the train station at the base of the cake. There is a volcano in the show, along with the "Big Pond" and a waterfall.

The interior of the cake was two flavors. The bottom layer was alternating layers of devil's food cake with graham cracker swirls, milk chocolate cake, and a layer of melted marshmallows mixed with graham cracker crumbs with mini marshmallows sandwiched between. The top tier was, upon Harmony's request, a mint chocolate cake with peppermint buttercream. It was SO. GOOD. A new favorite of mine, for sure. Here is a picture of the interior of the cake.

I also made her a birthday shirt with a brachiosaurus and a number 6 on it. She picked out the shirt that she wanted it made from. I decided to add a bow to the dinosaur and I LOVE how it came out!!! This was a HUGE week for Harmony, too. Grandma Carleen and Uncle Chris coming in, she lost her first tooth Thursday night, too, AND she finally saved up enough money by doing chores around the house and with her birthday money, to buy this GIANT T-rex she saw at Big Air when we went a few weeks ago. It was $39.99. That's alot of money for a little kid to save up!!! We were so stinkin' proud of her, and she was extremely proud of herself, too. Here she is, in her birthday shirt, lost tooth, with her T-rex.

This girl...this girl is my world. She is why I am doing what I am doing and why I am the person I am today. I love giving her a day where everything is for HER. She is such a wonderful kid and she follows the rules and is polite and SO sweet, I love being able to give her a day where she can eat as much sugar as she wants and can be spoiled by all the people that love her.

Friday evening, we went to Nipper's for dinner. Then the boys went fishing and Marc's mom hung out with me while I finished Nick's cake...moments before he got there. Haha. I was SO tired and worn out and just OVER cake decorating by that time of day that this isn't my best work on the top. Plus I used the last bit of powdered sugar I had and ran super low on icing with no time or energy to procure more. Marc's brother ADORE'S Wicked, so in honor of that I iced and filled the cake with lime green buttercream with a "Wicked" top. A long time ago I saw a cake that was rainbow layers inside and I immediately wanted to make that cake for Nick. I love how it came out, and he was completely surprised and thrilled.

So that is why I missed class Thursday and Friday. In the end, family is much more important than a grade.

Easter Cake

Here is a cutie patootie Easter cake that was ordered from me. I love baking in exchange for free babysitting! It's such a win-win situation!!

Advanced Pastry- Hamburger Cake

This week we assembled our hamburger cakes. My plan was to take a kids lunch tray and make a “school lunch” with the hamburger being the main item. I wanted to do more than just a cake and I knew that this would be different than everyone else’s.

Last week I made many of the base items for assembly. I colored all my fondant, made my tots out of rice crispy treats, made the base of my milk container and hamburger patty out of rice crispy treats, made and orange gelee and poured it into a half sphere shape to set up with two plastic play food orange slices on top to give it the real orange look, and shaped my hamburger buns.

Before I came to class this week, I made a list of everything I needed to get done and the order I wanted to do it in. I began by placing the completed items on the tray. I had made small chocolate chip cookies to use as the “dessert” portion of the tray and my tots were also complete. From there I cut and covered my “milk carton” with a single layer of white fondant to give it a smoother look. I put it in the fridge to set up a bit and moved on to covering my hamburger buns. I covered them both with a tan fondant and then brushed a little brown dust on them to give them some shading. I love how it turned out. I think it looked just like a whole wheat bun! I even gave it some little grooves in the top like buns usually have. Then I created my “toppings” for the hamburger- American cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. I shaped and painted these and smeared some “mayo” on the top bun and it was ready!



I quickly made some “ketchup” from corn syrup, powdered sugar, and red food coloring. I would like to experiment with that a little more because it needed to be a little thicker and as it sat, it started to get some little bubbles on the top.

I then moved back to working on my milk carton. Next time I would shape the carton to have a peak in it instead of just square because the top sunk a little and wasn’t as rigid as I would have liked. This class is all about learning, though, right? Once I had it satisfactorily covered, I painted on it with a mixture of shimmer dust and food coloring. I was able to do this fairly quickly and neatly due to my many years of pottery painting experience.



The milk carton was definitely the hardest part. Once it was done, all I had left to do was cover my “orange” with a peel. I put a little icing on the orange and covered it in orange fondant. I then used a tool to make little divets in the orange skin to make it look more realistic, and painted a white line into the middle of the gelee for the core of the orange. By that evening, the fondant had begun to fall off the orange, so I would probably need to let the gelee come to room temperature and THEN cover it so the condensation wouldn’t turn the fondant to goo.



My friend thought I looked like I was at school eating my lunch while I was sitting and painting so we just had to take a picture when it was finished of me pretending to do just that.



Overall, I was EXTREMELY happy with how it turned out. This class is so much fun!! I love not only creating cakes, but seeing all the other creative ideas my classmates have. It’s amazing to have so much creativity in one room. I think it’s the quietest lab I have ever worked in because we all get pretty involved in our own work.