That's Ren and Stimpy. They're way existential

I'm going to start this post by quoting a conversation from one of the greatest movies of my generation: Clueless.

Tai: Do you think she's pretty?

Cher: No, she's a full-on Monet.

Tai: What's a Monet?

Cher: It's like a painting, see? From far away it's ok, but close up it's a big old mess.

With that in mind, I tried my hand at piping a few weeks ago. It took me about 2.5 hours, a painful hand cramp, and the results were pretty crappy. I have a very unsteady hand. This definitely needs more practice. The good news is that from far away, it was gorgeous! That doesn't do much for me, though, when it's on people's plates.

We only have photographic evidence of this cake because Kevin took pictures. I was too embarrassed.

Moving on...in order to celebrate the end of this ridiculous year of graduate school, my classmates and I decided to throw ourselves a big party before summer school started. So I seized the opportunity to make a cake. I call it, "The vacation we're bitter about not being able to take because we have to take ridiculous summer classes instead." It was red velvet with a cream cheese and rage filling.

The sun, fish, lobsters, crabs, and seahorses are made of white chocolate and I made them using molds. The rocks are candy covered chocolate pieces and the sand is made of crushed Nilla wafers and graham crackers. I had the brilliant idea to put the crumbs through my flour sifter to make them super fine. It worked great and the best part is that my sifter is permanently filled with crackers! Three trips through the dishwasher so far and no difference...

Anyhoo, this last cake that I made I couldn't decide whether or not to post. I think it's super adorable in theory, but I'm not real pleased with the execution. I made it very quickly and didn't take enough time to make sure that everything was even and the result is much bumpier than I would have liked. But, whatever, here it is.

Let me explain, my gorgeous friend Colleen just eloped to her baby daddy Doug and I had to make them a cake as soon as I found out. I figured, a miniature cake to celebrate a miniature wedding. It's a five inch bottom tier and a three inch top tier. So cute, right? Is it possible that I think I'm more adorable that I actually am? You be the judge.

Hippity Hop Hop

Ugh. I don't even want to talk about the disaster that was my Easter baking experience. But if I didn't want to talk about it, I guess I shouldn't have started this blog, so...touche. Here's what happened. I decided that this Easter I needed to make a cake in the shape of a adorable springtime animal. See the thing is that when I was younger my mother used to make a cake in the shape of a lamb every Easter and it was secretly my favorite dessert of the year. I actually just had a thought: maybe my jeans would be a smaller size if I didn't do things like rank dessert favorites...

Anyhoo, in my mind, the lamb mold was made of cast iron and weighed approximately 900 lbs, so I didn't even bother asking my mother to mail it to me and went in search of my very own lamb pan. (In actuality, it's made of aluminum and weighs next to nothing. Crap.) So it turns out that Wilton makes a lamb mold, which is sold at basically every store in the world short of Checker Auto Parts around Easter time. It also turns out that this particular lamb mold has an incredibly creepy smile and eyes that follow you no matter where you are in the room. I chose the bunny cake pan on the next shelf. Demonic lamb cake did not seem like the most appropriate of dessert options.

I digress. At some point in the past week I decided that I needed to also make cupcakes that looked like Easter baskets. I have no idea why, so don't ask me. So, sometime around 8pm on Saturday night I decided I should probably start the baking process, since I needed to be at Marie's house around 11am the next morning. Now, the bunny mold is 3D and has a small vent hole in the top. The directions clearly stated that the cake would be done when a toothpick inserted into the vent hole came out clean. Therefore, like any reasonable person would do, I took it out of the oven when the toothpick came out clean. Duh. Now here's a detail you need to remember: I, for a reason unbeknownst to me, turned off the oven at this point. I also put the cupcakes into said turned off oven. While the cupcakes were (not) baking I opened up the bunny mold and was instantly covered in molten cake batter. Turns out it was NOT done. And neither were the cupcakes. Cause generally one needs to turn on an oven in order to bake things. Who knew? Whatever, I remembered while at the grocery store at 10:45pm replenishing ingredients that I had forgotten to put oil in the cupcakes anyway, so even if they had cooked, they were missing a key ingredient. Once i remade them I decided to let them cool and decorate them before I went to bed. I dyed the frosting green and then coated them in light green crystal sugar. The handles are Sour Punch Straws. So cute right? Here's what they looked like when I went to bed. Which was 2 am.

Here's what they looked like when I woke.

Can ANYONE explain why they all broke in the middle?! I nearly cried.

So here's the point where I show you a million pictures of my completed bunny cake to make myself feel better about my baking disaster. Luckily the second cake was delicious and fully cooked. The grass is the ever popular dyed coconut, all the flowers are made by me out of fondant, and the eggs are Bailey's favorite mini Cadbury eggs.

How does one cut a cake like this without feeling like some sort of sick bunny killer? Next time I'll make it red velvet. Oh yeah, Mom, I have brown hair now.

Cha-ching!

Well hello again! Yeah, fine, it's been a month since I updated, whatever, sue me. Here's my excuse: I figured I'd wait til I had a few different delightful desserts to post about instead of one at a time. Is that weak? Can you tell that I was just procrastinating?

Anyway, whatever, let's move on, shall we? This week marks a momentous occasion in the life of me attempting to be a baker. I sold my first cake! Ta-dah! It turns out that Karen did actually want me to make a cake for the baby shower she was throwing. No joke, I decorated that cake in my head every night as I tried to fall asleep. But, more on that later...

A few weeks ago some friends of ours invited us over for dinner and I took the opportunity to make a cake to bring. Side note, have I forced you to go to bakerella.com yet? My lovely friend Bee turned me on to it and she has some of the best recipes and dessert ideas EVER. So I used her recipe for red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting. It might possibly be the moistest (most moist?) cake I have ever eaten. Go. Bake. It. Now. Ok, anyway, I made the cake and decided that it was a wasted opportunity to try something new, so I made my first attempt at fondant roses. Here are the results:

You like? I loooooove. They were super duper easy. I think next time I'll add a little edible glitter. Too much?

My next undertaking was St. Patrick's Day cupcakes. I made them about a week before St. Patrick's day and brought them into the group therapy session at school. (For those of you who don't know, my practicum this semester is with adults and I have a group session once a week with my client who has speech problems resulting from a stroke). I decided that since it was the last session before spring break that I needed to bring in a treat. However, I announced this to all the group members before I took the time to realize that I would need to bake them in between studying for and taking two exams and completing a very difficult assignment. It was quite a stupid moment for me. So yeah. They're cute, but less inspired then they could have been.

I used vanilla frosting and then rolled them in white crystal sugar. The shamrocks are sugar pieces like the footballs that I used in February. I think the green foil wrappers are my favorite. They got rave reviews. I took a nap.

Ok, ok, I know that you've been on the edge of your seat waiting to see the baby shower cake that I made so here it is! (Ignore Sophie in the background. I swear there's no cat hair in that cake).

I took a few pictures during the process to share with y'all. The cake is a lemon yellow cake that I made from scratch (again, the curtsey) with a vanilla buttercream. Both tiers are three layers. You can see the area that was uneven with the other two layers that I have to carve down.

Both tiers were covered with white fondant and then a sheer, shimmery white ribbon.

For the bottom tier I made white chocolate baby carriages which I attached with buttercream to pink fondant diamonds. Once they had set I placed them all the way around the cake.

Then I made chocolate diamonds and everywhere that the points meet is a sugar pearl. Yeah, I totally didn't make the pearls.

And here is the part that I became so involved in what I was doing that I forgot to take pictures. I'm pretty sure you can handle it. These are some pictures of the completed cake. I made the booties out of white chocolate just like the baby carriages.

What do you guys think?! Do you love it as much as I do??

Next up? Bunny cake for Easter...

Lesson learned

So, I discovered this weekend that chocolate fondant and I are not friends. I've deleted it's number from my cell phone. I attempted to make a cake for a family celebration for the birthdays of Kevin's father and sister. Since I had already made Andrea a super girly cake, I decided to butch it up a little and use "boy" colors, which I apparently believe to be brown. So I landed on chocolate fondant and it was shockingly harder to work with than the vanilla that I had triumphed over last week. It's much stiffer and shows every little mistake. It's also very difficult to remove all the confectioner's sugar that one employs while rolling it out. I guess one successful go round does not a cake genius make.

Ok, so here's the long shot of the cake. See all the bumps and cracks and nonsense? Some of those bumps are problems with the fondant and some are because I had trouble making sure that all four layers were even, but rest assured, they are all problems. No joke, I almost threw it away and bought a grocery store cake.

Here's another shot. All those lines that look like paintbrush lines are me attempting to wipe all the confectioners sugar off the cake. Poor choice. Apparently when you put water on chocolate fondant, it makes it shiny. Forever. Next time, I will wait til I'm done and take a small dry brush to the whole cake and brush off any excess. (Oh, and because I know you are all simply DYING to know, that ceramic cupcake in the background holds my splenda packets. And no, I know, I couldn't be any cuter.)

Oh yeah, I covered each dot with pearlescent luster dust, because seriously, those of you who know Marc Crowley know that he just SCREAMS sparkle.

All in all, it was a good learning experience with an only ok end result. The best part, Kevin's aunt has asked me to make a cake for a baby shower she is throwing. A real cake, for, like, real people! I guess I have to figure out how to actually make a presentable cake for 20 hungry guests and one very pregnant woman. At least if it comes out terribly I'll be nowhere nearby when she's holding that knife...I'll be testing a few ideas in the next weeks so keep checking!

I guess I have a blog now...

I have always wished I was one of those people who could create beautiful artwork out of household objects or could make a gorgeous prom dress out of two pillow cases and handful of safety pins. The truth is, unfortunately, that I was blessed with neither the creative or artistic skill to be able to do much with my hands besides high five the person who made a clock out of an old plate.

This past Halloween, however, I decided I wanted to try something a little more creative. Ok fine, I completely stole the idea from the amazing dessert artist on Bakerella.com, so I guess this is more of an attempt at the execution of someone else's creativity. Anyway, whatever, I made these:

Get it?? It's Halloween and they are desserts dressed up as dinner! Totally cute, right? Each slider is a vanilla cupcake cut in half with a brownie inside and ketchup, mustard, and lettuce made of frosting. The steak fries are sugar cookies. I can't stand how cute they are!

I got so may compliments on these sliders that I thought, aha! This could be my thing. I could be the adorable friend that makes fabulous desserts and also has great shoes! So I decided to see what else I could make.

My spaghetti and meatballs cupcakes were for my friend Elyse's birthday. The butterflies were for my boyfriend, Kevin's, mother, Ellen's, 60th birthday party. (I feel all those commas are incorrect, but seriously, how do you punctuate that sentence?!) They are both from the book Hello, Cupcake! Again, not so creative, but cut me some slack, I'm new at this!

The meatballs are Ferrero Rocher hazelnut candies in strawberry jam. The noodles are frosting and the parmesan cheese is grated white chocolate. Hilarious!

This past weekend I decided to try fondant for the first time. Ack! Saying to myself, "hmmm, I think I'll try fondant this weekend..." is akin to saying to myself, "hmmm, I think I'll try skateboarding to San Diego this weekend..." It was slightly daunting to say the least. I mean, fondant is like, the real thing. And people always talk about how difficult it is to work with and blah, blah, blah. I woke up at 4 in the morning in a cold sweat on the fateful day, having dreamt that I covered all 4 of my cats in fondant and all anyone could say was that they thought it would be smoother.

I am happy to report, however, there was nothing to be afraid of! I think it's pretty ok, especially for my first try. AND, I didn't even steal the idea from anyone! If you could see me, I'd be curtseying.

I am proud to say that everything on this cake was made by me and is edible. (Well, not the ribbon, duh). This cake was for Kevin's sister, Andrea's, surprise birthday party. The inside is Funfetti cake and strawberry frosting. Does it get better than that??

Still basking in the glow of my fondant success, I dragged myself out of bed this morning to make cupcakes for the "big game." Does it read that the sprinkles are fans in the stands? I didn't think so. Not my best work.

The footballs are made of sugar and came from my new favorite place, ABC baking supplies. My general feeling about the end result? Meh. Ah well, there's always next weekend.