This weekend I made two cakes, one for a relative's baby shower and one for my hubby's birthday. The baby shower cake turned out pretty well, except for the fact that I used very fresh fondant and it needed to have "aged" a bit. I also got to eat the cake, and was really surprised when the bottom layer was super dry. Hmm...have to work on that.

So, that was the pretty cake. Here's the UGLY one. Hubby wanted a "plain" cake, meaning he didn't want me to slave away over decorations. He knew how busy I'd been all week. He also wanted canned icing because he didn't want me to worry about making it. I balked at the icing, knowing that decorator icing is a big secret to pretty cakes. But, I totally submitted (okay, not totally, I made a few sarcastic comments) and used canned icing. It was a disaster. I rushed and procrastinated and it turned out awfully. The middle layer totally fell apart and I had to piece it back together. Plus it tasted gross. The canned icing was just yucky!

Its not the best picture, but then again...I wasn't trying to save this one for the scrapbook!

Here's my latest  cake, this is the first one that I've ever sold. It took much longer than I anticipated, and I'm hoping that I get faster at this.

 The colors are a tad off in the picture. The green looks too dull and the darker pink loos too dark.

I should have done a rope border out of fondant, but it was 4 in the morning, and I wasn't sure how that would turn out. So I did florets and the typical shell border.

I just love these little ladybugs! Makes me want to have a little girl. Thanks for letting me share.

Tonight we have family fun night planned. Hubby is bringing home pizza, and the boys are looking forward to several rounds of Wii bowling and baseball. Caught up in the excitement of our night, my oldest son decided to make a cake to surprise his dad.  At first, he was going to surprise both of us, but he decided that he might need my help in the process. He was so excited, he kept thanking me for helping him, and going on and on about his "first" cake.

The three littles and I were watching as he globbed pink icing onto the two yummy layers. It was going to be a beautiful cake. But I guess God had something more important planned for our evening than cake. Because a few seconds after the last glob of icing was plopped onto the cake, the entire cake tumbled off the table and onto the floor.

Like so many times, I could have yelled about the mess or the foolishness, but the Lord opened my eyes. When I looked at my son, I saw how devastated he was that the surprise he had worked so hard on had been ruined. He let me hold him while he cried and I was so thankful that the Lord had prepared such an intimate moment for the two of us. Its not everyday that a nine year old boy will let his mama hold him.

The ethereal moment passed quickly as his three callous brothers decended on the carcass of his cake like ravenous vultures feeding on his misery.  They looked up at us with pink-stained lips and said "good cake". 

Here's my 2yo's safari cake. I'm horrible at writing, so just pretend you don't see that. My 9yo sprayed the sides with blue spray icing. He really enjoyed it, as you can tell!

The birthday boy himself...

Here are some photos from our baby's first birthday. Lots of fun!

Don't you like my wavy lines?  I'm not great at piping.

Fondant is bad for a baby cake becaue it doesn't make a mess!

 We ended up peeling the fondant away.

Too much cake for a little boy!

I had the pleasure of making a cake for one of the little girls at church this weekend.  I thought I would inclue a photo.

The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant (MMF).  It is so much tastier than the Wilton store-bought fondant.  It seemed harder to work with, but I probably needed to add more powdered sugar.   The '2' is a cardboard cutout, covered in fondant.  I wasn't too happy with it, but my original plan of making a loop bow for the top fell through, so I had to come up with an alternative.

The recipe for MMF is here.  If you are interested in cake decorating, this is a great website.  www.cakecentral.com

       By saying my "first" wedding cake, that means I think there might be a "second", huh?  This one was very stressful, but that was mostly due to poor planning.  We got back from our trip on Sunday night, and I didn't have any of the supplies I needed.  I was too tired to go get them, so I had to take the kids shopping on Monday morning.

        Getting the entire family dressed and ready to go before 10am is something that most homeschool mothers are not good at.  I truly am in awe that 'regular' school moms are able to do this each day.  After three stores I finally got my crew back to the house around lunchtime.  That meant that I had five hours to bake, level, ice, and cover the cake with fondant. 

         This is what an overbaked cake looks like.  It was a 10 in pan, which I had never used before, so I should dropped the temp down to 325.

        Even with a fondant cake there is a layer of buttercream.  It makes it easier to spread the fondant, but also most people just peel the fondant off the cake when they eat it.  Fondant is truly some nasty stuff.  This was a french vanilla buttercream.  I made it using vanilla and hazelnut flavoring.  Normally, I use butter flavor, but I wanted something different.  It tasted great on its own, but not with butter-flavored cake. 

          Normally I would make all the decorations (flowers) ahead of time, but I didn't do that either.  So this poor cake is very plain, with only two small sprays of fondant roses.

By the way, this wedding cake was for a class, not for someone's wedding. I would never do that to a bride!

Here's my latest cake.  It is entirely covered in fondant.  The fondant is not forgiving, so you have to be very deliberate when working with it.  I wasn't, and there are many mistakes to prove it.

Well, as promised two weeks ago, here is my grand finale cake.   I dropped it on the way out of class, but managed to save enough for a picture.  It was a beautiful basketweave cake with royal icing flowers all over the top.  Oh well.

It's Show and Tell Friday time again.  Thanks to kelli @ There's No Place Like Home for hosting it. 

Here are some flowers that I've made with royal icing.  They are much easier than buttercream roses. 

Pretty pansy...

Awesome Apple Blossom

Very neat violet!

In two weeks, I'll be making my grand finale cake for Wilton Course 2.  These flowers will be used on that cake.  When using royal icing, you can easily make your decoration, leave it to dry, and then store it in an airtight container for several weeks.  Most people don't eat the royal icing decorations because they are hard and super sweet. 

Thanks for stopping by, and come back to see my finale cake.

~MJ

We celebrated my 3yo son's birthday recently, and I thought I'd show some you some pictures of the cake.  It was a Go, Diego, Go! cake, and it was difficult.  I don't, personally, care for shape pans or character cakes, this one was done at my husband's request.  They aren't very creative and they are a lot of work.  I think there are other cakes that would be cuter with the same amount of work.  But it turned out well. I took some shortcuts, due to time constraints. 

Here's the cake...

The watchband is supposed to be yellow.  The rescue patch is supposed to green and yellow.  I didn't have time to make those colors because I procastinated.  Actually, I made two cakes.  The first one, I messed up and tried to ice the entire thing white.  Well, that makes it impossible to see the lines that guide you when decorating.  So, I tossed it, and started over.  The hardest part of this cake was the white icing.  It is very easy to ice a round cake  without getting crumbs, but this cake was incredibly crumby...just zoom in, you'll see.  (You may not even need to zoom in!)

Here is my final cake for Wilton Course 1.  If you look closely you can see that my shell border is a little wavy where I lifted the bag too much and my roses have cracked edges.  I'm not sure if this is because the icing consistency wasn't correct or if I wasn't squeezing with enough pressure.  The roses were so difficult.  Everyone else, except for me and one other lady, made excellent roses.  Oh well. 

Kelli @ "There's No Place Like Home" hosts a Show and Tell Friday every week, so I thought I'd join in.  Check out the other show and tellers over there.

I'm taking the Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1, and I'm really enjoying it.  I had been making the boys' birthday cakes for the past year, but I wanted to learn how to REALLY do it.  So here are my first two cakes.  Woohoo!

Here's my third son's first birthday cake.  It didn't turn out too well because I was rushed and didn't take my time.  I made two cakes, a large one for the adults and a small one for the 1yo to tear into.  YUM.

This year, I've also made my 8yo's birthday cake (army tank) and my 3yo's birthday cake (race track).  I don't think I have pictures of them, though.