I still exist!

Dear Blog Readers,
I know that I've been MIA for quite a few weeks now, which is an unfortunate result of college classes and no oven, but I promise to flood your RSS readers and inboxes with plenty of posts in the coming days.

Today alone I made so many desserts, I think I'll go into a diabetic coma just sitting in this kitchen. But the aforementioned kitchen should be cleaned, so I'll have to go into all those yummy, sugary details later (hopefully, tomorrow).

And I want to thank Hillary, Sarah, Chris, and of course, my little Adam for assisting with everything today. I had so much fun. But you'll hear about it soon enough! ;)

Success

The other day in my Introduction to University Experience class, we had to draw a picture of what we think success looks like. I'm not much of an artist, drawing wise, but my vision of success includes a money-making bakery and me looking all adorable in an apron. :D

College is certainly keeping my busy, so I haven't had any time to bake (except when I went home last weekend- yay!- and baking a brownie cake for Mom's birthday that James (the noncake eater) absolutely loved). This is unfortunate because the Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge is music (I love music) and this Friday is Pro-Life Cupcake Day, which is an adorable way to raise awareness.

I'm still keeping my eye open for baking opportunities, but Thanksgiving is only a few weeks (ok, seven week) away, and at the very least, I can bake up a storm then. I feel so bad that my blog has laid dormant for so long, but just know that I'm constantly thinking about it and writing down different baking ideas. And of course, picturing my future success. :-)

Adam’s Birthday

Well, guys, I'm sure my blog is totally boring you to death now that I'm not baking anymore (insert dramatic sigh here), and frankly, I feel like an immensely more boring person. Baking is a part of me, and I feel like that part is missing.

And speaking of missing, know what else I miss? Adam. Yessiree, my baby brother. Except he's not a baby anymore- he's 6, and his birthday was last Friday. I didn't get to make him a cake, unfortunately, although Katie baked him some cupcakes (and called me that morning- woke me up!- to ask for some advice. I guess it wasn't really morning, though, it was around 1:00pm…). I did call him, though, and sing to him, and sent him a card. But it's not the same, ya know?



In honor of Adam's birthday, this post is dedicated to a cake I'm sure you've never seen before (unless you've check out my Flickr account recently): Spongebob Squarepants!

The prequel to the Patrick Star cake, and inspired by one of Adam's favorite cartoons, this cake is definitely a favorite of mine- and Adam's. The limbs are sugar cookies, and that lovely sponge shape comes from a 9 x 13" baking pan. What I remember having trouble with on this cake is the eyes- I used blue piping gel, and it had melted or something, because it was really runny. The picture is a little grainy, but if you look closely, the pupils are a little wacky. Not that Adam cared.

I actually made a Spongebob cake for Adam's second birthday too, but unfortunately there's no evidence of that cake. We were on vacation at the beach, and I had very limited supplies: a disposable cake pan, a box mix, a can of icing, some piping colors, aaaaaand… that's it. I didn't even have chocolate icing for his pants, so Mom & I (she's so smart) crunched up some chocolate cereal to use for his pants. Talk about limited resources, eh?

Not only do I love baking for Adam, but I love baking with Adam, too. Exhibit A: The gingerbread cupcakes:

I made these for James' first grade class' Christmas party. Let's see, he's in 5^th grade now, so that was 4 years ago, just when I started really getting into this whole baking thing. The little gingerbread men are actually chocolate. (If you didn't know, chocolate candy was actually my gateway into the cake decorating world. I'll have to tell you the story sometime!) And the buttercream is covered in cake sparkles (it's supposed to look like sparkly snow). I think the cupcakes went over well with the class… Ok, ok, they're first grades presented with a dessert, of course it went over well!

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be talking about Adam, not James. He'll have to wait until October for his time in the limelight. So, Adam:

Ain't he sweet? I love this picture! First of all, I can't believe we still have those aprons. They're all torn up and worn from years of use now, but I'm pretty sure they're still sitting in the same drawer just waiting to be put on and covered with flour. I do wish I had a new apron, though. However, Adam's apron, which Grandma made (I got my artsy/craft gene from her. She's amazing with a sewing machine.) out of a tea towel and some string, no longer fits him. I remember every time I pulled out my handy dandy Kitchen Aid, he would run over to the drawer and hand it over for me to put it on him. And he always wanted to help, once he got over his fear of the loud noise the mixer made, that is. Oh, and that orange/pink thing hanging on his neck is a toy monkey. Actually, I think it's James' toy monkey.

Back to the present, I'm working on my job application at the cafeteria right now. I'm really hoping and praying that I can get this job… even part-time, once a week would be better than nothing. I haven't made anything since those cakeballs right before I left home. I'm having withdrawals like mad. If worst comes to worst, I'll beg one of my friends to take me home one weekend and steal their kitchen for a few hours. J

Kelsie's Cakes from "Back in the Day"

As promised in my last posting, I'm going to keep up with this blog while I'm still in college, baking or no baking.  So far, no baking. Which is really a shame, because I've had such a craving for those chocolate chip cookies I love.  Katie told me she'll send some in a care package for me, but either they're going to get stale and/or smushed in the box, or my family will decide they should eat them all without me.  Personally, I'm betting on the second option.

I did, however, scan about 20 pictures onto my computer and upload them to Flickr.  I don't have the dates for any of them, but I'm sure I could figure it out if I had a calendar and a lot of time to kill. Even though I don't remember the dates very well, I can promise you I remember the cakes.

It's funny to think that I've had cake on my brain since I was really, really little.  As in, three-years-old.  Granted, back then my ingredients were things like mud and flower petals, but it's the thought that counts, right?

There's no mud in this cake, though, just lots of sugar and cute little Teddy Grahams.  I found the instructions for this one on a magazine cover and mom and I put it together for my birthday.  When I say "my birthday," of course I mean Maggie's birthday as well, because when we were younger, we always had combined parties.  At the time, I resented it, but looking back, it really wasn't that big of a deal.  Sorry for giving you such a hard time about it, Mom.

As you can tell, this was before I ever picked up my first Wilton instruction booklet or visited Cakecentral.com.  If I had to guess at a time frame, I'd say elementary school, maybe 1999.  But the cake still provided a lot of fun: going shopping for the ingredients, baking and icing the cake, putting the little Teddy Grahams in their Life Saver floatie devices, making a slide out of bubblegum, the giant lollipop who's purpose I can no longer remember... Oh, and eating all of the leftover candy later.  That was fun, too.

We still have that tablecloth, by the way.

This next and final cake I'm showcasing for today is the Barbie cake.  I'm pretty sure every little girl wanted a Barbie doll wearing a dress made of cake and icing, but how many little girls can say that they helped make that cake themselves?

Sure, it's not as pretty or "dress-like" as the Barbie cake my aunt Elsie made for her daughter, April, but it has chocolate AND rainbow sprinkles, so I'm happy.  I don't know if we had three different sized cake pans, or if Mom just cut the tiers to the appropriate size, but it was probably the latter.

That Barbie in the middle of the cake is my pink Power Rangers Barbie.  She was my favorite.  She had this cute little party dress (which she's wearing) and her kick-butt Power Ranger's suit.  I lost one of her gloves, though, which was a sad, sad day in my household.

So there you have it: two of my childhood memories, preserved in photographs of birthday cakes.  But don't worry, there will be lots of cakes and memories in the future!

Old School

I am now officially a college student.  I'm all moved into my dorm and my classes start tomorrow. I believe I've mentioned this before, but I don't have a kitchen, and I left all of my baking supplies at home (except Confetti Cakes for Kids. That's on my bookshelf right now).  So no baking for a while. =/

But I figured out a way to keep blogging about cake, at least until I get a job baking/decorating somewhere (the cafeteria, preferably).

Along with all of my many new dorm/school supplies, my parents bought me a new printer which conveniently has a scanner feature.  So, that means I'll be able to conveniently scan all of the pictures that I took before I turned 16 and got a digital camera, and put them on the computer.

I've got pictures from 2000, so when I say "old school," I mean old school.

Hopefully, my antics as a very beginner cake decorator will keep you entertained while I'm on my baking hiatus.  At the very least, I'll be able to reminisce about all the crazy mishaps I had before I learned how to make buttercream and pipe a straight line. =)

Happy Birthday to me!

I turned 18 a week ago! :D

For some reason, though, I always have trouble figuring out how to decorate my own cake.  When it comes to an idea for someone else, I'm usually quick to find inspiration, but for some reason, I'm more picky about my own cake.  Last year, I came up with an adorable idea, but this year I was struggling.

Eventually, though, the purple/silver theme took hold, and I decided to run with it.  Since doing the margarita cake, I really like the idea of ribbon roses, so I made a bunch of those, in purple and gray, and painted them with the trusty pearl dust/extract mixture to make them shiny.

The squiggles and swirls are also shiny because of the aforementioned pearl dust.  The candles, however, are not shiny, as they are old and left over.  After the fact, my mom told me she could've bought new candles for me.  Oh, well.

Also, did you see the bulge around the side of the cake?  I still can't get rid of that and it's infuriating.  I think that (I hope, really) that if I ever cover a cake totally in fondant, that should take care of the bulging problem, but I'm not entirely sure.  And I was going to attempt to cover this cake, but I didn't have enough store bought fondant (which I used for the flowers, etc.) and the homemade fondant was all crumbly, which happens to me every time I make it (or at least, the only 3 times that I've made it so far).  So, I figure I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

And I'd like to give a shout out to Chris and Sarah who arrived before I finished decorating and helped make the squiggles and swirls with me.  That was fun! :D

I leave for college at the end of this week, and unfortunately, I don't know how much baking I'll be doing since there's no kitchen in my dorm room.  However, I'm going to try to get a job working in the cafeteria, and I'll be sure to keep you informed of how that's going.  I'm really not sure how much baking and blogging I'll be doing between classes and work and all that other college stuff, but I'm not going to stop baking if I can help it.  It's still my biggest dream to open my own bakery in the future, and college will hopefully  be a step in that direction.  If you don't hear from me in a while, though, don't worry, I promise I will return!

A Birthday Cake Fit for Ringo Starr's #1 Fan :P

I'm not really sure who Ringo Starr's #1 Fan is, but I'm pretty sure it's my little sister.  Well, she's not so little anymore; she just turned 14 yesterday.  But she's definitely a huge Beatles fan and at about 11 o'clock at night, a huge boulder of an inspiration hit me and I realized her "Beatlemania" would be the perfect theme for this cake.

The "Happy Birthday Maggie" and cartoon Ringo drawing is one big FBCT , which I was really unhappy with because of the detail.  I should've used a #1 tip, instead of a #2, but I think the hungry monster that eats all our socks also stole my tip. :-(

Of course, I could also blame my unhappiness of the cake on the fact that it was 2:00am when I piped the lyrics to "Birthday" on the side of the cake, and that's why it looks so messy, not because I have horribly illegible handwriting when I write sideways.  Of course!  And I'm not really unhappy.  I'm just such a perfectionist when it comes to cakes.  Mostly just my cakes, but I've been known to be pretty judgmental about some of those Cake Wrecks too heh heh...

"Yes, we're gonna have a party"

"I'm glad it's your birthday"

 "I would like you to dance"

"Happy Birthday to you"

"We're gonna have a good time"

"They say it's your birthday"

(Sorry about the really poor quality of some of the pictures I took with the little digital camera. I wish I had the funds to invest in one of those fancy, expensive ones, but I just have to make do with what I have. =] Thanks for sticking it out with me!)

But Maggie loved the the cake, and that's what's really important.  I tried out a new chocolate cake recipe, and I think I used too much dark cocoa powder and not enough sugar.  But the buttercream was extra sweet, so that compensated it for me.  Plus, everyone else said the cake was delicious.  So I should probably just quit nitpicking and enjoy the chocolaty goodness, right?