My history in cakes

So . . . I wanted to post a bit of a repository here of cakes I've made, and where it all started.  Here goes . . .

First cake I ever made . . . Spring 2009 for my sister-in-law's baby shower











My second try - luau 2009







Jack's second birthday - November 2009

Aubree (Jack's mom)'s baby shower cake . . . twins aka Lil'G squared








Aubree's graduation from WVU!







Max's 1st birthday!  May 2010








Angela & Russ's Rehearsal Dinner Groom's Cake - Summer 2010








Reagan's 1st birthday!  Summer 2010

 Jack's THIRD birthday, November 2010

 My first try at cupcakes, May 2011 joint baby/wedding shower

And finally, I had leftover fondant and the need to bring a dessert to an in home happy hour at the home of one of my favorite people (Sergent Shout Out), so I decided to throw together a practice Happy Hour cake:

I was pretty happy with how it turned out :)

OK, that's the past of cakes and now they are documented forever . . . on to the future :)

Craig + Kelly = BFFs

Those who know me might think I'm talking about Johnville (and he is pretty cool), but I'm actually talking about his arch nemesis's list.  Jim has told me he's cutting me off of Craigslist.com soon, because I can't stop purchasing things there.  Yesterday I went and picked up this chair for $25--------------------->

I think it's pretty cool looking and will be a fun accent piece in our "formal" living room.   The quotes are because I'm sure it won't actually be "formal" but I think that's what you're supposed to call it.

I want some cool, older touches in the new place - our current house doesn't have much of that.  The room below is the aforementioned formalish room that I'm planning to paint in Behr's "Anonymous" (I think - I need to see it in person - it will be some sort of grey):

I think it will look nice against the white.  The red chair is going in that corner where the wine rack is now, probably with a cool looking light of some sort.  Our current couch will be up against the wall to the left, and the giant corner thing will be replaced with our smaller corner TV stand and a tv.  Haven't decided yet if I'm using the rug from our current house or if I want to invest in a new one.

I also bought this on CL for $20 - not sure what to do with it yet ------->
Ideas?  I think it will likely be a coffee table much like it is right now, but I think the top needs to be fixed a little - either further distressed to cover up the peeling, or painted.  I'm leaning toward the first option.  I dig the old feel of it, and it's going to serve as storage for the multiple blankets in our living room.

And finally, I purchased this thing for $15, which I think is totally cool but maybe it's just me.  It says "Rochester Brewing Co." on it and it has inserts on the inside that happen to be the same size as wine bottles.  So, I could either turn it on its side and use it as a pretty cool wine rack (though there is not room for it on our counter tops - it would need to be drilled into the wall), or, I'm considering putting it on the floor in the family room and using it to store the multiple magazines and newspapers that are always strewn around our house.  I'm thinking that rolled up in there, they will look ultimately cooler than they do in messy piles around our house.  Though the piles do have their character.

I just found an elliptical trainer and emailed a woman about it.  I need help.

Someone stage an intervention, or update my firewall without telling me, or do something.  Jim will thank you later.

I finally make a 3 tiered cake with minimal disaster, aka Dave & Donna's 40th Anniversary Cake

My first cake of the summer is a simple tiered cake for an anniversary party for our best friends' parents/parents-in-law.  The theme of the party is ruby, because apparently that's the jewel associated with a 40 year anniversary?  Who knew.  Anyways, this was the inspiration we came up with.

I started out by baking 2 marble cakes (yup, out of the box, cutting corners is my favorite) in 10 inch round pans.  I used one box per 10 inch round.  The best way I've found to do this is to bake one, let it cool a bit, and then put a large cutting board over the top of the pan.  Flip the whole thing over, now you have an upside down cake on a cutting board. Yeah, not ideal.  So the next step is to then put whatever surface you eventually want the cake on (I recommend a large piece of cardboard) on the top of the upside down cake, then flip the whole thing again and take the cutting board off.  This keeps the cake in one piece (if you're lucky).

This is WTF?! moment number 1 in this project . . . when I did this on 10" round number 2, a chunk came off the side of the cake.  Shit.  I hate when this happens because you can either improvise or bake another cake.  You'll learn I usually take the improvisation route because laziness is kind of my thing. Improvisation: I glued the piece back on with some frosting.  It doesn't have to look pretty on the inside, people, we're going to cover this whole clusterfuck with pretty pretty fondant later on.  No worries.

Back to caking: I use this handy thing to level cakes.  Basically, you measure it to whatever height you want your cake layers (I use whatever height the edge of the cake is) and then just saw off the top.  It's a lifesaver because I suck at leveling things.  More talented people just use a knife but I tried that once and got a slanty cake.

Next I usually use an Exacto-knife to cut the cardboard out around the sides, so your cake is then resting on a piece of cardboard the same size as the cake (it helps when it comes time to move it later, but you can't see it once the fondant is on.)

Put some frosting on top of each layer and then all around the sides.  The frosting should be as flat as possible, but you'll definitely get crumbs all in there - that's why this stage is called "crumb coated".  I use one of these, it makes this step so much easier.  Once it's all covered, stick it in the fridge.

Continue to do this with all the cakes - I did 2 ten inch rounds, 2 eight inch rounds, and 2 six inch rounds for this one.  I measured each layer when they were done to make sure they were about the same height - in this case, each was about 3 inches tall.  Here they are chillin' in my very messy fridge:

OK, once they are cold, it's fondant time.  It's kind of like hammer time, but it's with less pants and more marshmallow.

I made my fondant the night before - I've tried to do it all in one night but it generally results in me losing my effing mind and my husband pondering the word "divorce".  I use this recipe - I can do another post on the trials and tribulations of making fondant later on if anybody actually is interested.  I can assure you it will be a thrilling ride (disclaimer: not really.).

I made a double batch of fondant, more than necessary.  That's one thing I've learned - more is really more when it comes to cake baking and decorating.  It's always easy to take some off, but you can't really put it back on (I know I'm contradicting myself after my WTF moment with the cake gluing above, but just go with it).

I rolled the hell out of that fondant, got it down to about 1/8 of an inch.  My arms are sore from it today, which tells you two things:  1. I need to use my gym membership and 2. Rolling fondant is not for the weak of heart.  The stuff can be a real bitch, and you usually have to do it a couple of times to really get it right (no bubbles, etc.).  For round cakes, you add the dimensions - 10+10+3, and that's how wide you want your fondant to be.  So I rolled this fondant out to that width, then got my cake out of the fridge and put it up on this handy thing that my BFF got me for christmas, which turns out to be awesome (pun intended.).

Round cakes can be real jerks about taking fondant without creasing.  That's why the fondant has to be so big - you have to pull down the edges until it all smooths out.  Once you've got it all smooth, use a pizza cutter to cut around the edges - remember - better to leave more than less, if you cut off too much, you're going to have to cover it up or start over.  I might be speaking from experience here (guess which option I took).

Once the fondant was on this one, I wrapped the bottom in ruby red ribbon using double sided tape (just on the back where the ribbon meets - best not to tape the fondant as people will probably want to eat that later).

OK, now there's a cake with ribbon on it!  What are those things in the middle that look like weird starbucks straws, you might ask?  Yup, starbucks straws.  I read on the internet somewhere that they work as supports, and the internet doesn't lie.  I hope not, anyway, or this cake could have some sort of toppling incident later on today.  You have to put some supports in here or else the cake will just sink in the center under the weight of 2 cakes on top of it.  So, you cut these starbucks straws to the height of the cake, stick 'em in, and voila.  I actually ended up using 9 on the bottom layer in a diamond shape.

Do the same thing with the second layer (I used 4 straws on this one).  And then finally on the top.  Now, you should have three separate cakes, two with straws in them, all with cardboard underneath them and ribbon around the bottom.  Like the picture over there.  Oh crap, apparently I took this before I did the third one.  Whatevs, you get the picture (seriously, puns are the coolest).

These should be fairly easy to move on and off of each other (that's what she said), or at least I hope so, because I'm transporting them separately and putting them together again at the party later today.  I couldn't get the fondant to turn the right shade of ruby (coloring fondant is a real bitch), so I chose to use pearl sprinkles to spell the 40 out on the top layer.  WTF moment number 2:  I couldn't find the tips for my pastry bags, and I needed the little tiny guy.   It appears to have packed its tiny little frosting bags and peaced out, which brings us to improvisation number 2:  I used the pastry bag with no tip and just cut a miniscule hole at the tip.  It was a really tedious process to put frosting on each of those pearls, but I think it paid off.

And then I got to put this absolutely fabulous monstrosity of a cake topper on top (it was their cake topper 40 years ago - very 70's).  Here's the finished product:

Ta freakin da.  I might add some more pearls to the bottom 2 layers later on if the party hosts think it's a good idea and there's time.  We shall see, but for now, it is FIN.

Giving this whole blogging thing a try.

For quite awhile now, I've been doing some crafty things.  Some are successful, some not so successful.  All of them, at one time or another, have made me say, "WTF?  No, seriously, WTF with this Fing thing?"  And so this blog is born.

My patient husband and I just bought a new house and I'm buying all kinds of random crap to fill it (much of it off of craigslist.com).  I have a number of projects I want to do inside the house, and I'm going to try to collect my ideas and inspirations here, and document all the befores and afters and etc.

I also dabble in cake making.  I started making mini marshmallow fondant about 2 years ago and have been messing around with it ever since.  I love baking, and shoving desserts in my face, so it only seemed logical to turn myself into a Rochester-based Ace of Cakes . . . minus the badass goatee and ability to make extreme cakes.  I mostly just make simple things, but it's fun and I like to do it for friends.

So, that's all . . . my next post will probably be about the cake I made last night for an anniversary party.