CLASS OF 2013!!

It has finally come! After 12 long years, we have graduated high school! It's so surreal, I don't know what to do with myself. My time has always been taken up with school work, homework and after school rehearsals. I guess it's time to get a job now that I have free time.
With graduation comes graduation parties, a time to celebrate this accomplishment with friends and family. One of my good friend's parents asked me to make a cake for her graduation party. I was beyond excited to be asked to do this project. I only got one picture with my camera phone, so it's not very good quality, but here it is!

The bottom two tiers were hexagon shaped and the top tier was round, to form the cap. My friend Jos is really into music and was even Drum Major for our school's marching band senior year. I tied in her love for music by piping the notes to one of the songs they played in band onto the bottom tier. I could have done a lot better with the piping but I was trying to hurry and get the cake out the door and to the party. And the fondant could have been smoother. But all in all, I think this cake turned out pretty well and the group was pleased with what I had come up with. I love being able to work with cake and learn new techniques to use. 

Welcome Home, Elder!

My older brother was in Canada for the past two years serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. He returned home a few weeks ago on April 25th. We had a homecoming party for him that Sunday, the 28th. I knew we would have a big crowd so I made a bigger cake than I usually do. This is an idea I got off Pinterest and modified a little bit.












 My fondant skills are really improving.
 I'm starting to get the hang of making, coloring, and rolling it out.

I was going to make a fondant tie, but I ran out of time. Then I was just going to drape one of Elder's ties around it, but the tie I grabbed had been worn a lot and not washed and Mom suggested not having a dirty tie on the cake, which is a really good idea. So I just grabbed some green cardstock and cut a quick tie. Its not like it was on their for very long anyways because everyone dug in as fast as they could.

What Happens When I'm Bored and Alone

For some reason that I can't remember, my family went out of town and left me at home alone. Now, if I were a stereotypical teenager, I would have immediately contacted all my friends and thrown a party while my parents were gone and probably destroyed the house. Lucky for my parents, I am not a stereotypical teen and they returned to a house that was still standing and not a complete disaster. Instead, I made a mess of the kitchen and created not one but two cakes. It was shortly after Mother's Day and since I didn't have the time before to make Mom a cake, I made one after. It was lemon cake with lemon flavored frosting. Both came store bought I'm pretty sure, but I made the purple frosting to practice my roses, writing and borders. The roses and writing still need a bit of work, but this cake turned out pretty good and Mom loved it. 

 

 

 

 

My brothers and my dad are picky and don't like lemon cake so I made them their own yellow cake. Being boys, and my heroes, I decorated theirs in a superhero theme. My dad and my youngest brother like Superman and my second youngest brother likes Batman. It was a simple design but I think it turned out awesome. And the boys were happy that this time the cake was for them and not leaving the house for someone else.

 

Bow Tie

Remember the friend with the top hat? For her next birthday, I made her a bow tie cake. It's always fun to make cakes for this friend. So, to do it, I took my smallest hectagon cake pan for the middle and a square pan cut diagonally to form the outsides. I ran out of time to cover with fondant, so I just frosted it with canned frosting from the store. To decorate, I placed green and purple circular sprinkles around the edge. It turned out great. I just love doing this!

Culinary Class

I'm taking culinary arts this year in high school and I am loving it. I'm learning so many new things that I can't wait to try at home. This past unit, Mrs. H. had us do cakes. I was jumping with excitement when she told us and all throughout the instruction. I did learn new tips and tricks to cake decorating, which was awesome. Though the assignment was really simple, I still had a great time with it. I passed the unit with flying colors. I wanted to do something cute and fun, so I chose to pipe a duck on my cake. Mrs. H. gave us a star tip and a circle tip to work with. 

The Birthday of a Videogamer

My best friend's little brother was having a birthday and she threw him a surprise party and came to me for the cake. After racking my brain and deciding the easiest thing would be to make cupcakes for the teens, and using his love of video games, I came up with this:

 

I simply took my brother's PS2 controller and put the 24 cupcakes in that shape and frosted with chocolate frosting. Then I cut out the buttons from black construction paper and added them. It was a piece of cake!

Trying out Pinterest ideas

I have recently become aware of this awesome site called Pinterest where people post different things under different categories and share ideas of crafts and baking and hair and weddings and it's so amazing, but a bit of a time waster. Anyways, I was scrolling through Pinterest one day and came across someone's idea for ice cream cupcakes. They were so darling and I decided that would be my next project. So I got out my mom's cake bowl that I've taken over to do my mixes in and got busy making the kitchen a complete mess. I experimented with the cake mix a bit and added drops of extract to flavor it. I started with a yellow cake mix (from a box. I'm sooo original, I know) and split it up so I could do four flavors: chocolate, strawberry, mint, and "vanilla"(it was just the yellow cake, no extract).

I also put some extract in the frosting to help add flavor to the cupcakes when they came out. I grabbed some cake cones we had in the pantry and arranged the cupcakes as if they were scoops of ice cream. The cupcakes were frosted with a knife and then I piped at the bottom to give it a cartoon-y ice cream look. Topped them off with sprinkles, butterscotch candy, and even an Andes mint I had gotten from someone. I really liked how they turned out, and my family did too. They were awesome, waiting patiently all day for me to be done creating. When I told them I was done, they all swooped in like a flock of vultures. Pretty sure they were all gone within the week.