Wilton Final "Flowers" class and a mini disaster.....

I had my final "flowers" Wilton class Thursday night, and decided that instead of just doing ONE cake that I would throw all the flowers/techniques we learned on (you know how it is when you have a cake and it gets cut into, right.... you gotta eat it from there! and guess would would be eating all that freakin cake....), that I would make some mini cakes (3 inch rounds) and have them each reflect a few techniques/flowers that would be more elegant and "photobook" worthy, for if/when I decide to start selling my cakes. I had to bring James with me to cake class. He was mostly a doll, playing in the other room with another child and leaving me in the main room to work.

I was doing some precise piping on the side of my 2nd mini cake and my teacher suggested that I put my turntable up on a box to pipe, so I could rest my elbow on the table and keep my lines very neat. When I was 1/2 way through, James ran up to me and gave me a big hug while I was doing some piping work. I told him thanks nicely and hugged him back, but to please not do that while Mommy was working on the cakes. After he left, I said to the other ladies that he was my tiny tornado, Senor Destructo and how I usually waited until after he went to bed to decorate the cakes.

Not 1 minute later, for absolutely no reason that any one could see..... the turntable slipped off the box and the cake flipped off and landed on it's side on the chair and stuck. *sigh* Karma will get you every time!! And laugh like a loon while she's at it!

Mini cake before it got decorated:




Inspiration photo:




And after, lol













There was just no saving it! lol



So here are the other cakes I did in class.....






/



This little cake is obviously not finished... I would have to put grass in the basket and around the bottom, hide the eggs under the daffodils, add more daffodils on the other side, ect to finish it..... but don't you just LOVE the mini peep and the eggs??!?!







AND

Cake Disaster part 2:

It was so cold thursday night (like 35 degrees) that, since my fridge was full, I was going to leave the 2 finished, one 1/2 finished and smooshed cakes out in their box in the car and I would retrieve them in the morning.....



You see where this is going??



I totally forgot them this morning and didn't remember until about 2 pm when we were in the midst of our long awaited warm up! lol It was 65 outside and probably 85-90 in my car! The blue cake with the flowers was frosted with "decorator" icing (not buttercream) and was looking the "worst" for wear, sagging limply in its lovely pool of oil that had managed to run off the board and seep through the bottom of the cardboard box (not cake box... just plain cardboard, *sigh*) onto the seat of my car. The other 2 fared better in the looks department (having been made will really nice buttercream with expensive butter, and the chocolate held up the best of the bunch) but I wouldn't touch them with a 10 ft bottle of antacid now. It hurt me, but I tossed them all in the trash. I had to.



So to recap.... plan: 4 mini cakes so I can freeze them and don't have to eat one big cake in a sitting or give them away to Zero cakes, a destroyed kitchen, a 6yr who will never forgive me for throwing away cake! and a cleaning bill for the big oil slick on my passenger seat where the shortening piddled through my cardboard box, lol


Coulda been worse, right?

Mizzou Cake Competition Cake 2011

Here it is...





the long awaited,






much anticipated,







swoon worthy






(ok... it's just cake people... )






Mizzou Cake Challenge Cake!!! By Me!!! Your favorite procrastinating blogger!!





~cue cheering crowd~




(apologies now for blowing up your computer with pics.... I hope all of this loads for you! lol)












Don't miss Beetle Bailey behind the rose bush!!



And to answer your questions:

1. No, I didn't win... I didn't even place in my division.

2. I can only assume the judges were NOT blind, but I have a call into Duff's opthamologist, just to make sure! lol

3. 55 cakes, 15 professional and 40 amateur.... guess which section *I* competed in! lol.... if you want to see the winning cakes you can go HERE and if you want to see ALL of the cakes you can watch THIS VIDEO My set up time was 8:40 am. The judging was from 10:30 to 11:30? approx and the cakes were on display to the public from 12pm to 5 pm. We picked it up at 10pm.

3a. in the trunk of the car unassembled

4. Duff's really funny, but no we didn't get to hang out. I just got to meet him for less than a minute. I managed to get an autograph, a picture and my fragile cake ego crushed when he didn't remember my cake at all *sigh*

5. James was really good... even when he had to sit through the almost 2 hour talk that Duff gave and then waited for almost 45 mins after so Mommy could get her autograph and ego bruising! lol

6. We ate a few bites of it... but after it had been in the trunk of the rental from here to the hotel 3 hours away on tuesday, and on display all day wednesday, and back in the trunk of the rental on thursday and driven all the way to Kentucky, it just needed to be tossed. We didn't even cut into it until friday night and i had covered it with fondant on the previous Saturday or sunday? Those 3 weeks are all kind of a blur....

7. He says never again.... I say maybe. The boys were getting tired of eating sandwiches in the living room! lol Hubby also quipped one day that it's a good thing you can't get "Contact Diabetes" lol, because of all the sugar that was in the air and all over the kitchen. He also said that one of the pluses was "sugar coated Sharon kisses".... I didn't have the heart to tell him that by that time, I had QUIT even tasting anything and was just oozing the sugar out of my very pores.

8. Yes, I was very very tired of cake! lol After Hubby and I went and set up the cake, we had a snack at the hotel. James gave me a his donut. I took one bite, made a face and said "Blech... I can't eat this... it tastes like CAKE!" lol. I was CRAVING protein... You know it's bad when all you want to eat is a hard boiled egg!

9. Yes, I have made cakes since!! lol... I was in the middle of a cake class and couldn't avoid making frosting and cake! I just finished that class yesterday and will blog about it soon.




Ok... back to the cake.

Everything is hand made and edible!

I started with white fondant. I hand tinted or hand painted all the color you shttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifee on the cake. All the flowers and leaves are made with a gumpaste/fondant mix, all hand cut, formed, painted, steamed and dried. I believe the cake ended up being around 23-25 inches when it was stacked... but I didn't measure it all together. This was the first time I had EVER stacked a cake.... or worked with modeling chocolate.... or made leaves and flowers..... or worked with royal icing.... or made "water"...... and so many other things, I can't hardly count! lol

Ok... working from the top down, Close up detail work (you can click the links for bigger pics, if you want... or if you don't want to sort through all the pics, you can WATCH THIS VIDEO It gives you a great idea of the scale of everything and you get some nice close ups)


Spire: 2 in approx, fondant gumpaste mix




Jesse Hall Dome: From bottom to the tip of the spire almost 10? inches tall, Rice Krispie treats (I tried to make it out of cake... I really did! But after the 3rd time it fell over, I gave up!) covered in fondant, hand painted and piped with royal icing. Columns/MU bushes/ Gates: hand formed, sculpted and painted, gumpaste/fondant mix.






The Buildings on the sides: Both are hand painted (no edible images on THIS cake!! That's cheating!!) with a mix of icing colors and vodka and applied with a paint brush.









School crest (3 in round) is layered gumpaste/fondant mix and piped with royal icing.







Tiger tracks!!




Marble colums (5 in tall) are gumpaste/fondant mix and the signs are modeling chololate with gold glaze writing that was done with a paint brush.










The cascading "water" in the fountain is brushed gelatin (NOT plastic, like you were thinking!! That's cheating!! lol) and the water in the basin is tinted piping gel. The plaque behind the water is 1 x 3.5 and the inscription is hand written (edible images?? We don't need no stinkin edible images!!)






Tiger and brown column are made/carved out of home made modeling chocolate and the Tiger Plaza column is the gumpaste/fondant mix with modeling chololate with gold glaze writing.







Some "in action" shots that show the scale of the work:





You like those bricks?? I didn't have a brick mat, so everyone of the lines on those puppies was drawn by ME with a small ball tool (looooong line..... loooooong line..... looooooong line...... short line.. short line.. short line... loooooooong line...... ect) ...... and THEN each brick was HAND PAINTED! You want to talk insanity?? Yeah... paint teeny tiny bricks for more than 4 hours and then call me! lol


























P.s. This is the tiny kitchen that I made this cake in... that counter space you see and the kitchen table was alllll my work space. I had to stick stuff in the laundry room to dry as I was working.... James was forbidden in there for any reason and it made it REALLY hard to wash clothes when there were leaves all over the closed lid of the washer! lol

Cake Competition prep: Day 1

Hi!

I didn't get "a lot" of stuff done on my cake today, but I did.... if that makes any sense! lol

No cakes were baked, but I cleared out my kitchen, made lists, finalized the design (it's totally awesome, if I do say so myself.... nobody ever accused me of not being ambitious THAT's for sure!!) and started some of the prep work. I swear, if it were possible to get contact diabetes, I would have gone into a coma tonight!

I made:
2 batches of butter cream
1 batch modeling chocolate (I think I may need 2 or 3 batches, but I only had enough chocolate for 1)
1 batch Rice Krispie treats (I like these better than cake... it was all I could do not to eat the whole batch!! lol)
2 batches of royal icing double (Might be too runny, I might need to add more sugar... we'll have to see)
A Gelatin sheet (I'm going to have a "water" element and this is a really cool technique that I discovered on the internet)
a double batch of piping gel

I'm punking out and buying the fondant. I just don't have the time or sanity to try and make it right now. For me, fondant outcomes tend to rely more on the position of the moon and some sort of mystical chant/dance/special handshake that I am not privy to, than my actual skills. I nearly had a breakdown in September over making the stupid fondant (ANTS were in my sugar!! and you don't really notice powdered sugar ants until you have freckled fondant. At that point in time, you either chuck it, take a deep breath and have a good cry or try to convince everyone that you used fancy vanilla beans in your recipe....)

I'm really pushing my skill set with this cake. It's going to be a stacked AND tiered cake*. It will have figures modeled out of chocolate and dusted with lustre dust to look like bronze*. It will have a cool "fountain" with water.* piped royal icing decorations* Handmade flowers and ferns* and a bunch of other cool stuff, I'm not gonna tell you about right now :) You will just have to follow along if you want to see the final product!



*all stuff I have ever done

OMG OMG OMG!!!

As you know (if you've been reading, lol) that I finished my first Wilton course on Wednesday. After class, I was talking with my instructor and she asked me if I had ever thought about doing a cake competition. I told her that I *had* thought about it, but that I didn't have any idea where to find one locally. She said that she got an email the other day about one in the area and that I should check it out. She told me that Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes was going to judge it.


(*squeal* I wanna work there for a week.... just to absorb the knowledge!)

I googled and found the website, but the web page said that entries had closed at 5 pm that day. I was all bummed out, and I read the rules in a "woulda, coulda, shoulda" mood and I discovered in the fine print that the entries were to be closed on March 4 at 5pm. After a few emails back and forth, the powers that be decided that due to a technicality (the web guy didn't change the rules when they changed the date every where else on the website) that they would send me an application. I filled it out and sent it in with pictures of my airplane, firetruck, blue flower, and hand of cards cake.

I've been on pins and needles for a day in a half, part of me desperately hoping they pick me and the other half dreading it.




I got an acceptance email at 4pm today!!!!



OMG OMG OMG!!!


I have to go up against 55 other cakes, most of whom have been planning/preparing their cakes for weeks..... at a venue that is 3 hours away..... in the middle of spring break.


*breathe* *breathe* *breathe* *breathe* *breathe* *breathe*



This is the competition http://cakechallenge.missouri.edu/ The theme is “A Mizzou Spring.” I have been madly googling, because not only do I have JUST 10 days to pull this cake out of thin air, I have NEVER BEEN TO MIZZOU!!! lol

Oh well! I have tons of ideas and I'm hoping to "make it Bigger, make it Badder, make it AWESOME!!!" enough.


ACK!!!





Anyone want to come clean my house??

More Cake!!

I just finished the Wilton Cake Decorating Basics Course I (four week class covering the basics of cake decorating), and I have been reminded that I abso-freakin-lutely HATE working in just buttercream! lol. Can't stand it!! The second class in this course had me throwing a tantrum/meltdown to rival any 2 yr olds! (It probably didn't help that I hadn't eaten all day and was hopped up on diet coke). lol

I have redeemed myself (I believe) with tonight's cake. It was my final for the class and I think it turned out very nicely.

When I grow up......

Over dinner tonight, James mapped out his future career plan for me. He's going to have a different job for each season.

Fall - Pilot
Winter - Lake Ice Thickness Tester
Spring - Weather Man
Summer - House Builder

That is Wack......y

Today was "Wacky Tacky" day at school.  James is excited that he's wearing 2 different socks.  



2 different WHITE socks.  




2 different white ANKLE socks!

And he's wearing red pants with a lime green shirt.


Watch out for us... we are sooooooooo "Wacky"!!!

Valentines Treats!

James wanted to bring some cute treats in to school for his friends on Valentine's Day, so I racked my brain for something easy that we could do together. Inspiration struck when we were at Chip's Chocolate Factory watching them make their fudge and I spied chocolate covered marshmallows in the display case.

I thought "I can do that!" and "How would we make that valentiney?"

I pondered the problem for a few days and got my answer on a trip to the commissary when I saw a huge display of heart shaped marshmallows and sprinkles. LIGHT BULB!

So earlier today James and I got out all our gear to make our treats.

To make these you need:

long lollipop sticks
1 lb of dark chocolate candy melts (or melting chocolate of choice)
Heart shaped marshmallows
Crisco
paper towel
sprinkles
tall coffee mug (I put this mug into my tiny crockpot to keep the chocolate melted... you can just keep microwaving and stirring if you prefer... but you want it tall to be able to dip your whole stick with)
block of Styrofoam
paper towels


I folded a paper towel up and put a little crisco on it, so I could grease my lollipop sticks. The Marshmallows go on MUCH better and keep their shape when you grease the stick. If you don't, the marshmallows tend to resemble little butts,



which is ok if that's the kind of thing you want to convey... lol... but I didn't think it was *quite* appropriate for Kindergarten, kwim?

I left a little dab of crisco at the top of my stick and spun the stick as I inserted it into the marshmallow.




Much better!!! No Marshmallow carnage on the stick...



I did this for all 4 marshmallows. I only inserted the stick 1/2 way through the last marshmallow so the stick didn't show.

Having an adorable helper putting the marshmallows small to large on the plate for you makes things go so much faster! lol






Once you get all the sticks made, it's time for the CHOCOLATE!!! YUMMY!!

I put my chocolate and a tablespoon of crisco into a tall coffee mug (the easier to dip into) and popped it into the microwave... 1 minute, stir... 30 secs, stir... until all is melted and ready to go. I then put the cup into my small crockpot to keep the chocolate melted.




Dip your stick in the chocolate and then shake/drip off the excess chocolate.







Add Sprinkles! We found it was neater to just dribble the sprinkles directly onto the treats instead of rolling or dipping the treats into the sprinkles... especially if you have an over-enthusiastic sprinkler, lol.




I stuck them into my styrofoam at an angle to compensate for any drips. The styrofoam went into the freezer after each pop to help the chocolate set up.




Finished treats!







I'm just going to pop them into some pretzel stick bags and attach James's Scooby-Doo Valentines to them and then we'll hand them out to his friends at school. I hope they enjoy eating them as much as we enjoyed making them!