Winter Wedding

This cake was near and dear to my heart, and in truth, had to be baked twice before I was happy with the results! But, with all my heart, I wanted it to be perfect.

So, with much fussing and playing, I managed to create a winter-themed cake with a rather large Poinsettia on top.

With a little bit of a twist, this is an egg-nog cake with vanilla-bean buttercream. The cake is covered in MMF, and decorated with sugar flowers/snowflakes (a combo if you will). I had no time to order a snowflake plunger set this year. Rats! Maybe next...

 Because the Poinsettia is so large, it actually dented to the top of the cake! I have never done a single flower on top, and was rather pleased with the off-set aesthetic of it.

 And of course, this was a drop-in wedding, so Cupcakes make things a little more munchable! I was rather pleased all around.

So, now I have some extra cake in the house... I wonder what I will use it to make next :)
Happy New Year!

Gingerbread Home - looks like a bird house!

Asa child, my family would make gingerbread houses. We would buy one of those per-packaged kits which would come replete with icing, jujubes, and smarties. We would take a box, cut it, then line the base with tin-foil snow. After opening the candies, we (my siblings and I) were given specific instructions NOT TO EAT ANY OF THE CANDY.... Very stern!

And thus it was that our gingerbread house was made, somewhat bi-yearly, and would sit on the end-tables, uneaten (under threat for any who dared eat it before Christmas - thanks Dad). And as the days would pass, the house would become harder, and harder, and it's candy decorations (specifically the smarties) would begin to disappear piece by piece, until the day, CHRISTMAS, when the house was deemed free to eat, and was so hard it had to be tossed... a waste of food, and time. Alas, this was not in vain; the memories lasted!

And so it was that my gingerbread home tradition starts, in the dust of crumbled cookies past.


This year, as some of you may have read, I moved into my new home. This newly-built paradise, on the shores of Rainy Lake, Ontario, has become my pride and joy. In a previous post, I showed off my
kitchen and some other small quips about new-home ownership. Today, I wish to share with you all my Christmas Gingerbread Home (not a house, but a home).

Sadly, in my artistic vision, I did forget to post a door, and was stuck making a rather sad looking gingerbread bird house, but who is judging?

The roof was inspired by a card design that I received.

And of course, I could not simply make one Gingerbread house, I made several - I believe some 10 small ones or so....

And the house? Well, It met with a somewhat orthodox ending on Christmas Eve.... my mother-in-law had some troubles smashing the little structure, but with some coaxing and a butterknife, she succeeded in felling the home.

 But, as always, Photos will live on. Here is a photo of the house on my sweets tower, prior to our House-Warming/ Yuletide /End-of-the-World party. Did anyone notice how the world DID NOT end? Did anyone thing otherwise? I was certainly glad it did not end!

And, just to finish off... here is a close-up of the small Gingerbread houses... they were teeny-sized houses which fit on the end of cups. The idea was actually from NotMartha.com. If you ever find you have more time than you know what to do with, and you feel like being a Holly-Homemaker (Suzy?), check out the site. She has great ideas!

So, to close, here is a picture of my father-in-law sipping his morning coffee, eating gingerbread on Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your Holidays were as relaxing as mine were!

What keeps you going? Peaking into my kitchen

 For all of my adult life, I have been dreaming of my kitchen. I pictured myself in my cute apron, whipping up batches of cookies and sweets for my husband, who comes in with the paper and sits down at the table just as I place the roast ham down next to the yams.

That will never happen.

First, my husband does not read the paper, as he is technologically inclined to download it instead, or check the online headlines.
Next, he hates ham. I love it. He hates it... a dilemma if ever there was one.
Finally, my husband loves to eat on the couch. True story.... no joke. Go figure!

So, now that I have moved into my dream mansion on the lake, and my kitchen is oodles bigger than before, I get to live only parts of my dreams. At least I can share them with hubby.

December always marks baking season for me. Every year I whip up hundreds (no literally, hundreds) of goodies to give away in tins and boxes to family and friends. The way I see it, people spend lots of money and time making dainties for people who drop in for a visit, so wouldn't it be nice to give out some of those dainties and save them time?
No
They eat them,
They eat them as soon as they are given,
And they are happy,
Which is just as good.

This year I had the pleasure of baking goodies with friends and family in my new home. If you did not know, this was the reason I had sparse posts and uninteresting pictures. I recently moved into my newly-built home on the shores of Rainy Lake. It is a gorgeous paradise. And my kitchen is about 5X bigger, without exaggeration from what I had before.

It is so big, in fact, that I was able to have company over for a cookie decorating party (as seen above) which was super fun! I was also able to bake more than one batch of cookies for the dainty boxes, which is amazing! I have never had two batches baking in my double oven while the third batch chilled... HOW MUCH DID THAT BLOW MY MIND?!

Here's my new paradise:

 It is super hard to believe that it is perfect... except for a valance curtain (teal or yellow... I have yet to decide) the place is perfect. I even had a sign made for above the island.
Je suis la propriétaire d'une patisserie!
N'êtes-vous pas exciter? Non... mais, je suis laide.

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So, from my home to yours, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays.

A Sugar FLower Spread

HUZZAH! Baking in my new home has been wonderful!

In my last post, I showed you some pretty sugar cherry blossoms I had been working on...

Well, those flowers went to a cake I was making... One for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. The party was held in my home town, four hours away, so I had a lot of transportation woes... but ultimately, the cake turned out okay, for not having all my tools and tricks available.

Since I had to do a four hour commute for the celebration (YAY, grandma is totally worth it), I decided to pre-bake all cakes and cupcakes (a total of 90 of them), at home, then transport them and assemble everything at the church. Luckily for me the church had a lot of items at my disposal, and the ladies were super nice in helping me find all my gear. I had so many people watching me put it all together, which was funny, but I enjoyed it :) I don't usually get people interested in my caking.. my husband certainly finds it boring.  

I did all the sugar flowers at home too... I made two large stargazer lilies, one orchid, several cherry blossoms and about 30 blue flowers (bluebells?)... which are so tiny they just act as filler. The cake was gorgeous! As I have said before, my camera is no-go until my computer is up, but luckily my aunt had hers!

So, with only a few cupcakes at a time, we decorated the table.... The whole room was filled with cupcake-style decorations... including cupcake confetti!!! I ABSOLUTELY had so much fun running around with confetti screaming SPARKLE SPARKLE!!! My husband, who is used to such outbursts, just laughed, while my family looked a little confused... SPARKLES ARE AWESOME!!

 My next thing to do on my list is to put up my Christmas tree and to make my house all sparkly! I am guessing that will wait until next week, as my tummy is a little unhappy at the moment. Still, it was a great weekend!
Cheers all!

Not dead yet, just don't have the NET!!

I had mentioned a while back that I would be moving to a new home... MAGIC! Well, I am in, and have been cleaning ever since (Newly built homes have a lot of dust!!). Needless to say it has been some time since my last update. It feels strange typing an update to what amounts to a personal journal or diary of baking, but here I am, out of habit, feeling a little guilty for not having posted anything recently!

One of my biggest problems is that I do not have the ability to edit the photo sizes of my camera pictures, so while I have baked up a storm, I have been unable to actually take any good pictures. I decided that I would use my Instagram photos as a sort of update... So, here we go!

 Home

 First Cookies for Snow Storm Party

 Power Outage after Snow Storm Party

 Dreaming of warmer places

Oh look, Coconuts...

First Cake...

Sugar Flowers for a big celebration...

Exhaustion!!!

Princess and the Popstar Cake

Well, as you may have noticed, posts are becoming fewer and far between. My apologies! I'm close to moving into my new home, and have packed most of my baking gear. I am officially 17 days from moving!

I did, however, manage to get some time to bake one last cake before the move. This cake was actually baked last weekend, but I've been too busy to post it up:

This cake is for Barbie: The Princess and the Popstar movie. The family requested something with sparkles, purple and pink. Well, what is Barbie about if not sparkles, purple and pink?! I tried to model the dress from the movie, but of course, it stops at the knees, so this is a longer version of it.

You may well remember my last Barbie Cake and the subsequent Tutorial... I did much the same thing, but this 'dress' is a little puffier and has ruffles! I painted a little dotted pattern on the dress, which is MMF.

Question Insert::: How do you get the dress off of the doll?

You want the short answer? You cut it off. This may seem like a horrible idea, but it is not. The doll itself has a dress that is not removable! That is the bottom line. The dress at the back has a small attachment (I believe this one was to a star). You need to take an exacto-knife and make a small slit up that hold, then will have to sew the dress later (when you give the doll for a gift) up with a snap-clip (a snapping button). While it seems crazy to buy a doll to cut up, little girls will want to play dress-up with the dolls, and removing and repairning the dress makes that possible. After the cake is done, and the doll is cleaned, you can re-attach the dress by buttoning it around that star. It will also make a cute gift to give the dress in a small gift-package on the side :)
Hope that is helpful.

Okay, I hope that I can at least have one last cake before Halloween (our move-in date). I want to at least do my classic Halloween Head cake before it's time to move. We'll see though. Until then, thank you so much for all of your support! I am honored to see Domestic Sugar grow!

NO HOCKEY! I'm so mad I could eat my shirt!

What a disappointment to have the 2012-2013 Hockey season cancelled!I love hockey!

Ever since I was 8, My brother and I would play Nintendo's Blades of Steel. I was always my favorite team: the Penguins! (GO PENS GO)

Of course, my favorite player was Mario Lemieux! He was dreamy with his curly black hair and pretty smile! I loved watching him play alongside the team! It was always a treat to watch hockey (in black and white) on my small 12" TV.

This cake was made for a Pens fan: a little boy who is celebrating his birthday this week.

Of course, the sleeve has the trademark number 66 - or Lemieux's number. ♥

While I think Crosby is a great player, he often plays up injuries (not the one that kept him out most of the season last year, but the in-game small hits). I apologize if that offends... it is simply my opinion.

I am sure most of you remember that the Pens changed their logo (which turned out looking like a flying pigeon). The classic logo (Below) is my favorite!

I made it out of MMF, hand-painted with Americolors. Labors of love I guess!

So, I wait with baited breath for the next season. I hope that the NHL gets their stuff together, so we fans can enjoy the wonders of sport. I may have to take on Football!

Choot 'em BILL!!

In Northwestern Ontario, people always try to pass the time away... waiting and hoping for the fall; impatiently hoping to 'choot something! It never ceases to amaze me how this town lights up around this time of year. Children, parent, and families all move from their small town rural homes, and push into the bush to find something to 'choot.

This week, I finally got a chance to make a cake for a hunter! Bill turned 40 this week! His family often encourage him with the wondrous red-necked words "'choot 'em!" Sadly, we have no gaters here up north, but the magic of "Swamp People" has certainly not missed it's mark on our population, so we turn to the deer to live out our dreams! BECAUSE THEY ARE DELICIOUS!!!


Here is Bill:

And here is his reason to want to 'choot anything:

HEY, LOOK OVER THERE!! THE BIG 4-0 IS HIDING BEHIND THOSE BUSHES!!!

But seriously, this cake is a simple homage to aging hunters everywhere..... and while I forgot to paint the sugarpaste Bill's neck red (forgot, but wanted to), this cake represents the best of my hunting knowledge.... I had to Google Deer (I usually only eat them, not 'choot 'em), and My gun looks like a rocket launcher.

So next time you come down to Northern Ontario, look out for the bearded man with the rocket launcher, 'chooting deer in an attempt to dodge fate. Don't worry, around here, you're never too old to own a gun hunt!

Angry... VERBS! (don't play with your food!)

Well, it certainly has been a lag in posting lately, has it not!
There have been othr projects that I have been working on. Getting a new job, a new home. Things certainly have been busy!

The project was inspired by Pintrest. Our classroom is doing a grammar review called 'Angry Verbs' which takes angry birds and well, makes them into a teaching tool! Super fun! The kids have been enjoying the games associated.. and so, as a treat, I've made cookies! It has been some time since I've ventured to do so:

My coworker swears she can hear the laughing pig. She was going around imitating it's silly laugh to my delight!

I of course like the yellow bird best.... his triangular shapes is adorable!!! While I don't fully understand the appeal of the game (and am probably the only one who is oblivious to its charms), the kids enjoy it greatly! The part that most appeals to me are the graphics. The adorable looks, grins, and  colours make it a sweet game!

And of course, I like to play with my food!

I have a few projects I will be working on in the coming days.... let's hope I can get back to work with little issue!

Of course, here is my board!