A Hard Lesson to Learn

This past month I learned a hard lesson. DON'T EVER FORGET YOUR CAMERA!

My friend, who recently had a baby, threw a wonderful baby shower. Of course, I insisted on bringing the cake! I stayed up all night making a gorgeous shower cake, complete with baby-pink-zebera stripes inside! I was thrilled with the final product and brought it to my friend's house, set it up and went for my camera.... not there.
I checked in my car, not there either....
I looked again in my supply bag.... not there.

Realizing I had made the most horrid mistake of forgetting my camera at a baby shower (where I still had not taken a photo of the cake), I began to ask around for a camera. Surely someone would have brought one. NOPE! The proud momma didn't... the proud papa didn't, and neither did the new grandma. WHAT IS GOING ON?!

In a panic, I began to wonder what to do. My only option was to find a camera. One of my friend's friends (who traveled from Winnipeg) offered hers, and I proceeded to take many lovely photos of the various parts of the cake, making sure to check balance and colour... her camera was awesome! Long story short, she never sent me the pictures.

In a scramble, my friend and I were able to come up with a few photos. I got lucky! Let that be a lesson to me! Don't forget your camera!!!!

So the cake:
Vanilla Fluff cake with pink-zebra patterned insides and pink vanilla buttercream. 

Though it is not the best photo, the barrel for the baby bath was awesome! I individually cut each 'panel' of the barrel and pock-marked the fondant , then brushed on the wood grain. I added a strip of black fondant, then added in the 'screws'. This photo, of course, does not do it justice!

And of course, the baby in the bath is playing with her duckies. The water was awesome! stiff buttercream to make it look like moving bath water, and buttercream bubbles!

I now know that I need to be more cautious in the future! I am more upset that I got no good photos of baby Bea, who slept on my lap the entire shower!

Anniversary - the Couples edition

Finally, some inspiration. Things have been busy in the Fort. Over the last little while I have been working hard on several creations (some unposted as of yet, sorry!).

So, it is with great pleasure that I post this update! The Kellar Cake - a 50th wedding anniversary!
Red-Velvet and Carrot Cake with Cream-Cheese buttercream, covered in MMF.

 

And of course, my personal update. I don't like adding too much in the way of personal information. True, I have been known to post personal images and updates sporadically, but this one is totally worth doing. This year, my husband and I are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary (not our 50th, I guess we are 1/10th there!). I say this year, but in truth, we were married on a leap-year (Feb 29th 2008) and only have celebrated one anniversary.... so if you count non-leap years it is five, if not, I guess we are 1.25/5 years.  I suppose my husband's face says it all as I try on my dress for the last time.

What do people do with their dresses? Wreck them, store them for their children who will never want to wear them.... Me. I decided to donate mine. There is a great group in Thunder Bay that sends dresses to people who cannot afford to buy them. I am very happy knowing my dress will have a new life with someone! So... I tried it on. One thing I always thought with my dress.... I AM BATMAN! 

Other silly things being done... a Quincy-hut outside of my house.... we've had a lot of snow! Two people can sit up or crouch in this beast! My husband says I can live in that, and he gets the house.

And of course, after-school snowshoeing on the lake. What a wonderful way to enjoy where you live. 

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!

Pink wedding!

I loved the setup for this wedding. Pink and Fuchsia were the colours, and boy did they fit the bride and groom! The spread included on two tier cake (with Polka-dots), one Ice-creme cone cake, and one gluten-free orange-almond cake. I was super happy to pull myself out of my baking funk, and to get to work on a real project!

The cake included small sugar flowers and sugar butterflies! I loved the cake flavors she choose. The top tier is Chocolate, the bottom, Lemon.... In the other cake, almond and then strawberry. FUN! I love the not-so-basic flavors!

The whole room was decorated in pink bows and white tulle. I loved the bride. Her bubbly personality and cute babushka to hide her hair from her husband was just adorable!

So, I now have two tutorials to post as a result! I guess you'll have to check back later to see what they will be :)

Rainbows, Butterflies, and a girl's dream!

If you were asked to create a colourful cake that included the theme of rainbows for a 4 year-old girls' birthday, what would you say?

Could you say no?

No, really, Could you?

I could not! This project was just too fun to avoid!! All week I've been making sugar flowers and sugar butterflies for the perfect birthday cake.


The party was an oasis of colour, big rainbow balloon archways, rainbow balloons everywhere, rainbow parachute, rainbow building blocks and streamers, rainbow tutus... :: dies :: The colours were spectacular. As a centerpiece on the dessert table was my cake.


No, this time I did not make the dessert table, nor did I eat all the fruit off of it (as some who know me might have suspected). I simply brought the cake... enjoyed the company, and took photos. Had I forethought, I would have removed the napkin from the center of the table before the photo was taken!

Now of course you can guess that the cake is a rainbow cake. Since the party is still going on, I have yet to acquire a photo of the cake being cut, something I am quite anxious for.


Again, for sugar flowers I choose anemone flowers (tutorial here), cherry-blossoms (tutorial here) blue bells (which use the same technique as the cherry-blossoms), leaves and of course, calla lilies. The display was mounted on an un-flattened cake top that I allowed to dome to give the whole set a little more volume. Over the edges of the cake I attempted to drape blue-bells and sugar blossoms (both open and not) to give some motion to the cake.

Flying up the sides, I used gumpaste-butterflies which I cut out in rainbow colours. I adhered them to the cake using crusted buttercream, which acts as a glue. Since the wings were worked to be nice and thin, they were very light on the side.

In total, a complete success!

For now, I am thinking Halloween. I've got my costume and some great cookie ideas. I cannot wait to show all of you! Hubbie has been chastising me for wearing my costume around the house (it is decent I swear). I just ABSOLUTLY freaked out when I got it. It's so fun! You'll see :)

Now, I have some work to do! Have a great weekend!

Adam's 1st birthday, My first dessert table

Today was my friend's son's 1st Birthday Party. The theme was A day at the Circus. TOO CUTE! So of course I had planned his dessert table four months ago! I told, not asked, my friend Deneine that I was making the display/dessert table for Adam's party, and whatever she had planned, we would work through it. So, when she told me that the theme was a circus, I was all too thrilled. The whole shebang was big! She had a bouncie castle, fish pond, prizes, tickets, games, SNOWCONES, cotton candy, hot dogs, it was HUGE! Deneine never does anything small, and I was totally excited to meet her expectations.

This was my first dessert table. I've been following so many different blogs where super-moms make awesome tables, and felt totally inadequate. I mean, I'm not a mom (yet), nor do I often get the chance to throw big parties. I used this chance, and this baby as my fake-super-mom-awesome-party-of-awesomeness dessert table. The result:

I don't think I did quite bad. I wish I had had more time to bake, but I knew there was too much candy/food as it was, so I tried not to bake too much, knowing full well that it probably would not get all eaten (most of it did!).

On the table I had (center) Chocolate dipped Oreos, peanut-free peanut cookies (sugar cookies decorted to look like peanuts - below, jelly-beans, jujubes), chocolate mustaches (not pictured here), and of course, cake: big one for the party, small one for Adam to squash!

My favorite part were the cookies. I took so long decorating those bad-boys to look like peanuts. I did a base coat, then a few lines on top to make them look like peanuts. Sadly, I didn't get a good picture of them! ARGH! They looked so cute wrapped up in the home-made wrappers!

Of course, everyone loved the cake, that is nothing to be surprised about. I did, however, underestimate the number of people who planned on eating it, and we came up a bit short... kids eat a lot of cake! I planned for 30 people, but we had so many more. It was truly an awesome day!

Until next time!