2 fun new cakes

This weekend I made 2 cakes for 2 friends.
One was for a baptism and the other was for a birthday.

I love it when people who ask me to make a cake for them, give me a theme and tell me I can do whatever I want. To give me free reign over the design. I honestly think that when that happens, not only do I get to try something completely new and try some new techniques, but sometimes I'll make a nicer cake than they probably would have asked for. It's a win, win situation.

So, for the baptism cake, I was told I could basically do anything I'd like. I thought about it and then decided I'd like to try my hand at trying a quilting technique. I saw 2 different ideas online and decided in the end to combine both. I think it turned out fantastic! Here's some pictures...


Now, I wish I could sit down and make a cake without any glitches, but alas that never happens. So, if you're thinking of trying this technique out, let me tell you what not to do. Do not cover all your cakes and think you can go back later and do this. That was my problem. The fondant wasn't as soft by time I got around to it and some parts started to crack by time I was finishing it off. And then later, where I was having the cracking, it got worse and worse until I looked like it might actually crack big time and fall off in parts. Yikes!! But, thankfully, one of the things I am good at, is fixing/covering my mistakes. A little redoing and some piping gel under the threatening bulges and it looked good. Not perfect, but hopefully something no one else would notice. But, it was fun and I'll definitely be doing this technique again!! Love the quilting!


So, the next cake was a birthday cake. Once again, I was given free reign. I asked what his hobbies and interests were and it was soon decided I should focus on something about his motorbike. I tossed around the idea of doing a small bike out of fondant to go on top of a cake, but then I decided to challenge myself with a carved cake. Now, that is something I've never done and to be honest, the thought of such a cake I found quite intimidating! It was giving me a little stress. But, at the same time, it was my own doing and I was choosing to come out of my comfort zone a bit and try something a little less traditional.
In the end, I think it turned out great!! In fact, I can't think of anything really that I would change (well, aside from a few blunders, which I'll get to.)
Want to see the cake? Here's some photos.....

That's not white fondant, it's actually silver. It just doesn't show up too well in these pictures.

A lot of this cake came together really quickly. I was surprised.
Well, this was also the first time I used an airbrush (thank you Fern!!!). I must say that I need some practice but I'm happy with how it turned out.
A fun cake. I'll definitely try my hand at a carved cake again. It was fun and challenging.

Mad Science Cake

I had a request for a Mad Science Cake for a little girl's 8th birthday.
It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to put on it, but in the end, I think it came together nicely. The birthday girl was super excited when I dropped it off and was asking what everything was made from when I told her it's all edible (though really, some things you just wouldn't want to eat cause it wouldn't taste the greatest... like the bubbles, but it's still edible)

Here's a look at the cake....

If you're interested in the details of the cake...
The cake is vanilla with a coconut/vanilla buttercream icing.
The flask is made from rice crispys with a thin layer of buttercream and a layer of fondant.
The smoke coming out is cotton candy.
The test tube is fondant. The "goo" coming out is colored piping gel
The bubbles are made from gelatin, water and luster dust. The bubbles were pretty cool to make. Something completely new for me and I just happened to come across a tutorial that explained how to make them. Click here for a link to the tutorial if you're interested. Not all the bubbles came out perfect, but it's definitely something that would be easier the next time.


Overall it was a fun cake to make. Next week will be a busy week. I've got two cakes to make, so stay tuned for that....

Calgary Temple Progress - January 12, 2012

Today was an exciting day in the progess of the temple's construction.
This morning the top spire and the angel Moroni was put into place. It was such a wonderful thing to be able to watch. Something I'm so thankful I was able to witness.

I believe they started some of the prep work this morning at about 8:30am. I arrived at 9am, just as they were finishing up attaching it all to the large crane. By 9:20, it was up in place.

Here's some pictures (okay, quite a lot of them) in case you couldn't be there....

Also, while I was watching what was going on, was the first time I noticed that this was on the temple....In case you can't read it, it says "Holiness to the Lord. The House of the Lord." Most temples have this on them somewhere.
And last picture for this post... a picture taken from inside my house. I love that I can see it from my house. (zoomed in of course, but still a good view!)

Christmas fun - Minute to win it style

I love Christmas and this year we spent Christmas Day with my family at my parents' home. It's always fun and there's lots going on. The kids exchange presents and the adults play a game to exchange presents.

As part of the fun, I thought it would be fun if we played some "Minute to Win it" games. I love the tv show and I love the fact that all the tasks done on that game are ones that can be done with ordinary items around the house.

I recruited my sister, Fern, to round up some of the items we needed. Simple things like mini ornament balls or boxes. It was going to be great. And it was!
We had so much fun playing the games. We split up into two teams... girls against the boys.

Games included.....

"Deer Nose Dive" -where we had a red pom pom on the end of a string and the other end is placed in the players mouth. They then needed to swing the pom pom and get it to stick to the end of their nose where we had some toothpaste, though it should have been vaseline but we didn't have any.

"Face the Cookie" - where the player was given a cookie that was placed on their forehead. They then had to get the cookie from their forehead into their mouth by only using their facial muscles. No hands.

"Jingle Box" (Junk in the trunk) - A decorated tissue box full of mini ornament balls is tied to the players back at waist height. They then had to jump and wiggle around till their box was empty.

"Do You Hear What I Hear" - We had a variety of boxes will varying amounts of bells inside. Players needed to shake the boxes and put them in order from least amount of bells to most.

"Christmas Cliffhanger" - The player needed to blow on Christmas cards that were standing on the table. The card need to end where it was hanging on the side of the table with half on top and half hanging below.

"Noodling Around" - Players have the end of a spagetti noodle in their mouth. They then needed to pick up 6 penne noodles onto their spagetti noodle without it breaking.

"Ready Spagetti" - using a spagetti noodle, 2 players work together to pick up as many pop cans and transport them to another table... using only their mouths.

In the end, the girls won (at least for this time)

To end the night, we added on one last "unofficial" game. A party game we used to play a long time ago and only works on those that don't know how it's really played. We originally asked Cam and Ryan to come up and play this one.... put a penny on your forehead and a news paper funnel in the top of their pants. They're then told they need to get the penny into the funnel to win. Immediately Cam says "this doesn't involve water does it??" so he was replaced with my neice Paige. The end result, we tell them to go and we dump water down their pants before they know what hits them. Ha ha ha! So, we're all laughing, when my other neice, Nikki (who was sitting there the whole time but not paying attention) asks what happened (not noticing the obvious wet pants of her family), so we ask her to come play and she says she would! (oblivious to all the water on the floor around her too). So, we play the game again and get her too. So we're howling that we got away with getting her too, when my brother Michael walks in. We convince him too and in the end, he's got very wet pants too. It was awesome.

Anyways, Here's a look at some pictures....

New Years Shenanigans

Want to know how my 98 year old Grandma spent part of her New Years Eve???

We introduced her to some great new... boyfriends???

Ha ha ha. These pictures just crack me up!!
(FYI, Elora is on the right and Katherine is on the left)

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New Years Eve was a lot of fun.
We invited over my parents, my sister and her family and my grandma.
We ordered in lots and lots of food!!! Mmmmm.... chinese food!
We played some games including Loaded Questions, Harry Potter Scene It, Mad Gab and Like Minds. The kids watched Dolphin Tale and had some fashion shows.
We celebrated as we counted down to midnight with sparkling apple juice and hugs to go around.
And said good-night to one another at 1:30am! It was a great night.

A few pictures of the evening....

Fun cakes by my sister

I haven't made any cakes of late (though, I've got 3 coming up later this month), but my sister, Fern has been busy. So, I thought I'd blog about her cakes tonight.

She made this super cute cake for my brother, Michael. It was his birthday on Dec. 30th. And if anyone knows Michael, then they know how much he LOVES his birthday and Christmas. In fact, it used to drive us crazy that he would literally talk about them both ALL YEAR LONG!!
Here's Michaels' birthday cake....



Along with Michael's cake, Fern also made another cake for some lady's birthday. I won't get into how she came upon this cake job cause it just drives me crazy at what other people do..... but Fern stepped up and made a nice cake on short notice. Way to go Fern.

I love how the swan turned out on this one.

It's really nice having a sister that likes to make cakes, like I do. We like to bounce ideas off each other and on occasion we've worked on cakes together.

So, I hope you've enjoyed looking at Fern's latest cakes.