I am (not) your father...

This cake was made for my boyfriend's other nephew. 8 year-olds are definitely less fickle. This particular 8 year-old is a great kid. A little smarty...in a good way.  His request was marble cake with chocolate frosting. I was given creative license to do whatever.

I had a few options to choose from and went with Star Wars.  Those of you who know me well enough know that I consider Star Wars boring and dumb and essentially what I like to call, "movie diarrhea". But it wasn't my cake so I wanted to make sure I put some great effort into it.

I went online and found a "Star Wars" font and made a stencil for the HB message.  I used my trusty Exacto knife again and cut the letters out of gum paste. They could have been smoother, but my Exacto blades were nearing the end of their sharpness and I had yet to purchase new blades.

Not too shabby and, to fans, obvious SW lettering.

I decided I wanted to go with arguably the most recognizable character from SW...Darth Vader. I looked to my trusty friend Google to find a good picture to make a stencil from, then used my parents' copier to make it the size I wanted.  I won't even get into the long, sordid story of all the tracing and drawing I went through to get a good stencil on firmer paper (i.e. an open file folder) but it took a while.  I packed up all of my supplies and headed over to the boyfriends' to finish up.

I baked the cakes and carved what was to be the 2nd layer using the stencil I made:

Not bad.  Then I colored my chocolate frosting black, frosted the bottom layer, added and frosted the carved layer and placed the lettering on there:

Getting somewhere.  The letters BARELY fit so I had to do something that you might not be familiar with. It's a technical baking term called "smooshing" :D. I had to smoosh the letters, and if you notice from the letters up in the 1st picture, I had to cut the little tail from the "B" so "BIRTHDAY" would fit.

Then I got to work rolling and cutting out the fondant shapes (stars and helmet).

All that white stuff is powdered sugar. I promise.

So the hard part. Making the helmet look like Darth Vader. I had some silver luster dust and some black sparkle frosting in a tube (Wilton, I think), so I mixed those together for a silvery frosting and went to painting.  There was trial and error in trying to figure out how to get the image on there because my stencil was really only meant for the outside shape, so I had to wing it for the most part and I have NO art skills.  I ended up laying the stencil on the fondant, lightly poking holes on the lines through the paper and into the fondant to give me a rough outline of the lines and then just referencing the stencil's detail, applying it to the fondant with a food paintbrush. It took hours, but again, live and learn.

This was the final product, after applying the fondant to the cutout later and sprinkling some gold edible stars on the bottom layer.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. I hate to toot my own horn, but...toot toot.

I scream for ice cream...AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

This cake was for my boyfriend's nephew's 5th birthday in December.  I was told vanilla cake, vanilla frosting with bananas on it. Real bananas. Then something about a car but that really didn't make sense so his mom told me we could put a toy car on it or something.

Well, here I was thinking I was a clever gal so in order to incorporate real bananas, I would make a cake that looked like a banana split!  I made this cake at my boyfriend's house with limited tools/equipment, so it didn't look particularly great, but it was recognizable.

Yeah, piping skills still sub-par.  Ah well.  Vanilla cake, vanilla frosting. I baked the base cake in a round pan and carved it into the sundae dish shape.  I used a Wilton Mini Wonder Mold pan and cut down the mini cakes to be short like ice cream scoops. I colored the vanilla frosting to have the colors I needed and used a little chocolate frosting for the chocolate scoop, and colored some chocolate frosting for the "fudge" on the chocolate scoop. The caramel is real caramel topping, the whipped cream is frosting, the strawberry topping is gum paste, as are the cherries.

The verdict? He immediately tried to take the cherries off because he didn't want them on there and he didn't like the cake in general. :-( I was crushed, but he IS only 5.  Looking back, I would have gone with a Hot Wheels cake (he loooves HW) and just ignored his request for the bananas, but ah well. Live and learn.

Rice EFFIN' Krispies, Anyone?

This was just a fun little activity to do. Who doesn't love Rice Krispie Treats? If you said yourself, you're a stinkin' liar and your pants might be aflame. Don't expect me to help you though. You lied to me.

This picture is bigger because, HELLO? Rice Krispies...DUH! Yeah, so I made some RKT (Rice Krispie Treats, for the newbies. Keep this in mind, I hope to be using the terminology one day and on a regular basis, as I foray into more advanced baking, i.e. Food Network Challenge type cake sculpting). I spread 'em into a pan, let 'em chill for a while, then melted some Wilton candy melts in varying colors. I dipped them bad boys and then had fun with all kinds of sprankles! So yumaroo. RKT, candy and sprankles. Sighhhh....heaven.

Are you ready for some football?

My boyfriend is a die hard Houston Texans fan. It doesn't matter that they haven't made the playoffs in their entire existence. He loves them and I feel sorry for anyone who makes fun of them in his presence. He will throw a huge tantrum! Haha, just kidding. He'll flick you hard, though.

For his birthday last year (July), his request was red velvet cake with buttercream frosting and something having to do with the Texans. Since he is an amazing artist (you should see what he drew me for my birthday), I asked him to draw me a Texans logo in a certain size.  I definitely didn't want to make the logo look like others I've seen, all wonky and misshapen. After he drew me the logo, I created a stencil out of it and went to work.

I took my stencil, colored and rolled out some gumpaste and used my trusty Exacto knife for the logo. This was my first "carved" cake and I was soooo nervous. Plus it was for my boyfriend so I was extra nervous. I think the cake was box and the buttercream was a mix but I can't be sure. He totally loved it and it took him a couple days to actually allow the logo layer to be cut into.  I was proud of myself on this one, for sure.

Chocolate, Chocolate and more Chocolate...

This next beauty was easy-peasy but looked super cute.  This was made for a kiddo who wanted chocolate cake and chocolate frosting for his birthday.  I looked for inspiration online and came across a beauty of a cake at http://designdazzle.blogspot.com that was perfect. I just went with chocolate instead of vanilla and used mini m&ms in addition to regular and peanut.

Mmmmmm...this is MY kinda cake.  Once again, box mix and canned frosting - but this time, chocolate.  I bought mini, regular and peanut m&ms and just lined em up with no rhyme or reason to the size but I liked the stripe effect with the colors. My boyfriend and his sister helped with the m&ms...and definitely enjoyed partaking in a few while we decorated. Sillies.


Who likes football?

Happy Birthday to ME? Not today though...

Next up we have my birthday cupcakes from last year. This was June, and Melinda (remember her?) and I decided to make some cupcakes. Once again, we pulled out the cuteness of "Hello, Cupcake" and tried to replicate it. We got sooo much closer this time.

Apples, anyone? Box vanilla cupcake, canned vanilla frosting, chocolate covered donuts, more vanilla frosting, colored sugar, Tootsie Roll stem and seeds, Airheads softened and cut/molded into leaves.  So fun to make!

m&ms anyone? Stand by!

Read the "Unattractive Cupcake" Disclaimer!

Yes. Here it is: These cupcakes are hideous! Oh em gee, I can't even believe I am posting them, but properly documenting the learning process is integral to this. To what? My embarrassment, obviously. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Ugly cupcakes forthcoming...

See what I mean? So ugly. Cute in it's ugliness. I believe these are also from, "Hello, Cupcake". My boyfriend and I decided to make these for Father's Day.  They involve box vanilla mix, donut holes, melted frosting, food coloring, lots of ugly and no know-how whatsoever. Heehee.  The "eyes" called for candy coated sunflower seeds (shelled) but I had NO IDEA (at the time) where to find those so we used a combination of icing and unsteady hands. Lookit these. No, don't look. I hide in shame. :-p

Next up, a little cuteness! Stay tuned!

zzzzZZZzzzzz...*snort*, "Wha...? I'm supposed to keep writing?"

Okay, so it's been a few...weeks. I'm a busy gal! Sheesh! I need more hours in the day or another day of the week! Maybe we can petition for another day of the week and call it, "Someday". Think of all the awesome stuff that would happen on it! Everyone's always talking about all the things they're going to do/accomplish "someday". We could all actually do those things finally! p.s. It would totally be a weekend day.

Anywayeeez. I have been doing a lot of baking, as usual. I started taking pictures as I go along with the intention of posting tutorials and such, but there's a problem. Every time I bake, I start off taking step-by-step pictures, only to get so caught up in the baking that I forget to snap pics all the way through.  If I was to post these with an entry, you'd all be like, "Hey, buttface! How did you go from combining dry ingredients to a really pretty cupcake?" Then you would want to kick me in the shin. Can't have that, I likey my shins. I promise, promise, super promise to get on the ball with that.  I have been kissing up to my mom, trying to get her to teach me her awesome numero uno recipe for baklava and I hope that will come to fruition soon, especially since I got a request for it from a VIP (pronounced, "vip" or "vee aye pee", your preference). That way I could take pics while she actually does it and explains, or she can take pics while she talks me through it. *fingers crossed*

In my previous entry I promised to post pictures of baking I've already done, so I'll go ahead and start those posts. I'll describe what the pics are and if anyone is interested in a tutorial or recipe, comment and I'll share it if I still have it - those early days of documented baking were dark times...meaning I hadn't really found the LOVE for scratch baking so some things were made from box mix and canned frosting. My bad. Sometimes there just wasn't enough time/energy for baking AND decorating efforts, so one got the ax.

Enough talky, here we go. This first set was an idea from the book, "Hello, Cupcake" (I think).

These are box mix and canned frosting. The effort was obviously reserved for decorating.  Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, colored with Wilton color gel. Green for the "grass" base, Oreos (regular and mini) for the centers. Colored the vanilla frosting yellow and orange, then just pretty much shoved it in a Ziploc bag, cut one of the tips in an inverted "V" for the petal shape and went at it. As you can see, some of the petals are orange, some are yellow, and some (like the single above) have both colors when they FINALLY started to come out swirled.  The ladybugs are m&ms with chocolate frosting (colored black) piped on with another Ziploc bag with a very, very small amount of a tip snipped off.

This was before I started trying to learn legit skills and did things the hard way. I had no idea about icing plugs and obviously had no piping skills.  I just decided that I wanted to make some pretty cupcakes and I wanted to make my boyfriend decorate girly cupcakes. *snicker* He totally did, too, but he had a few beers while doing it so the manly cancels out the unmanly. Shhhh! He thinks so, don't burst his bubble. If you want to try these, I would suggest you use ready-made decorator's frosting or make your own thick, firm frosting. Canned is waayyyyy too soft. We had to keep pausing to put the bags in the fridge for the frosting to firm up. Sooo much time wasted.

Until next post!

Don't get sad, the next post is coming right up!

Does this mean I'm legal?

Actually, I think it just means I have a blog. Whatevs. I have a blog. I HAVE A BLOG! Yip-frickin-skippeeeee! I've been wanting to start one for a while, pretty much ever since it became completely uncool to be ON myspace, much less blog on it. So, yeah...a WHILE.

I decided to start this blog because I'm sure that the people on my facebook are getting sick of me posting pictures of my baking when I never have enough to share with them all (too bad I'll still be posting...too bad for them *evil grin*). Plus, I'm such a novice and I'm learning as I go, so I figured...why not document the process and maybe help someone who might be learning too? Maybe someone out there can toss me some knowledge back. See? This works out for everyone!

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Melisa. *waves* Hiyeeeee! I have 2 parents, 3 sisters, 2 brothers-in-law and 1 nephew, who happens to be the most awesome nephew in the universe. Oh, you think yours is? Well, think again. Mine rocks. He's 7 and he's the coolest kid ever, and smart to boot. So. Nani-nani-boo-boo. Stick your head in doo-doo. :oP

I have been cooking and baking all my life, but in the last year-ish, I have really gotten into it. It's been a pretty eventful year(ish) and it's opened up a lot of free time for me to just focus on me and things I enjoy. Let's see if I can list just a few of the big happenings:

• Lost a bit of weight...yep, just did it the old fashioned way - watching what I eat and working out 3-5 days a week. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism (it runs in my family) in May of 2010 and I got on medication. Went from 240 to 180 (on my way to 160). My family members and boyfriend have been SO awesome. It's nice to have your own cheering section.
• Quit smoking...after smoking since I was 17 (over 15 years), I just decided to stop. No medication, no patch, no gum. Just stopped. And ya know, it really wasn't as hard as I expected it to be. I smoked my last cigarette on September 2, 2010 right before midnight and I haven't touched one since.
• Shed some dead weight...I know what you're thinking. "Wait, she already said that." No, I mean weight that was dragging me down - emotionally, psychologically - I dropped people that were in my life for no reason other than the fact that they had been there for a while. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I realized that my time, my friendship, my love is precious and I shouldn't waste it or give it freely without getting the same in return. There were too many people that were just wasting my time and adding nothing to my life except drama. Too many people taking and not giving. This included some pretty important (non-family) people in my life, but it had to be done. I have to say that I'm better for it...and you know, they might be better for it too.

So, those are the highlights. Needless to say, just those three things I mentioned had a HUGE impact on my life. Losing the weight and getting in the gym gave me more energy to want to not sit on my ass all day and night watching TV, being depressed about being fat. Quitting smoking made me feel better about myself and I couldn't believe the extra money I had when I stopped spending it on cigarettes. I could hang out with my sisters without having them lecture me in a disappointed voice with that look, asking me how I could smoke after Dad had several cardiac episodes and had to have 5-bypass surgery while in his 40s from smoking. I could hug my nephew without him telling me I stunk. Parting ways with people that weren't good for me freed up so much time to do things I wanted to do, instead of doing what they wanted or being too busy dealing with their drama to have time for anything else. I never realized how exhausting it was to be friends with some people.

So with all the extra time, I started spending it with my family and just a few friends (basically my boyfriend's family). My sister Melinda and I decided that we wanted to make Mom's birthday cake ourselves. Just on a whim. I already loved to cook and bake so I was super excited. Melinda was super excited too, since, according to her, "I'm an awesome cake decorator...in my head." I had been making treats around Christmas-time for years for my coworkers, baking cakes when I felt like it, cooking dinner on my days off for co-workers who were also friends and they would come over and eat. So we did it. We decided to try to actually use fondant and get "fancy" and while I think it was a disaster, everyone else (including Mom) loved it. What I loved though, was making and decorating the cake. I had missed it. A LOT.

So here we are. Just over a year later and I have baked a number of things. Cakes and cupcakes galore. I'll post pictures from the last year of baking before I really get into things. It's crazy to see how far I've come from box mixes and premade frosting to scratch baking and actual decorating. I will definitely post recipes as I go along and if I have/remember them for the previous stuff, I'll post those too. I get a lot of recipes online and end up tweaking them for my preferences/style, so I definitely want to pass along what I have learned through trial and error.

So thanks for sticking with me this long, I mean it IS an introduction, but still. I'll leave you with Mom's birthday cake from last year. The one that "re-ignited the passion". Ha! Cheesy.

It's such crap. I laugh. Haha.