Our Family Project

Last April we moved from one apartment to another.  Eliza's birthday just happened to come shortly after we moved into our second apartment.  She requested an angel food cake for her birthday.  At the time, we moved everything that had been in storage while we were in corporate housing right back into a storage garage.  Because I don't make angel food cakes very often, I packed away my angel food cake pan ... and consequently, it went into the storage garage somewhere.  I had no idea where it was.  So, Eliza's birthday came and went without a birthday cake.  Silly me.  I told her that I would make her a cake later ... a fancy cake. Well, this cake isn't very fancy ... no where nearly as fancy as the cake I had planned in my head (which was covered in a bright pink fondant with piano keys running around the bottom of the cake).  But, I decided I better make her a cake and decorate it (I know there's very little decorating, but it's better th...

As mentioned in the previous post, I made a cake for my friend's little boy.  It was a challenge because I had no idea what BeyBlades are ... and he wanted his cake decorated like a BeyBlade.  *sigh*  To my relief, my friend's oldest children brought one of the little toys with them when they came to help me decorate the cake.  They both wanted to learn how to decorate cakes, so we did a little mini lesson about the different consistencies of icing, holding the piping bag, and how to ice the cake without crumbs.  Then, they tinted all the fondant for me (yay, that's the most tedious part!), and our time was up.  We got the cake covered in the gray fondant, rolled all the border balls, and got all the letters cut out (by hand ... I think I need to get alpha fondant cutters), and they had to leave.  It was so much fun having my own little helpers ... almost made me feel like the "cake boss."  I still see all the imperfections and wish I knew more ab...

We've been pretty busy the last two months. Here's a short recap of what we've done "other" than stuff concerned with moving. Andrew had his sixth birthday the day that we arrived in Phoenix. We had a small dinner and Jon went to the store and bought a cake. We did our own little family celebration that night, then we did another one on Saturday with my mom, and another one a week later with Jon's brother and his family, and Jon's sister and her family. It was so nice to see all of our family here within a week or two! The above cake is one of the two that I made for the get together with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. The second cake was only a single layer, but was decorated the same. During the next few weeks we looked for a house. And, in case you missed that drama, click here . Near the end of March we made the 12 hour trek to Utah for my older sister's wedding dinner. She was married the week before, and then had a small dinner for her imme...

I got to make a birthday cake for my friend's daughter. I made her son's birthday cake back in October (it was a baseball field), and offered to make one more cake for her before we leave. And, it was SO MUCH FUN! I love decorating little girl cakes, there are so many details! *Click on the photos to see them enlarged.*

I was asked to make the cake for our Young Women in Excellence meeting this month. It happened to be the night after one of my cake classes. So, I was able to take the cake that I was supposed to decorate in class (which didn't happen because it took too long to roll out the fondant to cover the cake) for the meeting. I did, however, make a sheet cake to go along with it, just to be sure we'd have enough cake. I forgot to take my camera to the church to get pictures of the cake assembled, but I did (thankfully) have my phone and I took pictures before taking it to the church. I'm really pleased with the finished product .... but covering a cake in fondant is hard work!