101 Crafts to Make #67 - Cake Decorated With Regular Icing - Birthday Cake!

I am back on the 101 Crafts to Make to do list.

Today's post is about my attempt at making a multi-layer cake decorated with regular icing NOT fondant.

Since my dad's birthday was this month and I was going to be out of camp I decided to make a cake for him. 

Thankfully he is not too judgmental when thinks don't look their prettiest. :)

I wanted to make a triple decker cake, square/rectangularish in shape.

This was my first attempt at such a cake and I am confident that I learned a few things which will make my next cake look a heck of a lot better.

I baked two 9X13 inch cakes and two 9X9 inch cakes using a white cake recipe. Yes that is right - I made all of the cake from scratch.

The first batch of icing I made myself too, but I purchased some extra icing as well as a tube of blue gel and a tube of yellow icing. The yellow icing was less than spectacular. The tube did not come with a tip and the icing was really firm. It was very difficult to maneuver - I would not buy it again.

The white icing did not cover as well as I would have liked it to. You can see some dark areas where the cake shows through. Perhaps if I had a bit more time I could have left the icing sit overnight and then done a second layer to cover more evenly. Perhaps using a coloured icing would have alleviated this problem as well.

I cut out a bunch of stars and glued them to skewers which gave the cake a festive look. They really contributed to it not looking like a flop! They were also a really easy and fun way to spice up the look without spending a lot of extra time and money. 

Overall the cake turned out nice. I think that cake decorating is definitely a skill and takes a lot of time to master. Hopefully my next cake will be even better than this one!

PS. It tastes super phenomenal - the most important part about a cake. 

Ciao, 

My First Published Interview with Lily Vanilli!

Hello dear readers! I am so very sorry that I have been away from my computer for such a long time! I have some exciting news to share with you though. Recently Cut Out + Keep Snippets (online magazine) Issue #21 came out and my interview with baker Lily Vanilli was published!

I am really excited about this and hope you will enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed talking with Lily. In other news I was also featured over at Totally Tutorials again!

So some super exciting stuff happening for me right now.

Things here at work have been crazy busy what with the weather delaying a lot of the flights and creating mayhem and extra work for everyone. I've had a few 16 hour days in the past few weeks and sure hope things get better in the near future.

This is a sampling of Lily's wild and wacky, sometimes gruesome edible creations.

I promise I will be posting again soon with some awesome new creations and projects.

Until then - ciao!

A Consolation - Freshly Baked Bread

Hello to all of you in Blogland! I trust that you are doing well. I am feeling better after the devastating loss that Germany suffered in the semifinals against Spain yesterday. They will still play for third place but it is very dissappointing not to have won the title. I won't stop cheering them on even though I was shocked, dismayed and disgusted all at once yesterday. However, as I don't want to dwell on negativity (and as I am sure you won't want to waste your time reading a sob story) I will turn to a more pleasant topic.

Bread.

Homemade Bread.

Most of you will remember the song "My Favourite Things" from The Sound Of Music. This is the song you sing when the dog bites, when the bee stings and when you are feeling bad (like say for instance when your team bombs and completely throws away the semifinals..). It is you find a whole list of Maria's (the woman singing the song for those of you who aren't familiar) favourite things. Well, the song got me thinking and it turns out I have a very long list of favourite things:

Pierogies

Matryoshka

Soccer

Shoes

Gymnopedie by Satie

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String  (I had one from Russia delivered yesterday!)

Homemade Bread

Mascara

Tim Burton

..........

Okay I will only share a few as it is actually a really long list.

Each one of these favourite things hold memories for me and one that holds really special memories is homemade bread. I know that may sound ridiculous (I mean, shoes are pretty awesome too..) but close your eyes and imagine the smell of baking bread. Warm delicious bread.

Doesn't that bring back memories?

When I lived at home my mum baked bread every week. 6 loaves. We helped her out obviously, with the punching and the kneading and the punching and the kneading...and it was so much fun!

We would dump all of the ingredients into the Bosch kitchen machine and check for the yeast to bubble. Then the machine would whir and the dough would appear as the flour was mixed in, one cup at a time.

Next it had to sit covered for what would seem like an eternity to me. Finally it was time to bake.

I would always steal a peak through the glass door to check on how the bread was doing. Would it rise this time? It always did.

Now that I have my own home I like to make bread whenever I have a chance. Store bought just doesn't taste the same. Homemade is richer, heartier, better.

Maybe I am just biased. I would suggest however, that if you have never made bread from scratch you should do it. It is definitely satisfying to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Happy baking everyone!

Also don't forget that tomorrow will be my interview with Cynthia from The Sewing Dork and a GIVEAWAY!

PS. The loaf shown above is my sandwich bread recipe and has an egg glaze.

AND

I was featured on Totally Tutorials!

They featured my Rosette Pillow Tutorial and I am so excited!