I Suddenly Remembered My Charlemagne

At about 6PM, I decided I wanted to make cupcakes. Now that I have a shiny mixer, that sort of thing is way easier. Also, I had an icing tip I wanted to try out. Also, is there a better time than before you go away for four days to make 2 dozen cupcakes?

Anyway, they turned out really well.



I'll get better, but I think this is okay for attempt #1.

Apologies for how long this took. I don't even have a good reason.

Cut for an excessive amount of pictures.

( In a hole in a cake... )

In conclusion, it ended up not looking much like The Actual Bag End, but I think I captured the spirit of the thing. Also: delicious.

Today on the blog, I talk about meeting Rachel, making cupcakes, and finding out that I didn't suck at art.

Let Them Make Cake

I have just realized that I never posted the photos of the cake I made for The Boy's engagement party!

It was held on New Year's Eve at the local curling rink, so I went with the obvious theme: CURLING!

Originally, I planned to make cupcakes that looked like curling rocks, but then I decided that they would be too much work and probably not look very good if I made them delicious, so I went for two slab cakes instead.

Scale was a bit of an issue, and as usual I forgot to leave some of the icing uncoloured for the detail work, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out. How often, after all, am I going to be able to represent my favourite curlers in gummi form?

( Cut for images )

The only real surprise with this cake was the degree to which everyone made fun of me for having such a well developed story. Jen understood me, though. We watched a lot of curling together up to and including Vancouver.

I made a cake. It was kind of awesome. And then we ate it. ;)



It was the best view from the butt end.



But once Laura saved the front end (the eyes would NOT work, no matter what I did, and just as I was losing patience, she stepped in), it was okay.



ISN'T HE ADORABLE? AND DELICIOUS!


....I reeeeeally miss cake making, you guys.

A year and a half ago, I made a cake in the shape of a Wii. I did this without ever having ACTUALLY SEEN a Wii, and with only general knowledge of how to build a cake (it was my second cake, I think, and the first one after I got home from Korea). It was kind of a train wreck. I ran out of icing. I didn't have black icing dye, so the grey base was really more like puke. I didn't trim the edges, so it wasn't flat and that made it nearly impossible to decorate.

But the cousin I made it for loved it, and his little brother loved it even more, so when I asked him what kind of cake he'd like for his birthday, he requested a Wii Cake. I decided to use the opportunity to improve myself.

This time, I made much more icing. I also used thinner layers of cake, so the cake was eight layers off the base instead of three. I used a piece of cardboard in the middle to give it stability. And I had all the right colours.

( Wii Cake II: Redemption )

BONUS CUPCAKES!!!

When "What's New Cupcake?" came out, I went to Chapters and cried when I saw the Chinese Take-Out page. Then I called Rachel and invited myself to her house so we could make them.





SERIOUSLY!

Also, I made a tiny model of the Appa Cake using cake scraps. If I'd had the white icing made at that point, I totally could have done it up, but I didn't, and I ate it before I did. ;) But you get the general shape.



*hearts cake*

Tomorrow is the 66th Annual Stark Family Reunion (The More, The Merrier!). Last year, I made chocolate cupcakes which, while delicious, were generally declaimed as a disappointment because the week before I'd made the Do You Want Fries With That? cupcakes, and those raised everyone's expectations.

I haven't blown my own mind making these, but they are pretty darn cute!

( The ants go marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah! )

Fun times! Now I really must finish my book before the suspense kills me.

Hi f-list!

So my mother went to Ikea this morning without sending me the cake recipes I need for the weekend. I know where the chocolate one is well enough to give directions to my dad ("Mary Moore Cookbook, page with the most cocoa"; "218, getting kinda messy. GOOD LORD, how can you read this?"), but I have NO IDEA where the white cake one is!

SO!

If any of you have a trusted vanilla, white cake, yellow cake, etc. recipe you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd be grateful! If it could have a fahrenheit oven temperature and measure things in cups and teaspoons, that would be preferred.

THANK YOU!

+++

Thank goodness lj kept my cake icon! ;)

First, some mood music:



( And now, the main event! )

IN CONCLUSION, mini-cupcakes are my new best friends, and I can't wait to make my birthday cake. (Party optional.)

Here's the set I did for Easter. I have a sneaking suspicion that as soon as I am on a computer with photoshop, they are going to become my new cake icon. SO PRETTY!

The set is from "What's New Cupcake", which I cannot wait to own. You are supposed to use coloured marshmallows, but I find they taste funky, so I went with whites. These took about ten minutes per cupcake, which makes the work to cute ratio really high. I will probably not make then again, unless I am making them with someone else.








(Yes, I did spend the entire time I was making the Starburst stamens singing the Reproduction Song from Grease II.)