Eagle Project

My little brother has been involved in boy scouts for several years. He was a part of a group that started a troop at their church. There are several ranks in boy scouts: tenderfoot, second class, first class, star, life, then eagle. To achieve the other ranks, there are certain badges you must receive. You go to a book and it tells you what you have to do to get that badge. To receive your eagle, among other requirements, you have to create a project. Do all of the work yourself. And that's an understatement. There's a lot involved to complete these projects. The project must benefit a religious institution, any school, or your community. The plan has to be approved by whoever your project is for, the Scoutmaster, and others. And after you've finished you have to go in front of a board of review.

My brother decided to build a bridge behind our church. There's a park behind the building, but in between the parking lot and the park is a big ditch. This bridge he planned out is fantastic. No little, puny bridge. This is a serious bridge. 106 feet long! It took over 500 man hours and over 3 weekends to build. That's not even taking into account all of the planning and approval my brother had to do to prepare to build it! I'll go ahead and show pictures

 before pics

 in progress

 Barely getting started and it pours. There's not usually water in the ditch.

 Finished

Isn't that impressive??

We think so. And we are all very proud of him. Fortunately, they were able to plan his Court of Honor, where he would be recognized as an Eagle, when my husband and I were in town!! I'm so glad it worked out! So weeks in advance I start planning this cake. I do sketches, get actual measurements, plan, plan, plan. I was going to have to make it while I was in town. No big deal, other than I was in my friend's wedding, which included a lingerie shower, bridesmaids luncheon, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, prepping for the wedding and the actual wedding. Along with seeing family while we're in town. So I figured out what I could do beforehand and made sure those details were done. 

First I worked on the Eagle pin

 Ha, I thought I'd try my edible pens. Awful, awful outcome.

That would not work so we went with colored fondant. Doesn't that look a billion times better?

Check it out! Just like ribbon! You just have to look really close, but it's there!

The eagle and top banner are from gray fondant that is painted with silver edible dust. The designs (eagle, BSA, Be Prepared, etc done with a toothpick)

Next, the bridge:

 

 My several attempts to figure out how I'd pull this off. Fondant itself would not hold itself up.

The only piece I ended up using out of all of those is the one in the last picture near the top of the photo. We took a trip to Hobby Lobby for some materials and came across styrofoam. Duh! That's what cake dummies are, why not use it for this! Ta-da!

Just throw some fondant on top and wrap it up! I did put that piece I had done before with the individual board look on top. I was going for a wood-grain look. Might be faint. Least of my worries.

Every step got harder.... on to the railings. The plan was to cover toothpicks in fondant. That's what I did.

 Rolled out fondant and cut it to a 2" width. That was suppose to help.... not sure it did.

Painted some piping gel on.

Put down the toothpick and rolled it up.

Then cut it (that wheel got super sticky, ha)

Squished together the sides

Ta-da

Yup, I made over 60 of them.

Stuck them in the styrofoam.

They were all uneven.

Trimmed the toothpicks. 

Stuck them back in.

Took them back out.

Trimmed the fondant.

Hours later, it all worked out and I was praying the top piece would stay on!

A little fondant boy.... oh goodness. 

This scared me. 

Somehow I managed to get it to look like this. That was definitely good enough for me. I need lessons on gumpaste/fondant people. His whole backside was flat, but I had to be ok with that... because I wasn't making another. It's funny because a few things I did on this cake, the first time around I didn't think things looked too good. Then after other attempts, that first try started looking pretty good, ha.

All of these things managed to survive the 400 mile trip, thank goodness!! Now to find time to bake and ice the cake...

Fortunately I had a good chunk of day to bake. And I bought another pan so it took less time. At some point I managed to stack and ice it.

My brother was there while I carved it. I kept asking what he thought since he worked on the actual location. He was like oh yeah, that's fine. Ha. Well I cover it in cling wrap for the night and test out the bridge. It's too long. No. Way. My husband suggest cutting off some of the bridge, but I was terrified it would fall apart! I get others' opinions and someone suggests to cut it and widen it. Ok, that could work. Sounds better than  cutting my bridge!

Measured out space. It won't be too long this time!

Cake implants

It was funny to me when I asked my dad about the bridge situation. He had several suggestions, but also some for the cake itself. The topography of the cake wasn't quite accurate. Now, I was trying to be pretty accurate, but sometimes I guess I settle. But I listened to my dad and he helped me shape the cake. I'm glad I did. I think it made a big difference and one for the better! My brother had made a model of his bridge before the bridge was built, so I liked to compare it to the cake. 

Now I had to ice it again. I put a nice layer around the sides, made grass for the ditch, put in a stream, threw in a few fondant rocks, inset the bridge, wrote Congratulations Allan, and I was done! I don't have any progress pictures for those steps. All went well mostly. I have the grass tip from Wilton and it kept getting clogged. Not sure why but I managed it. Might've taken longer than I preferred but it got done!

All we had to do was drive it to the church, about 5 minutes away. Eek. My parent's driveway is a steep hill. Nervous ride, but all arrived safely! 

Bridge sans Allan and pin

At home, just in case something happened on the ride

Just the same, right? :)

The finished product!

Next to Allan's actual pin.

Another Eagle in the family!!! My grandfather was an eagle, my dad, husband, and 2 cousins are also Eagles! Very impressive.

My brother is also a fantastic photographer and took some shots of the cake for me. I'll post those as soon as I get them.

The irony? We didn't even cut it. I saved what I had carved out when reshaping the ditch so we could serve. Then we never got around to cutting it. And usually I'm up for cutting the cake, but actually this time I didn't really want to. Fortunately, my parents didn't seem to mind that we never cut it. Now they just have lots of cake! Yum. 

I should get an honorary eagle for this, right??

Creeper and Lingerie

I had 3 cakes to make last week! Lots of fun, since it seems like it's been a while. Of course someone asked me to do one when I'm headed out of town. I'm pretty sure every time I go somewhere someone asks for a cake, which I hate to turn down, and then end up doing it in advance which leads to the questions about the best way to preserve a cake for a couple days.... It always works out, at least so far (knock on wood). 

The first was for a birthday for a boy who goes to our church. Apparently he is a big fan of Minecraft (a video game). I'm not very familiar with the game so that's always fun when you're supposed to make a cake as a character of the game. His mom did send me pictures and I did get her approval when she picked it up! Hopefully the boy thought it was enough like the character from the game. The character is called Creeper.

From the pictures I saw, he looked pixelated like that. I couldn't think of any other way to do that other than little squares of fondant. I'm not good at thinking outside of the box, so if there's another way, let me know. I wouldn't have said that right after I finished this though. Seriously it took me about three hours to put all those squares on. three hours.

First I rolled out some fondant.

 Then cut strips one way.

Then cut strips perpendicular to the first strips.

Obviously I did it in several different shades of green. You can see some already cut in the first picture.

I liked how it turned out. I've wanted to do a mosaic cake, just didn't think it'd be like this, ha.

The next cake was for one of my oldest friends. She got married this past Saturday! Of course I had to make her lingerie cake. I only wish I would've made it a little more risque ;)

I wanted to try the pleated look (or whatever that's called)

I drew the lines on with edible pen. Didn't work as well as I planned.

This part was fun. Once I had done all of the purple fondant, I realized I should've covered it all with purple or gone ahead and done some flesh colored fondant. Well, I finished the purple and just left it because I had plans that would just cover it up anyway. Those plans didn't work and I had traveled over 400 miles with the cake so the purple was pretty much permanent. I tried to stuff some nude fondant under there. It turned out alright. Really no one looked at that side so no big deal. And it does look better than it started. I tend to learn the hard way. Ha, but sometimes I feel like I could think things out forever and still encounter something I hadn't thought of. 

There's 2 of the 3! The third deserves its very own post. You'll see.

Pumpkin Overload

Today was family and friends day at our church. Like any good church of Christ, there's a fellowship meal after services. We planned on lots of people so we needed lots of food! Of course, I lean towards sweets (duh). Last year, my sister shared a recipe with me called pumpkin crunch cake. She said it was amazing even if you didn't like pumpkin. I tried it out and it was a hit at my church! I made it several times during the fall last year. Well people have already started asking about it this year so that was a gimme. It's pretty simple:


Pumpkin Crunch Cake


1-15 oz can of pumpkin pie filling
1-12 oz can of evaporated milk
1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice mix
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup chopped pecans
2 sticks of butter, sliced (I just used one)

Mix all except cake and butter. Spray 9x13 dish and pour in pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle the top with dry cake mix, pecans and top with sliced butter. Bake 50-55 min at 350 degrees. Top with whipped cream or cool whip.

I swore I had pics of it from last year but cannot find them anywhere... not that special to look at anyway, but it is yummy!

Another funny story... I have this adorable cookbook just for sweets

Like several recipe books like this, there are two recipes per page. When I was baking my next recipe, I accidentally looked at this recipe's bake time: 50-55 min. The correct bake time is 25-30. Ha! Fortunately it turned out and I didn't burn the cake :)

Here's the next recipe: Pumpkin Spice Cake. I got this recipe from Cup a Dee Cakes. I think this cake is delicious!! And it made a lot of cake. I made three 8" with a really small 4th 8". 

Pumpkin Spice Cake

8 large eggs

4 cups sugar

2 cups vegetable oil

1 - 29 oz can pure pumpkin (I used 2-15 oz cans)

4 cups all-purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

(I used 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice mix in lieu of ginger, cloves, and nutmeg)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray cake pans.

Combine eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin in mixer and beat until smooth.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl and slowly add to pumpkin mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

She suggests a cinnamon buttercream (check out her blog!) which I want to try! But somehow I came across this caramel buttercream recipe from Family Bites. Yes, please! My husband couldn't taste the caramel, but I could and loved it! Just so you know, when I was melting the caramel it took about 15 minutes. Just to give you an idea of how long it'll take. 

I had an adorable idea for decorating this cake. But I was worn out by the time I got to the icing/decorating part. It's really ok because once it got to the church it was going to be cut all up anyway. I went for the messy look. I had the idea of drizzling caramel on top since I didn't get to decorate it. Well apparently the caramel/milk ratio is crucial. I made it before church this morning and it was too thin so no drizzle :(

I had some left over cake and icing so this is what I did with it

That's the pretty one. The rest were in a nice red solo cup, ha! But this did the trick. Made up a few of these and gave them away! 

Alright there's one last recipe! Whoopie Pies from Cookies and Cups. 

2 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup room temp butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
Orange food coloring (gel)

• 
  
• Preheat oven to 375

Line you baking sheets with parchment paper. (Do not use wax paper... it is not meant to be exposed in the oven. It will cause smoke:)

Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg and vanilla, mix until combined. Mix you dry ingredients together

On low speed add 1/3 of your dry mix, then 1/3 of your buttermilk…continue adding in this order until all your dry ingredients and milk are mixed in and smooth.
Now add you orange food coloring. Mix on low to combine the food coloring, scraping the sides until color is even. Transfer batter into a piping bag or snipped off ziplock. Pipe in the shape of pumpkins (kind of a fat heart shape) about 2 inches apart. Bake for approx 6 minutes until they are set. Let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Fill each with your cream cheese filling.

• 
  
• Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

Cream together your butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add vanilla and powdered sugar on a low speed. Turn it up to medium speed until all is combined.

I forgot to take pictures of mine, which is ok because Shelly's look a lot better. I personally did not like them but my hubby did. Maybe I should try them again sometime. I think I need new brown sugar. Mine is fine, but seems like it got moist or something.

See why I was worn out by the time I got to decorated the cake? And I started out the day with gumpaste flowers and decorated cupcakes. Big day.

I'm glad I finally tried out some new things. I always want to, but don't always follow through with trying new things. So one goal I'm going to work towards is learning gumpaste flowers! I might have mentioned before that I got the Wilton Gumpaste Kit (a few months ago). I was pumped! I opened it up.... and it included a long list of things you also need. Bummer. So I haven't learned any new gumpaste flowers. Well that's just silly. Now, when I have a free weekend I'm going to make a new gumpaste flower. And I plan on slowly obtaining items off that list. I bought two impressions mat this week. Thankfully, Hobby Lobby often has 40% off coupons so I'll use those as much as I can to get what I need. Hopefully next weekend I can show you a new gumpaste flower! 

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

Oh, I've got a good story to go along with this... At least I think so. I had cupcakes to make for a wedding shower at my church today. Fun fact: the girl (bride) went to high school with me, which was in TN and we're in AL. She's engaged to a guy that goes to our church. Anyway, of course I wanted to make some gorgeous cupcakes. The theme that I knew of was traditional so I was sticking with white. I planned on making some gumpaste roses and flowers and bows. I baked the cupcakes yesterday and planned on decorating today. I had done some gumpaste flowers but still needed to make the roses. I'll throw in some pics now so you don't get bored from my story...

A gumpaste flower is born... Note: using 100% gumpaste is tough. It dries fast!

Anyway. The flowers take a bit longer than planned and I made a few more gumpaste flowers. I make the icing and started piping and realize I've got about 45 minutes before the shower. I wanted to get there early, which is easier said than done for some people. I finish up and quickly get dressed.... no time for a shower so my hair is in a lovely ponytail/bun and pretty obvious that it has not been washed today. But I'm going to make it!! I wrap the present, ever so nicely (haha). I'm getting stuff in the car and ready to go!

Accomplishments:

• I have a present. It's wrapped! With a gift receipt.
• I'm dressed to go to the shower instead of showing up in whatever I've had on while making the cupcakes (aka a slobby look)
• The cupcakes are decorated and looking good.
• My fingernails are all the same colors. Back story: I was looking at nail polish yesterday and tried out a couple colors on my thumbs. So all my fingernails are pink except my thumbs which are two different colors, ha!!
• I'm going to make it before the shower!

Two seconds after I've left, I realize I have forgotten the plates I was supposed to bring for the cupcakes. I go back to my house and set off our alarm. Very smooth so far... I make it to the church without destroying any of the cupcakes. Cupcakes are worse travelling with than cakes, for sure. I rush in and set up the cupcakes. No one seemed to really be worried about timing but I'm still proud that I made it there early even if it was only 2 minutes. I get the cupcakes set up, the arranged, the gift inside and take a seat....

Now if this has not been an entertaining story so far, here's a pretty awful part: My dress is unzipped. It zips up on the side and it's open. No clue how long it's been like that... I did zip it up when I got dressed, don't get me wrong. But something is wrong with the zipper. You know when a zipper separates, it can come unzipped even if the pull zipper is up (I don't know all the correct zipper terminology). So I was able to get the zipper back down and it zip up correctly. By the way, I did have an undershirt on so I wasn't showing off half my body :) Well that was fun... Pretty sure I'll be paranoid whenever I wear that dress now.

So on to the cupcakes :)

To prove I was in a hurry, check out the 2 cupcakes I managed to take a picture of that have no decorations at all. I didn't even realize till I got to the shower.

I took some pictures at the shower too. I like to have staged pictures but I didn't have time so I figured at the shower would be better than on my kitchen counter (above). 

I'm still a little embarrassed to pull out my camera at an event to take pictures so here are the few I clicked really fast.

Alright well I need to get to work... tomorrow is family and friends day at church and I have LOTS of sweets planned for the fellowship. Hopefully I can bake all I have planned. There are 3 desserts and 2 are new recipes I've recently found. I'm excited and hopefully will share it all with you tomorrow!

Dumb Cake

Look yummy?? Well it's not real. At least the cake part. The icing is real. (Notice the cute cake stand I have and have yet to use:) I've used cake dummies before:

There is a fake layer in each of these cakes.... hopefully you can't tell which layers are which; although, if you've read other posts, I might have given it away.

Anyway, what do all of these have in common?? They're covered in fondant. So I was out to find out if I could use a cake dummy only covered in buttercream. That might seem like it'd be an obvious answer, but I'd rather try it first to make sure. Result: it can be done. It's not as easy as it seems. Not that it's really difficult, but the cake moved around a lot while trying to ice it because the styrofoam didn't stick to the cake board like cake would. I'm sure there's a way to fix this... And since I used non-colored buttercream (only slightly yellow because of the butter) it was tricky to tell if it was covered completely or not. Surpass-able issues, for sure.

Cake dummy: check (I did have to wait for them to finally arrive)

Iced: check

Decoration:......

As I mentioned in my last post, I am incredibly indecisive. I could decorate it however I wanted, but only to decide. I iced the cake Saturday. I finally decorated today (Wednesday). I still hadn't really decided but I wanted to do something.

This is what one side of the cake looks like

Again, as I mentioned in my last blog, swirls are my "go-to" decoration. I can't help it. I love them. But these are a different take on them. Not like others I have done. But the look wasn't the elegant look I really wanted. So I kept trying.

 Again, kind of a "swirl" theme, but more intricate.

 Couldn't get a good picture, but wanted to post instead of wait till sunlight tomorrow, ha

My inspiration: my china (another thing I love -- isn't it gorgeous!?)

Another not-good-lighting pic. Maybe I'll take some more tomorrow. But I'm happy with how it turned out. It was fun too. I enjoy piping. 

There's a bridal shower this weekend and our family and friends day at church Sunday. I'll be making cupcakes for the shower and I've got several ideas for the fellowship on Sunday! Saturday = Baking :)

Now I need to hit the hay! No longer working nights (hooray!) but my hubs fell asleep at 8ish and I just wasn't ready to sleep. The downfall of being productive at night: I have this energy and then end up going to bed too late. I'll be feeling it when my alarm goes off... night!

Lack of Creativity

I haven't had many cakes recently... which is ok. I'm still enjoying a break and have been finding other things to do such as a trip to my hometown :) Anyway, here's one I did this week

I got to decide how to decorate this one. I was excited about it but of course with my indecision (it's a serious problem) and lack of creativity (what I'm focusing on today) it's not that easy. I search ideas, pictures, etc. I had a few ideas, then ended up doing this because pretty much I was running out of time. I'm not that impressed. And I don't think the squares/rectangles go with the curly hand writing. But I was determined not to do the scrolls

Some people did ask me to do those on those specific cakes, but scroll decor is my "go to" decoration. I really like scrolls. Maybe that's why I had them on my wedding cake

Love it

Anyway, I'm just not creative. I'm not complaining. I'm stating a fact about myself. I remember in the 3rd grade (or sometime in elementary school) we had to write a story. Make one up on our own.... I was reading a book about a mean substitute teacher. I totally ended up writing pretty much the same story. I tried to change some stuff so I wasn't copying but I probably didn't do a good job. I was young... Point: No creativity. Haha! 

And I just received 6 cake dummies that I ordered! I can make cakes that look like whatever I want to... Ha, not sure how I'll decide. If you have any suggestions, please share :)