Belated Pictures

I realized that there were several pictures I hadn't posted of projects I worked on between September and today.

This is a picture of some of the goodies I made for Christmas....

And the wedding cake we made for the Jackson's. It was vanilla sponge with mixed berry filling and cream cheese frosting.

And finally the birthday cake I made for my co-worker's daughter. This one was vanilla sponge to but with strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting.





I made another cake but I didn't take any pictures of it because it wasn't covered in fondant, just frosted and I didn't like the way it looked so I didn't take pictures of it. It was lemon sponge with blueberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting. The taste was good, but I'm not a buttercream cake person. Give me fondant any day. I just couldn't get the buttercream smooth enough.

This weekend I'm making a baby shower cake. I'm pretty excited about the design. I'll post pictures when it's done. This one is vanilla sponge with strawberry mousse filling and vanilla buttercream.

I practiced using mousse this weekend. I made a chocolate sponge cake with peanut butter mousse on one half and oreo cookie mousse on the other half. I frosted the peanut butter side with peanut butter buttercream and the oreo half with chocolate buttercream. I over filled the cake with the mousse so it slid a little but I thought it tasted pretty good. I've added those recipes to my list of keepers.

Starting over

So it's been a while. Yes I know.

I don't like excuses so I'm not going to fill space with reasons why I haven't posted anything since September.

Today marks a new beginning. I've changed my blog some and I've decided to post more than just pictures of my baking projects. Those aren't going to stop though so don't worry.

(I'm pretty sure I heard some gasps, wait maybe that was me)

Over on my Facebook page I've been posting a lot about my exercise routine and the progress I'm making. I think that I'm going to start included those updates here in my blog since I have to exercise if I want to eat the stuff I bake.

I also need to be more consistent with my blog updates. So I'm putting it down in writing that I will update this blog no less than once a week. It's in print now so doesn't that make it gospel?

Join me on this baking/exercise journey. I'd love the company!!

I've been baking

I have been baking. Really I have I just haven't had much time to post lately.

We've been doing donuts on Saturday mornings for the football team. 4 dozen each week. We're getting better with the process. It takes us about 3 hours from start to finish. We end up with more than 4 dozen when it's all said and done, but we only have a set request from the football team so we share the rest with others. Others that live close, sorry for all you out of town friends. I wish we could share with you too.

I've also been making homemade pasta and pizza. I know it's not the same type of baking but I'm a big fan now of fresh pasta and my first attempt at pizza turned out pretty good. The crust was pretty thin so next time I'll double the recipe to get a thicker crust and fold over the edges after I put cheese in there. Next time I'll take a picture to share.

I made a batch of Kolatche's for a birthday here at work. They turned out really well. The dough was perfect. Bacon, Sausage, Egg and Cheese were the filling this time. I also made a peach cobbler. I tried a new recipe. It tasted OK but I didn't like the look. I will have to find a different recipe next time.

Last but not least we baked our third annual birthday cake in August. The pig and dog theme were used again. I think it was one of the better cakes we've done. Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The idea for decorations came from Bob. I thought it was pretty clever and it was well received so I guess it was a good choice.

Where have you been?

No I did not fall off the face of the earth. I wish I had a good reason for not baking these last few months but really all I have is excuses.

"No one ever excused his way to success."~Dave Del Dotto

On that note, I want you to know that I will be baking again soon. I just got a new really cool book on bread baking.

Bread and I have a love/hate relationship. Sometimes my loaves of bread come out great, other times not so good. That will soon change. I plan to make bread until I figure it out. I'm not going to say that I'll be an expert, but I've come to realize that as you bake you start to notice things about your dough or batter that effect how your baked goods turn out. I want to gain that understanding with bread. At least then I'll know if my loaf is going to turn out the way I want it.

"When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work." ~George Bernard Shaw

If I make ten times more bread there will be loaves to share. Keep an eye out, I might be sending some your way.

Sticking To It

"This one step - choosing a goal and sticking to it - changes everything." ~Scott Reed

I love goals.  I could set 100 goals no problem.  My struggle is sticking to it.  There have been many times during baking projects that I have wanted to give up on my goal to open a bakery.  In fact I'm pretty sure that while we were working on the wedding cake a couple of weeks ago I decided to quit baking. 

It was late and I was tired and things were not going well.  I remember thinking "why am I doing this?"  Of course I couldn't quit right then I had a cake that needed to be finished and delivered so I decided that after it was finished and delivered, I was done baking.  I even told Bob this was it, I'm done after this cake.  He just looked at me and said nothing.

He knows me all too well.  Once the cake was done and I had gotten some sleep, the idea of quitting was gone.  We've had a lot of challenges over the last couple of years as we've decorated cakes, learned about donuts and worked to learn the "tricks of the trade." 

We've gone from our first cake:

To our most recent:

The best part is that I feel we've made some improvement and while there's still lots to learn and overcome, I plan to stick with it.

Wedding Cake

 I know it's been a while since I posted but I have been baking.  Mostly its been practicing for a wedding cake we made last weekend so there weren't really any pictures to share.  But now the cake is done and delivered so I can post some pictures of it.  I think it turned out pretty good but boy was it heavy.  I'm glad Bob was around to help me deliver it or they might not have gotten their cake. 

The bottom tier was vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream, the middle was lemon cake with white chocolate buttercream and the top was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  Everything was edible except for the ribbon.  I cheated and bought that.  

Bob made the stand the cake is sitting on so now I have something to put cakes on that I don't have to try to cover and make look nice.  One less thing to worry about.

Overall it went well but there are still lots of things to work on. 

Samples and Scouts

Since last Saturday I've baked 9 cakes.  Not huge cakes but still 9 cakes.  All for good reasons but that's a lot of cake. 

The first round - 4 cakes, were for my son and his fiance.  They wanted to pick out the flavor of their wedding cake.  I made red velvet, chocolate, vanilla and lemon.  I frosted the red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  I didn't do anything else cause I don't know of any other frosting that goes with red velvet, but the other three I cut in half to have more cake to frost.  I made chocolate with chocolate frosting and peanut butter frosting.  The vanilla cake was frosted with chocolate and strawberry icing.  The lemon with white chocolate and vanilla frosting.  I'm glad I didn't have to choose cause I liked them all. 

The next batch - 3 cakes was for another couple that I'm making a wedding cake for.  I had to make up a sample platter so it could be picked up and taken to the groom to be for his input.  I had a small amount of red velvet cake left so I included that too.  I made the same flavors as before. 

As I get better at this I want to try a few more "fancy" flavors.  Like cookies and cream (chocolate cake with Oreo frosting) or dreamsicle (orange cake with vanilla frosting).

The last two cakes were made for the blue and gold banquet.  Each year in February the cub scouts celebrate scouting.  I made a cake for them last year.  It was 100 years of scouting so I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do for the cake.  This year I had no idea.  I searched the Internet for inspiration and with Bob's help decided on a camping scene.  Our cub scouts don't camp over night but still it was cute and was fun to make. 

  

 I still struggle with people, that's a work in progress but the cake covered pretty well.  Better than some of my other projects which was nice.  We just keep learning as we go.  I hope someday it will be as easy as it looks on TV.  That may be asking too much.