So, I’ve been doing this thing called exercise. Some of you may be familiar. Now, overall I’m pretty pleased with the results. In case you demand photographic evidence, here I am doing some push-up homework my trainer gave me a few weeks back. This is on Mt. Greylock, where Mr. Cookie and I did some hiking on vacation. See? That’s dedication.
Yes, those are girly push-ups. Hush, you.
Anyway, back to the story.
Shhh!!
Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve started another blog. Oh my god. I know, I can barely keep up with this one. But seriously, guys. I’ve been working on getting a little side business going. For a couple years now, I’ve been making cakes for friends and family and frequently get the comment “you should start a business!” I’m not really sure if they’re being nice or if they really think it, but I decided to take their advice (sort of).
Now, I’m not planning on opening a store front. I’m also not going to do a ton of marketing. I’m definitely not quitting my day job. I’m relying largely on word of mouth. I’d link to the blog, but alas, it has information about me that could give away my identity. If you haven’t yet seen the blog and would like to (and know me in real life), send me an email. And, if you have had my cake and want to help a girl out, spread the word. In a couple weeks I will have business cards which I can give you to give to friends.
I’m excited!
Last time, my sister chose the flavor. This time, I didn’t give her the option (I’m mean like that). Turns out, it didn’t matter much. All I did was change the filling from strawberry to cherry and the frosting from plain buttercream to chocolate buttercream (oh, sweet blessing of the gods!). I did, however, ask what decorating scheme she wanted for the joint birthday cake that would celebrate two of my nephews. The response was bugs. Being new to fondant, I quickly headed over to Youtube for some suggestions. Then, I tweaked them ever so slightly (partially to make them my own, partially because I’m nowhere near as talented as either of the linked ladies). Anyway, bugs it was. I started out with grand aspirations and then found myself channeling my inner Tim Gunn (“edit, edit, edit!”). It may have still come out rather busy. Oh, and a pleasant aside, I didn’t have enough fondant on hand for everything, so I wound up cracking open the can of gumpaste powder I’ve been sitting on for about a year now. Behold, the end result (after the cut)
Last week, we found out one of the teachers in our building was getting an award. Last weekend, I made a cake. Last weekend, I also managed to: slap the counter so hard I formed a blood blister on one of my fingers, irritate my husband by asking him to go to the store just one more time, and drive around frantically to FOUR different stores (AC Moore- closed, Michael’s- closed, Stop & Shop, and Shaw’s) in the moments before ALL STORES MUST CLOSE BECAUSE OF THE HOLIDAY FOR ZOMBIES AND BUNNIES to find somewhere that would sell me a cake box (I finally found one at Shaw’s, thankyouverymuch). It was a little chaotic. But, I think this cake came out pretty well! Take a peek!
I made a terrible mistake today.
I wore a short sleeved shirt.
To work.
Work likes to turn the heat off around… oh, 10 o’clock.
Cheap, under-funded, budget deficit fearing, lay-off preventing bastards.
It’s that weird in between weather where you’re all “Like, OMG, I don’t need a jacket because it’s WARM” but really it’s only just warm enough not to be wearing full winter get-up and honestly it’s not really really warm and you KNOW it will get cold again but your insatiable optimism leaves you wearing a thin short sleeve shirt with no fleece (that disappeared from your desk chair about a month ago) and no shawl (it’s too WARM to wear that!). Weather, give me a snowstorm or get hot. This in between stuff is not appreciated.
In other, sunshinier news, Girly-Q’s cake came out okay (second fondant attempt- first one shall never be shown here) and thankfully, a complete absence of Dora’s doppelganger. I will not, however, be putting fondant over cream cheese again. It was a bitch to smooth.
Me: “What flavors do you think Niece would like?”
Sister Cookie: “Well, I know I want chocolate cake with the strawberry filling.”
Hey, when you’re four, apparently you don’t get much say in your birthday cake flavors.
And thus began the great cake assemblage of ’10. Not to say I haven’t done this before. Many times. This was just the first major one of this year. I thought I would document it so you could see a little bit of the work that goes in to making a Mrs. Cookie Special. Read the rest of this entry »
Did I mention I like to bake? This holiday, a co-worker who throws the holiday party at his house every year asked if I would provide the sweets. Thinking it would be the perfect time to show off my skills and potentially get people addicted to ordering my stuff, I agreed. Here are the finished products.
A carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting. I had one lady ask if it contained raisins because she’s allergic. 1) people put raisins in carrot cake?? and 2) people can be allergic to raisins? Weird. She was very excited to find out it had no raisins.
Butter cake with lemon curd filling (kind of like a thicker lemon meringue pie filling). The drawing on top is a buttercream transfer from an image the art teacher drew for me. 🙂
Of course, I saved the best for last. This was a chocolate cake with a new peppermint cream cheese filling. It was AMAZING. I say was because it was demolished faster than any of the others (although, now that I think about it, they were all pretty much obliterated by the end of the night).
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