The Big ONE

People always say time flies as you get older, but I only think that is the case when you have children.  I'm pretty sure it was just a couple weeks ago that I was in labor with Nolan and he somehow turned one on us.  I think he is a sorcerer.    Although, my labor did feel like it was a year long so maybe that's just how these things turn out.

As the undeniable fact of him turning one approached, I knew that I wanted to make a cake for him.  I was planning to make his smash cake and the big cake, but as we got closer, I chickened out.  I decided about three days beforehand to just order the big cake from Hy-Vee.  I am very glad I did cause we were getting to about 11:00 PM the night before his birthday before I finished his little cake.

Here is his smash cake.  I think it turned out really well.  There was another little blue dot on the "1" that fell off in the transition overnight but that's alright, you get the point.  And, we tore that cake up anyways.  And yes I said we, as Nolan was a bit hesitant diving into it.  I don't think I have seen a more careful smash cake eating in my life.  He was picking up pieces of cake with his thumb and forefinger like they were tiny ants.  When he finally got his hands dirty, he looked at them and you could tell by the expression on his face he was thinking "What is all over my hands?"  It's not like he has ever eaten a cake before, so it was just funny to see how he was going to react to it.

An appetizer I was really excited to make were these olive penguins.  (I got the idea from here.) I saw them on Pinterest forever ago and knew I wanted to make them sometime, especially for Nolan's party as it was penguin themed.  They were a bit tedious to make and we were getting to crunch time the night before, so I only made about 20 of them.  I had one and it was pretty good!  Just a little cream cheese burst in your mouth with the saltiness of the olive and the crunch of the carrot.  I hate carrots too, as I think they taste like what poison might taste like but even so, the little wobbler was delicious.

I also decided to do a time capsule for Nolan to be opened on his 18th birthday.  I asked family who came to write something to him, about him, or bring something regarding the year he turned one.  We got a lot of letters and Scott and I went out and got a World Herald that we will put in there. We also put some of his smaller decorations from his party into it as well.  I think it will be a fun/cryfest thing to look back on when he is older.

I know that everyone wanted to hold Nolan during his party, but it was really important to me that I got to hold him for just a little bit.  Just to have him sit on my lap, look around at all the people who love him so much and take in the fact that he is already one year old.  Our little baby is already one.  As we watched the one-year video before everyone else, both Scott and I couldn't help but cry as we saw him grow up in an instant, the same amount of time if felt like in real life.  If I could just hold him on my lap and freeze time for only a minute, I knew that my baby boy would stay one.  We never realize the time we take for granted until it has already passed us.  We sometimes need to step back and hold on to those moments in your mind cause they are only one once.  Happy Birthday Baby Boy.

Cake: Kim's Bachelorette Party

After I completed Kim's bridal shower cake I told Scott, I don't think I want to make any more for awhile, so I might skip making Kim's bachelorette cake and just go buy one.  Well, a day later, I was ready to go at it again.  Maybe because I really wanted to see if I could do a certain design and I knew it didn't have brown in it.  Man, that brown.  I wanted to make this cake one layer higher than my previous two cakes and I didn't have the utmost confidence in having a three layer "cake", so I decided to, you guessed it (or not) use Rice Crispie treats for the bottom.  A sturdy, yet fun surprise of a layer to have as the base of the cake.  I was going for sort of a petal/skirt situation with a belt like thing on top.  I wanted to cover the top with something as there were some imperfections in the fondant so I impulsively carefully decided to start adding some zebra stripes and they looked pretty good!

So, it started out all alone like this:

Then, after the cakes were baked, she got a bit of a crumb coating and looked like this:

Then, voila!  She all of a sudden looked like this!  A little rocky but I eventually smoothed out some of the jaggedy edges:

 A shot of the zebra action:

Here is her backside:

And of course a little side pose:

Don't look too closely as there are a ton of imperfections, but everyone thought the cake looked great.  Some asked us where we bought it.  And I got many many compliments on how it tasted so I would say it was a success!  I don't really take any credit for taste as all I have to do is dump some things in a bowl, mix, and bake.  Betty Crocker, you did it again.  For those curious, it costs less than $10 including everything (frosting, cake, fondant, etc.) to make this cake and about 3-4 hours of time baking, frosting, fondant rolling, and designing. If I would have tried to buy one like this, I would have had to pay at least three times as much.  I feel like I am getting a little better each time.  It was a really fun design I wanted to try and looked absolutely nothing like my inspiration cake, but it turned out alright nonetheless!  Still planning to make Nolan's cake so we will see how that goes!

Cake: Kim's Bridal Shower

I had been very much anticipating Kim's bridal shower as I was going to get to use my fine cake bakery skills again and put them to the test.  I didn't do a practice cake for fear Scott and I would eat the entire thing ourselves in a matter of a few days.  Not like we did that with the first cake but...oh wait, yes we did. 

My plan for this cake was to do a lovely branch scene with a light green fondant cover, brown branches flowing throughout, and delicate white flowers.  I didn't want to make the recipe for chocolate fondant (which would have easily created the brown color needed for the branches) cause it would have created a huge unnecessary amount of it.  I was determined to dye the brown on my own with a mixture of red, yellow, and green with the little fondant needed to do so.  Which, according to the Internets, said should have worked.  Yes, Internets.

Well folks, I'm here to tell you to just stay away from brown.  Just stay away.  Don't think about it.  Push it off of a cliff.  I tried for about 45 min to get this brown color that never happened.  The color looked absolutely horrendous.  I had a picture of it, but then I deleted it cause it looked like a bloody chicken leg as the fondant happened to be in the shape of a chicken leg.  At least I know I can do a chicken leg cake if there is ever such an emergency.  But not with brown, of course.

So, my dreams of flowing branches were shattered and I had to improvise.  I wasted a ton of the fondant trying to create the tree so I wasn't left with a whole lot.  I decided to still use the little flowers that I had already made and dyed the already green fondant with a tad more blue to make circles.

I baked the cakes earlier in the day and let them sit in the fridge for a bit so it would be easier to crumb coat them.  Since it is a "Super Moist" cake, this was probably unnecessary because they were not any easier.  I cut off the rounded tops of each of them and put frosting on the first one.  When I removed the second one, it kind of split in half.  Urg. Next time, I will remove both of them before I start on one as I would have used the broken one for the bottom.

You can sort of "mend" it with frosting, but I was left with a few dents that I tried to cover up with fondant.  I could have done a better job covering up, but what can you do.  Again, you live and you learn.  Ready to see the cake?

See, dents:

The cake itself was a success.  It tasted great and I got a lot of compliments.  My cousin generously commented that it looked like Martha Stewart did it.  I doubt Martha would allow dents in her cake, so I know she was being facetious, but very sweet nonetheless.  Martha also would have been able to pull off the brown color perfectly just by looking at it.

See, better angle with barely any dent noticeablity (not a word, but it works):

What do you think about my second try?  Less lumpy for sure, but definitely not perfect. There are better cakes that you can use to make the fondant lay more flat, such as pound cake, but I am way more about the taste.  It needs to taste perfect, not look perfect for a cake to be a success.  Ultimately, it gets eaten anyway.

My Attempt at a New Hobby

I've watched many a cake shows thinking, "Man, I could do that!"  I've been mentioning to Scott for the past 7 months or so that I want to try making a cake and his answer was always, "Do it!"  Well, why wouldn't he, it IS cake afterall.  And he probably would get to eat it, especially if it was a just-for-fun cake.  I decided to hunker down this last week and came across some very helpful websites, what to do, what not to do, what the perfect recipes are, etc., so I felt sorta prepared.

For my first practice cake, I relied on old Betty Crocker for the cake mix and frosting.  I used Super Moist Chocolate and Milk Chocolate frosting.  I also used marshmellow fondant as this got the best reviews for taste, durability, and ease of use.  And it was incredibly inexpensive to make.  Fondant gets a bad rap for it's bland taste, but Scott was eating the leftover pieces of fondant like it was his job.  So, I think he would say it tasted good. If this becomes a thing I do more often, I might try my hand at making my own frostings.  I don't think I will touch the cake part of it because it seriously is super moist even a few days later sitting out.  I made a few errors and kinda improvised on how I was gonna design it.  It is pretty sloppy looking cause I don't have any cookie cutters or good knives to cut out pieces and I was trying to hurry to help Scott with Whinypants McGillicuddy.  So, the stems are a bit fat looking and the flowers are a bit...interesting.  It's also a bit lumpy on top cause my first try at putting the fondant on was a fail and it took off part of the top of the cake when I had to remove it to put back on.  I don't think it looks too bad though for a first try.

I have a design picked out for a cake I'm gonna make for my sister's bridal shower here in the next month and I'm going to be making Nolan's birthday cake.  Hopefully they will turn out better after I make some changes.  Wish me luck!