Crazy Diasies

Last night I had my final in my gum paste and fondant class. In order to "graduate," I had to make and decorate a cake.

The cake itself was a new recipe. It was a French Vanilla cake. I honestly think it tastes just like a plain white cake, but a bit softer and has some light flavoring. But as much as I like to bake and decorate, I can't say I'm a huge fan of actually eating cake, so I may not be the best judge!!

Otherwise, the class was pretty exciting. I had been having a bit of trouble covering cakes with fondant and our teacher went over the EXACT way to negate that issue. We also learned some tips and tricks to making different things out of gum paste. . .like animals and various things to embellish your cake. Learning things like that gets me really exciting and I'm anxious to try it out. Luckily, my niece has a birthday coming up (Vera will be 1!) so I'll get a chance to try some of it out!

Shavon took the cake to the College of Education at the University of Louisville, so hopefully I'll hear good things about the cake shortly. John King usually sends me a message on facebook about giving him food poisoning, which I take as a good sign!!

'Cause you can't eat Tupperware

So I've had what I consider to be a pretty brilliant idea, but I guess that is really up to everyone else to decide. I've been to a lot of various parties at friends' houses: Lia Sophia jewelry, Party Lite candles, Mary Kay make up, that kitchen stuff. . .You name it, I've probably sat thru it.

So here's my brilliant idea: Let's do that with cake. If you can get together a group of people who are interested in tasting some of my cakes, I will bring the cakes to you for everyone to try. Anyone who comes can get a discount on a future cake and you can keep all the left overs (or a discount. . .whatever you would prefer. We can discuss.)

At this point I am simply trying to get my name and card out there so more people know me. I'm not entirely comfortable with just handing my card out to strangers, but if they are friends of friends, I feel much more comfortable.

So if you are interested in this, let me know and we will start working out some details. I can't bring fancy decorated cakes, but I can bring several varieties and pictures of what I can do. Let me know and we will get it together.

kaet.barron@yahoo.com

The torch has passed

On Saturday, we had a surprise party for Shavon's 30th birthday. The party was awesome and I made an angel food cake. It was my first attempt at making and Angel Food cake. It was a lot of work, but it was also really good. I don't like cakes all that much (beyond baking and decorating them) but I liked the Angel Food cake. I did not, however, take a picture of it, because my dad iced it. I didn't want people to confuse his "talent" with mine!

On Tuesday, her actual birthday, I attempted a Lemon Drop Cake. This was again, the first time I had attempted to make the cake. But it got the approval of others.

When I was younger and I wanted to help in the kitchen, I was given the task of buttering the pans and cracking the egg. This was true for my mom and aunts as well. Those are pretty much the two tasks no one can screw up, regardless of ability.

Mom invited me over to make the cake and "help." She got to butter the pans and crack the eggs. Mom said the "torch had been passed" and I was officially better at baking cakes than her.

Pretty awesome compliment, if I do say so myself. Not when it comes to actual cooking, I am stuck with the "low ability/ low screw up" factor tasks. And I'm okay with that!

Leap of Faith

Today is my last day at my current job, so if you know anyone who needs or wants a cake, cupcakes, cake pops, etc, please pass along my info. I'm going to have a lot of free time to devote to making cakes. And everything is a reason for cake: birthdays, graduations, babies, engagements, proper yields at stop signs.

And now, I did not quit my job to bake cakes all day long. Although that sounds heavenly. . . .

Shavon's Strawberry Shortcake

My wonderful friend Shavon is having a birthday soon and when I asked her what type of cake she wanted, I could have sworn she said "Strawberry Shortcake." So I went out and bought a whole bunch of strawberries.

And that is when I realized she had said Angel Food cake. Well my mother told me Shavon had requested Angel Food cake. There is a part of me that still believes her original choice was Strawberry Shortcake.

But so I was faced with the dilemma of what do I do with 3 packages of fresh strawberries. As luck would have it, a woman at my work was having a birthday the next day. So I made the cake any way and took it to work. It is NOT a cake that travel wells. Strawberries were falling every which way, but here is what it looked like. It got some pretty good reviews too.

By the way, see that large knife? We found that in the kitchen at JCPS. A little unnerving that a large knife like that is just laying around.

Look at what I can do!

During my Monday night classes, we've been working on flowers. Here are a few examples of what I've been working on.

Roses (and obviously, they can be made to any color you'd like.)

Calla Lillies

Daisies (which are some of my favorite)

Mums

We are learning a few more flowers in the upcoming weeks, including carnations.

New cakes!

Well it is 12:11 am, which means it is more than 2 hours past my bedtime, but I have been working on cakes for about four days straight now and I wanted to post them and celebrate them being done. The first cake is one I made for a woman I work at who has a baby shower to attend this weekend. No one is sure what the sex of the baby is, but the nursery is decorated with zoo animals, so I decided to go with that theme for the cake:

Half of the cake is chocolate and the other half is vanilla. The decorations are made with sheet sugar (which is disgusting, but so much fun to work with!) I just used cookie cutters to make the animals. The elephant's ears are made from hearts. The Lion's mane is made from stars.

Tomorrow when the icing has decorations have had more time to set, I am going to go back and cut some of the edges to make sharper edges (mainly the grass on the bottom.)

The final cake was for the lovely and talented Hillary Brown who graduated from Ballard High School this year. She is going to Lindsey Wilson on a pretty hefty scholarship, so we are all very, very proud of her. I made the "2011" myself. It took a few days to harden enough to put it on the cake, but I think it's cute and worth it. When I took this picture, not all of the gum paste and covering had dried, so you can see a bit of that on the cut outs. I haven't show it to her yet, so hopefully she will be surprised tomorrow.

A little help from my friends

On Friday, June 3 I turned in my two weeks notice at my current position. My last day will be Friday, June 17. I don't have anything lined up, as of yet.


I would love to quit everything and just sit at home and bake all day, but I've got a ways to go before that happens! But, if you know anyone who is interested in a cake, pass along the word. I've got more magnets and business cards, so feel free to take them and hand them out.

Get Ready!

I have two pictures to post soon. I am finishing up two cakes for this weekend. One is a graduation cake for the lovely and talented Hillary Brown and another is for a baby shower a co-worker is throwing.

I am very happy with how they are coming along, so hopefully by the end of tonight, we will have pictures to show off. (We? I wonder who else I was thinking was invovled?!)

Exciting News

We are about to get a lot more posts on the blog. Yesterday was my birthday and I was signed up for quite a few more classes on technique and speciality cakes. My first one begins Monday.

My business cards have also been completed and shipped, so expect to be harassed to hand themout if you are a friend on mine. . .or with in an arm's length.