My shinning masterpiece...

...for this week anyways. Here is the cake I made for a wonderful lady who is leaving the park to live nearer to her daughter in NC. She loved the cake.

This cake was a lot of fun to make...three torted and filled layers. Bottom layer was chocolate cake with twinkee filling (I love that stuff so I make it alot!) The middle layer is white almond sour cream buttermilk with chocolate chip whipped ganache(Oh, it is heaven...like the middle part of a truffle...!) and the top layer I carved into the beehive shape. The cake was also the white almond sour cream buttermilk but with strawberry filling. All of the cakes had buttercream base icing and then were covered in fondant. This is my first stacked or tiered cake and only the second time I've worked with fondant. I made my own fondant which was also a lot of fun to do. It is very sweet, kinda like eating candy corn. Many folks don't like it because it is so sweet, but it is a decorator's dream to play with on a cake. All the bees and flowers were also made of fondant. All handmade and modeled by moi. I had pictures to reference. The bees are so cute. In the next picture, I did change the color of the bow on the "big bee" and replaced one of my ribbon roses that in the pictures anyway, looked like a specific part of the male anatomy...and I don't DO those kinda cakes!

Here Lola posing with her cake.

As you can imagine, the cake was a huge hit with the partygoers. I was very happy and Paul said it was a "work of art...nobody will eat it...". Well, they did smarty pants. They all liked it too!

I will have to make a tiered "wedding cake" for my class final. I think I am going to invite everybody over for cake and coffee the day after so I can get rid of the cake. To say we are all "caked out" is truly an understatement.

Next week is the park's luau party and Dennise got suckered into decorating the table...guess what folks....CAKE! I am going to do a tiki guy head and a bunch of palm tree cookies. Thank goodness I bought that palm tree cookie cutter when I saw it a couple of weeks ago! I will do a hot color table cloth, buy a boogie board and make some fake palm trees out of rice crispie treats and use fondant to decorate them. An all edible centerpiece! That should get me a few points in the judging! I'll post the pictures after the 22nd...

Not much else going on. Zack is getting depressed not finding a job. Poor kid. Worst economy in freaking history and he is now out on his own. He has put in many many applications and sent out lots of resumes. He is still looking at going to the UK to teach in the spring. We'll see.

later...

dee

Well, it's been a hectic couple of days. After the New Year and taking down and packing all the holiday stuff, I tore into the laundry room. There is a small closet that is jammed with stuff from the previous owners. Let's see...two, yes two(!) waffle irons, a smoothie maker thing that has never been used, a tortilla holder made from stryofoam, a box of wipes for only God knows what kinda dispenser and a miriad of other useless crap. Plus the tops of the washer and dryer were lost among the stuff the two other residents of this house can't put away...well, now its CLEAN. Next stop...kitchen cabinets. We need another storage cabinet in here for the liquer...it's all over the darn place...when you open a cabinet here, there's bottles and more bottles. People will think we are achololics for goodness sakes.

We had some more parties to attend this weekend...is it just me or is finger food the bane of a human's existance? I can eat meatballs, cowboy salsa and other crap and feel fully satisfied and then turn up my nose at a good salad. No wonder there is weight gain during the holidays...I eat crap! On Monday, I was going to my first meeting of Brushwackers a local decorative painting group...the meet once a week on Mondays and work on projects, have seminars and graze..you know...EAT. Great...a grazing club. I bought a bunch of stuff to add to my clutter stash as the club's annual auction and only fundraiser is held at the first meeting of the year...yeah! Food and stuff to buy. What can be more fun than sitting around eating all day, buying craft stuff? I made two cakes for the meeting and they went over very well. Here is a picture of my first fondant cake. It was supposed to be a winter white cake. No color. But is really looked blah so I painted it with gel colors mixed with vodka. No, didn't drink the vodka! Used it to thin the colors. I was not happy, but everyone oohed and aahed anyways.

The second cake was a piping practice cake...I did some stringwork, called cornelli lace on the top then sprinkled it with glitter. The red roses are made from red candy melts...called candy clay roses...ugly but effective I guess. Here is a picture.

I was happy with this one...except for the leaves...didn't like the color but it was too late to change. This was a strawberry filled yellow cake with buttercream. The fondant cake was a double chocolate with twinkee filling...hey I LIKE twinkee filling! Under the fondant was buttercream. Both cakes weighed a ton! I had originally intended to do a tiered cake but they were too heavy...I torted both so they were four layers and all that filling made them so heavy. I don't know how the pro's can do that!

A couple more pictures....

On Tuesday, after an appointment with the VA in Mcallen, we headed to San Antonio for the Prince's pre-op stuff at the VA hospital. What a long boring drive that is! We got in around 7, bot checked in and went to bed. Paulie went to the hospital at 8 and got three of his four appointments like xrays done. Doc is only at the clinic in the afternoon so we had to wait until 2 to get in. This turned into a nightmare of more xrays and stuff and we didn't leave until after 5. Then the long boring trip made worse in the dark...we finally got home at 10. Paulie's surgery is scheduled for January 29th. We have a reservation at the Travelers World for the RV. This way I can bring Mack and relax in my house on wheels instead of a hotel room for four to five days. Thank goodness I talked him in to letting me take the rig. He doesn't think I can pull the electric cord and dump the tanks...geez, I am a college graduate...how tough can it be for goodness sakes?

Well, I guess I should ring off now. Hugs to all.

dennise