I didn't get one!

What a weekend! Where shall I begin...I'll begin at the end where I sit right now, typing up today's post with my baby sleeping in his own room for the first time! He should sleep very well and both of did not sleep so well last night at Nana's. Why were we at Nana's? Well, I played in A Score for A Cure tournament down in Plymouth. My friend, Heather, was able to get a bunch of her friends plus me together to play to help support breast cancer. It was very fun. Granted we only scored one goal and lost all five of our games, but we all had fun and probably all will not be able to walk at a normal pace for the next few days. We certainly not as young as we used to be. However, on a different note from the weekend, the baby got to wear some incredibly cute outfits! He was noted for "Save the Milk Machines" and "I'm a Breast Man." Oh how he loves mama's milk!

We were needed in Plymouth at 8:15am on Saturday and did not arrive back home till 5:30pm on Sunday, so you ask, when was there time for any sweetbabycakes? Friday! Friday was the fun day that started of amazing and ended just in time for Saturday to begin.

For Friday I was determined to frost and fill the cake I had from class and make cupcakes for hubby to bring in to work. Now, those of you that might be reading this that work with my hubby know that there was no cake! Why? Well, I had filled the cake with a delicious gnache and did a nice crumb frosting and then the baby woke up. What happens next is that that rest of the frosting hit the pooper! It was breaking all over the place and not going back together. It looked more like butter than frosting, but still tasted so yummy. I took care of the babe with a feeding and diaper change and then hubby was home. He took over the baby duties and I frosted the rest of the cake. The frosting was just not working but I did my best. Then it was time to decide what to decorate it with. Again, those that know my hubby and work with him know that the baseball season is about to start and working on Saturdays are not always the best. So, I made it in to a baseball. I was very proud of this cake as it was tricky from start to finish.

It looked good and ready to box up for transfer in the AM! HA...as you can imagine during the transfer it flipped right over and no one was able to see it or taste it. However, I tasted it and it was very yummy. Don't you worry it flipped over on the counter not the floor.

Next up were my cupcakes! I baked them earlier in the day and let them cool nicely while the baby was sleeping. I made a new batch of frosting that was perfect and started to frost them. It was now after 10pm on Friday and I was ready for B-E-D. I pushed onward and with a little bit of input from the hubby we had a finished project. However, I can only go by the word of those he work with if they were good (of course they were) as hubby ate the whole cupcake we were suppose to share and he ate it without FROSTING! Unheard of! :)

Here they are!

Yellow, bellow, bo bellow....

Yellow, bellow, bo bellow...yes, a yellow cake! Well, actually, not so much yellow but lemon. How delicious and refreshing! First cake class down and it was amazing! It was called "Just Cakes" offered by the BCAE. I loved it! I learned about mixing the cake correctly along with how to make some delicious fillings...here is the breakdown of the night....

First, I am sitting on the couch feeding the little babe before the hubby gets home so I can go. And what happens, but the phone rings, tis me madre! She is on her way back from Vegas and finds out she will be stuck in NYC (JFK of all places) as her flight from JFK to BOS has been cancelled due to high winds. So, mother calls me as I used to work in travel and had lots of experience dealing with cancelled flights and getting people home. Hmmm...so I do my best (called my good friend for some advice) and tada she was home as schedule per a personal driver. :) Meanwhile, I am still feeding the babe and hubby gets home...out the door I go. And per the new ways of my life I am late for class, but not too late. I was not the only one that was late. One person did not show up so I was able to bring her cake home for practice. In the end, it paid to be late to be next to the lonely cake without a home.

On to the class! We started with a demo from our instructor. We went through the entire recipe for a yummy vanilla cake. Her trick was to use half all-purpose flour and half cake flour. Next, we went through the recipe for the swiss whipping cream frosting. Again..mouth watering good. Then it was time for us to get to work to make the fillings. I was on a team by myself and loved it! I made a lemon curd filling. So good! It was the only thing you could smell in the kitchen. Lemon is just delicious. Another demo on how to cut, trim, fill and frost the cake with a thin layer followed. Another tip...when cuting the cake and frosting spread a simple sugar sryup over the cake first as it adds moisture and flavor.

And then it was our turn! Everyone else picked to use the chocolate filling but I stayed trued to what I made and used the lemon and added some raspberries too! Oh my...how good was this cake...so good! I also flooded the top of the cake with the lemon, which brings us to the yellow bellow cake!

I brought the cake home and it was dinner for me and the hubby, but one a slice a piece. The rest was sent off with him to work for others to enjoy. Now it is on to make some more treats for his work buddies!

One, two, three strikes...no more butter!

Oy! Where do I start with this weekend of caking? So, on Saturday it was going to be the day that I made an unbelievable cake for a friend's house. Everyone there was going to be blown away by the taste and the design of the cake. Yeah right! This is what happened....

I started off the morning per usual, woke up made a cake while the hubby and baby were sleeping, baby woke up, feed him, made frosting, and hubby left for work. Then the cake would not come out the pan and baby would not nap. So, I tried to get the baby to nap and then I made another cake. Mind you, the first cake tasted fab, but it was stuck in the pan. The next cake looked great! Took them out of the oven, let them rest for a bit and then it was time to have them cool on the rack. Again...yeah right! I flipped one and the middle fell right out. AMAZING! The other one was fine. Okay, I thought. I can just put the middle back in and cover it with frosting. I decided to let them cool longer and then it was time to move them. As you can only imagine the cake that had fallen apart a bit decided it wanted to fall apart completely! I was now stuck with one 9 inch round cake. Maybe I can make another cake. It was only ten AM and I had time as it only took twenty minutes to make. However, low and behold...no more butter. Three strikes I am out of this game for the weekend! I can make the best of this is what I thought. Decorating and frosting was next. HA! It was dreadful. I cannot even explain all the way the baby had woken up and needed to be feed and changed and yada yada yada!

Needless to say I made a stop at Wholefoods for cupcakes and bubbly..DELICIOUS!

Roses are red...

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Pansies can be yellow...how did I do?

Today was the day I started to practice. Practice, practice, practice. Isn't that what they always tell you when you are younger? Practice makes perfect. So today I practiced. My son was not napping in his swing, but I pushed onward and was able to put together some things. I started off with dots. My dots were everywhere. Then onto the swirls and twirls. It was all about perfection. One day it will come.

Next, it was on to the rose tip. It was fun using this tip with lots of different twirls coming out of it. They would be very pretty in a pink on top of a little girls cake. Anyone have a baby girl lately? I know of a few out there!

Now, it was dinner time. It was a lovely calzone. Yummy! Five years working in a deli definitely pays off. Wait...I did not mention that I attempted a cake today too. Before I even talk about my flowers that I made, lets discuss the cake I made. So, I completely went in blind. No recipe to follow, just flying by the seat of my mixer. In went the flour, sugar, egg whites, milk, vanilla and more...oh my! Everything mixed together nicely. In to the oven she went. Out 20ish minutes later and tada! We had a cake that was not a moist or cake like as it should be. What was missing? According to my wise mother and younger sister, fat and sugar. So tomorrow or the next day we will try again. It needed to be much more spongey and less bread like. On to the next one...

So, my roses. They got better as the twenty minutes I had went on, same with my pansies. It was nice to have some that actually looked like they should. During my class I was not good at them, so these are not perfect yet, but they are a great improvement for me. I do not have a picture for you to compare them to, but hey, what can you do, right? Check them out and let me know what you think.

A Blue E it was...

This weekend was....interesting (saying this as I point my finger around in a circle like Larry David). Very interesting! It was the first time I ever decorated a cake! It was so exciting. My sister and I headed down to a local bakery to take a class. She has decorated before with my mother and I never ever had done this. We got there a little early and were able to sample the little tasty treats they had in their testing bins. Yummy! A great sugary treat to start the morning off with!

Then we headed into the back of the bakery to man our decorating stations. So, there were eight people total in the class. Two other pairs of girls and then a married couple. Now, the stations were set up were three and three down two tables and then two together. The other pairs got right together and then there were two spots on different tables left. Oh no they didn't! They meant for my sister and I to split. I don't think so! So, we asked the married couple to scoot down. No biggie, but they were acted as if...sooo then it was time to begin the decorating.

The chef/owner of the bakery started off by going over their buttercream recipe. How nice right? However, I decided it was too hard to work with...got warm way too fast. But, we have the recipe if needed. Then we started creating dots! Dots, dots, dots! We used the #4 tip to create dots, lines, letters and things. It was very fun! I was getting used to using the decorating bag so one it was to the next tip. It created rosettes. Very nice and fancy! We were then ready to move on to the flower tip. It started out with pansies and moved on to roses. These were tough. As you will see in the pictures below there are no flowers as I was not ready to put them on a cake just yet.

After lots of practice and listening to how you create different aspects of the designs it was time to ice our cakes! YAY! So we took the buttercream frosting we had been working with all day on our cake. As you can imagine it was very warm to then start the design part...but we trucked on. We covered our cakes with the frosting and then we were left to design our cake. I decided to use just the blue frosting that was given to us our my house is two-third boys. It was then time to figure out just what was going on the cake. It was then that I decided to chose and E. I had made a nicee E while we were practicing, better than the one that ended up on the cake I must say. So, I went from there. Es then were around the cake with dots all over.

I think I did an okay job on the first cake ever that I decorated. But you can be the judge...but please don't tell me it's terrible.