PAGES

SLIDER

The Boy's Got Talent!

Monday, November 29, 2010

It's interesting the way you find out about your kids hidden talents. My 16 year old son had a school assignment to either bring some kind of Thanksgiving food to share with his English class or bring some Thanksgiving decorations. (I never had a teacher that let us do fun things like this!) He decided to make Thanksgiving decorations. He'd seen all fun things that can be made with fondant and gum paste... so he wanted to give it a try. What was his idea???? A life sized turkey with all the fixin's!

He and a classmate spent several evenings together working on this project. If they asked for help I'd offer some suggestions, but they pretty much made everything themselves. (With the exception of the pumpkin and acorn... which you might recognize from a couple of  past tutorials.) I also helped a little with dusting some color on a few items... the rolls just looked raw without a little color!

The bread for the stuffing was made from pieces of leftover cake cut into cubes. The turkey was first molded from Rice Krispie treats and then covered with fondant. His final touch was to sprinkle fresh ground pepper over the surface of the turkey. WOW!!! What a masterpiece... if I do say so myself.

Besides the turkey and stuffing they had: corn on the cob, rolls, grapes, an acorn, a pumpkin, an apple, a pear, cranberries, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, mashed potatoes with butter on top, and pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream.










He's showing off his masterpiece!



Here he is goofing around with his big sister... it's such a wonderful thing when you have children that get along as well as these two! :)



I was soooo impressed with the way everything turned out.... the teacher was pretty impressed too. As a matter of fact, he asked if he could keep their "Turkey Tray" decoration and use it in the future. In the end it was an EPIC (as my teenagers would say) success!

The Completed Cake!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Remember the sneak peak I gave you a couple of weeks ago?  Well... here's the finished cake!



It wasn't a difficult or complicated cake, but it's simple elegance simply took my breath away. I never did find out where the customer found the picture of this cake. But I couldn't wait until it was time to decorate. I really like the pearl medallions and using them as the centers for the dogwood sugar flowers pulled the design together perfectly. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. What do you think?

Sifting, Sifting, Sifting...

Monday, November 15, 2010

No, I'm not talking about flour! Although whether or not it's necessary to sift flour is a great debate, I'm talking about cakes mixes.

For those of you who like to bake using cake mixes, sifting can make a huge difference in your finished product. Sifting the cake mix will get rid of any lumps or clumps that may have formed. Usually there aren't too many lumps unless you have a cake mix that's been sitting around for a while. If your mix is a little older, the lumps can be a hard and kind of stubborn. Use the back of a spoon to help push those stubborn lumps through the sifter. I like using a large strainer with a fine mesh to sift my cake mixes... it works like a charm.

The cake mix dumped into a strainer.

These are the lumps left over after sifting through the powder.

Push the lumps through with the back of a spoon. I like to use a gravy ladle.

This is what the cake mix will look like if you don't sift.
Here's the cake mix after sifting. It looks much nicer!


If you sift your cake mixes, you'll notice a fluffier and much smoother looking batter. After baking, the cake will have a much better texture and there won't be any of those annoying air tunnels. Give it a try... you'll never go back!

Blog Design by Nudge Media Design | Powered by Blogger