Pizza...mmmm...

I heart pizza, a ton. I don't know how to make pizza, don't really care to learn how, but thought the class would be fun. It was supposed to be a fun learning bonding thing, but I went solo and still had a FAB time. And ate my guts out. Three different kinds of pizza in four hours- pizza bianca, New York style pizza and Chicago Deep dish... Here is what we did:



This is an example of what 'shaggy dough' looks like. This is a good thing! Do NOT add more liquid to make it 'un shaggy'. Shaggy is good.



Testing my dough, using the 'window pane' technique. at least I think it was called window pane. maybe just window? hm... I don't remember, but it was funny. It reminded me of something else entirely... let your imagination wander...



My decorated pizza. They have us some super yummy sauce for this New York Style pizza, I added some mozzerella (both fresh and aged), basil leaves and super good pepperoni. I liked the pepperoni so much, i just saddled up with the tupperware of it and munched on it while my pizza baked in the wood fire stove... This sounds like some long luxurious moment with me and some meat, but the pizza took all of 3 minutes to bake in the 600 degree + oven. I still stuffed as much into my mouth as possible in that 3 minute time span. My stomach was happy.



The three styles of pizza we made... I know you are salivating right now as you should be because this is next...



a melty hot slice of pizza goodness.. It was good.

My fav pizza was the New York style. I actually liked it best when it was baked in the regular oven because I like the crispiness of the dough. Which is why I think I ate 4 slices... ok, maybe 5 or 6. but who was counting?? :)

Black & White and Red all over

Back at it tonight! Happy St. Patricks day- hope you are enjoying the beautiful day. The weather was insane today- beautiful, beautiful. My day was a little chaotic, and there was nothing more I wanted to do at day end then to see Moochie and #1 and to decorate.... and then watch Modern Family!

So, this is the 'girly 10 year old, red and black' birthday cake I made today. Per usual M.O. for these cakes, I was given very little direction besides the following:
1) Girly
2) Red & Black
3) It's a 10 year old birthday cake
4) She likes iCarly and H.S.M.
5) Loves chocolate cake
6) big enough to feed 10 people

ok.... Um, the options were endless and as this was my FIRST paid for cake I wanted to make sure it looked as professional as possible, while trying something I hadn't done before. First things first- the cake is an 8 in round. 3 layers. 2 layers are chocolate banana and one is banana. The filling is a chocolate peanut butter ganache (IT IS SO YUM! It tastes like a reese's pieces bag of candy melted and fluffed up.. if that makes any sense), and I used red fondant that I bought at the cake store and black marshmallow fondant I made from scratch.



I made the stars on Saturday night in order to let them set up to stand on the cake. The 'diamonds' I rolled out and cut today. I was so lucky that the diamonds (squares) fit on the cake w/o too much overlap and this was without measuring! stupid on my part. But... It worked.



The bottom is obviously a ribbon. I wanted to see how ribbon attached to buttercream because I have seen SO many cakes with that ribbon border. It was easy-peasy and I thought added a little extra girly to the cake.



I piped in the dots at the corners of the diamonds to clean it up a bit. I could have used some dragee's but I didn't have plain white ones, and I had a ton of buttercream.



Then I tooth-picked in the monogram M. I also made this on Saturday using my new extruder. I seriously DON"T know how to make the fondant come out perfectly smooth from the extruder. It has these little ridges that you can't really see in the picture (on purpose!) but it BUGGED me. However, the M set up well, it dried enough to hold it's own, but I tooth-picked in for some added support.

Not sure if it's girlie enough. But I didn't want to do flowers or hearts... I thought way too predictable and so close to Valentines day- I didn't want it to be confused as a Valentines cake.

Well, Cheers! now to watch some Modern Family. Goodnight!

oh yeah!

Oops! I forgot to say Abbie's baby shower cake was 4 layers of clementine creamsicle (6 inch rounds) with a swiss buttercream frosting.
I also made some cupcakes for everyone else and just piped the buttercream on and added little hearts on top. I was wanting to do flowers but life got in the way and I didn't have time last night.

She likes the cake! :)

B is for Baby

Here is baby shower cake #2. I guess I had cookie monster on the brain and all I could think of was "C is for cookie"... :)

Abbie is having a girl, so I went girlie with this one. I knew I was going to use a white background so I just used a buttercream frosting instead of covering in fondant. I still need to practice getting the frosting smooth... I know I will get better over time. But all I see are the imperfections!

Here it is:







I had left over fondant so I just added those little balls on top. Not sure how I feel about them... I tried putting them on the bottom first and they were too big and looked stupid against the clothes. So i just used the star tip and piped little stars along the border.

AND, I finally got an extruder and thats how I made the clothes line. The extruder is handy dandy for sure, but I need to figure out how to make the fondant come out smooth... sigh..

I also worked on the 10 year old bday cake for Thursday. I made some stars last night. More pictures on that later...
Off to get my tattoo!! :)

...and Happy Baby!

The baby shower mama is having twins- a boy and a girl. So I didn't really have any color constrictions and really the only direction I had was that her favorite cake is Cherry Chip. I already had my lamb ready so I thought the color scheme would be pastels- blue, pink, yellow and green.

I rolled out mint green fondant and covered the 3 layer 6 inch cherry chip cake w/ an amaretto ganache (just the flavoring not the actual alcohol! safe for the mamas).
Then added my little lamb




Then rolled out the individual colors and stamped out the circles and randomly placed them on the cake



And I couldn't resist adding little feet to the cake too! :)



Then I piped the words on top and added a dot border along the bottom



And that's all! I love this cake! now I have to think of another animal or theme for the shower on Monday. I'm be-eeeat... more tomorrow!

Happy feet

My first baby shower goodness... The little lamb I made is still drying but almost ready to be assembled, the cherry chip cake is currently cooling in the freezer so I worked on these cupcakes. I really like making a special individual cake for the person being celebrated and then having cupcakes for everyone else. Plus I had some cupcakes already made that needed to be used. It's just a win-win.

I still wantd to make the cuppies cute and I thought a little token something on top would be ideal.. a flower? But no, I wanted to do something baby related....What do you love about babies? For me, it's their chubbiness.. their fat little hands and rolls on their arms! You could just eat them with a spoon! yes I said it out loud.... But a fat roll on a cupcake wouldn't be that cute. So I thought FEET!
Here is what I did...





Don't know that chocolate frosting was the best backdrop or if the large flower tip was the best idea. BUT, whatever its chocolate and cute together and they will eat it and love it. I hope... Anyhow, now on to the cake

the ol' Maize and Blue.. a fond memory

I never ever was a huge football fan growing up. The fam wasn't into it, my dad not being a sports person. Needless to say when I moved to the Midwest I was in for a surprise... a real nice surprise Clark. My roommate was aghast that I didn't get season tickets for the football games. My response "who goes to football games?"
ha ha HA
fast forward to my first experience walking into the stadium. I know it's going to sound corny but it was a top 10 moment of my life. I will never ever forget walking through the tunnel into the student section. My scope of vision wasn't big enough- I couldn't take it in fast enough (well that and I was trying to obviously look cute/cool to all the other drunk kids)
Dude it was huge! I had tingles and this is so hokey, but it felt amazing to be in this gigantic stadium with 100 THOUSAND other people cheering for the same thing. To be a part of something so much greater than tiny little me? ah! i still get tingles thinking about it.
So, every year when I walk into the stadium for the first time- I still get that quite moment of awe. I WENT here! I am a part of this and for a few moments, every person here is my buddy. We all have this great thing in common. Even if I don't like you and you just cut in front of me and the kiddies to get in the stadium because your drunk butt can't stand straight and wait for 2 minutes- I'm ok with that.. because you are here with me cheering for the best team in the world.

Yes, it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine

....and allow me a few moments to recover from my insane amount of cheese....
and watch this video:
http://mgoblog.com/diaries/sometimes-when-youre-2010-its-time-we-need

**this out of nowhere, tear-jerker, tugging at the heart strings post comes courtesy of KB who forwarded me this link on this fine day in MARCH when football season is about the LAST thing on my mind but obviously not his....

More red velvet

I found a different recipe for red velvet cake on Pioneer Woman's website that I've been meaning to get around to. And since I've been putting the baking off for days now, I thought tonight would be the night (for real this time).

I thought there would be a ton more cocoa, but just one tablespoon...



But what we lacked in cocoa we made up for in red dye. TWO ounces. I only had one bottle at one ounce so queue music as we wait for another bottle to arrive...



OK, added the wet to the dry and manage to make huge red mess. It was akin to a murder scene. My hands had 'blood' spatters all over them. I'm such a klutz!



30 minutes later, 350 degree oven....



I 'broke' two as I was taking them out of the tins... yeah, that's what I did! I broke it.. :) Well, they tasted pretty good, but I want more cocoa. Good to know for next go-round, but I LOVE how red they are...



I think this would be a good cake for a skull topper. Something you could slice into and see blood. Yeah? I like it... And now to work on the baby shower cake.. Which got split into TWO baby showers and now I have multiple cakes to make. More practice I guess...

Little Lamb

Here is my first attempt at an 'animated' cake topper. Completely unlike the bow, this one actually required some sculpting and playing.
Moment of honesty- I stole the idea from someone on Vimeo. I had no idea what to do for the baby shower cakes. Actually that's not true either- I had a TON of ideas but nothing they would like or that would be work appropriate. Most people want warm and fuzzy... I was thinking along the lines of a punked out diaper w/ a huge safety pin. :)
Anyhow while I was searching for tips on how to fondant cover a square cake (after the disaster of the beer cooler cake) I came across a woman who had all these handy dandy how-to videos related to sugar sculpting/decorating. She made this sweet little lamb and I thought it would be perfect for a baby shower.

I apologize because I forgot to snap pictures during the whole process. But here is the end result:





I cant help but giggle every time I look at it. The legs look so similar to a part of the male anatomy, especially when they were sitting on their own drying. :D
OH, and I made royal icing for the first time- that's what the white fluffy stuff is.
Everything I'm afraid of trying ends up being super easy and all the things I imagine are easy end up being difficult.
Now the little lamb will dry over night and I'll assemble the cake tomorrow night for Friday delivery.
G'night!

The "Little Cheetah"

I just got some wonderful, WONDERFUl news. My college roommate just told me today that she is expecting some goodness in her life; a "little cheetah" will join her life in early September.

Check out this super active 13 week old baby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZbRvUnwxBo

My ovaries jumped when I saw the video. In typical Sandy B. girlie fashion, I cried. It is such a beautiful thing to witness a baby move around on an ultrasound and even more so when it's your great friends baby.
It made me reflect upon the years I have known her, and our crazy times in college and all the laughs we shared. I will never forget the first time I met her, this tall leggy GORGEOUS blonde walking into my dorm room to confidently introduce herself while I thought to myself "shoot me now, I have the prettiest girl in the world as a roommate, she is gonna be a b*tch". Um, yeah... NO! I couldn't have been more wrong. She is Far FAR from it. She was and is quite possibly the sweetest, most kind hearted, FUNNY and yes, beautiful girl I have ever met in the world.

To say it simply, she is now One Hot Mama!
Congrats my friend! and welcome to the club :)