Monday, April 13, 2009

Happy Easter!



Easter weekend was another busy weekend. Full of family, food and fun. I have a secret dream, besides opening my own junk store, I would love to decorate cakes professionally!
That being said, I am an avid fan of Duff Goldman and Ace of Cakes, or any Food Network Challenge that revolves around cakes. They all use fondant on their show, so I figure how hard can it be? How pretty would my cake look? I decided to spend Friday all day, literally, to find out!
Couldn't find all the necessary supplies to make it from scratch, so I headed up to my local bulk food store and purchased dry fondant to use. Decided to make a butter cake with raspberry filling... made it double layer and carved it into an egg. Rolled out the fondant, tried picking it up with the rolling pin, stuck to the counter, tried it again, stuck to the counter... AH HA! I'm going to beat it the next time... I rolled it out on a cookie sheet... and ta da! Draped it onto the cake, then it started cracking... grrr, not as easy as Duff makes it. So here is my first attempt at a fondant cake!
The bunny cake is an attempt with the kids... I discovered my cake decorator was broken, so we had to hand frost it all... didn't turn out too bad with a 7 year old and 9 year old's help... although they couldn't help but to eat some of the jelly beans before it was served.
So it was a great Easter... we'll see what next year's cakes turn out like!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Is it Spring yet?!?




Friday was a beautiful day... but the forecast wasn't looking so good for the rest of the weekend... I decided to add a little spring to my porch before the snow fell again... in about 15 minutes, and after digging though my garden shed, garage and basement, this is what I came up with. Good thing I decided to do it on Friday.

Saturday was one of the largest farm machinery auctions in the area... they always have some flat racks of goodies, after heehawing around I decided to go... grabbed my coveralls, gloves, boots and hat, I headed out. Got a few goodies I will have to post later... when it started to snow and sleet, I called it a day. 36 degrees outside. Not my idea of auction weather.

Sunday continued to snow... got about 3-4 inches of huge fluffy flakes... am really hoping this is the end of winter here in Iowa... but you can never be too sure!