I won't lie...I kinda got nothin' today. LOL!!
See...The Hubble decided to fly in this past Saturday to surprise Little Butt and me for the long weekend. Needless to say, we were excited and rather distracted.
The same day, The Hubble's best friend, his wife and his daughter came in for the weekend for a visit as well. I had a very full house all weekend. The Hubble flew out Monday morning to get back to training and his best friend left later that afternoon. Best friend's wife and daughter left yesterday.
On top of the visits, Little Butt started swim lessons this week. I've been getting up at 6am every day this week to get ready then get her up and ready for her early swim lessons.
And if that wasn't enough, Little Butt also started dance classes this week! She's only gone to one class so far, but with everything else, that one class had me falling asleep on the couch.
So...with all that being said, I have done NO cooking lately. I have some stuff in the archives I've never shared but I've been wanting to share my journey through cake decorating for some time so I figure now is the perfect time!
Now, I'm not a professional cake decorator or anything but it's something I super enjoy. So...I want to show you all the cakes I've done over the last couple years. So here we go!
Let's start with my very first "decorated" cake ever:
In December, 2009 I was able to squeeze in the first Wilton cake decorating course. This was back before they changed the courses and what the students learned. There were four courses back then.
In the second class, we decorated these rainbow cakes (sorry for the horrible picture, the cake itself is light blue).
One of the classes was canceled and I already had a carrot cake made and ready so I decided since I was so inspired by cake, I would make a homemade cream cheese frosting and use some of the spiced nuts I had made for Christmas gifts to adorn this cake. I mean...you can't let a good carrot cake go to waste can you???
The third class, we learned the clowns. These were my little clowns. Now, the only way I could squeeze this class in before I headed to NY to greet The Hubble home from deployment was that the course was condensed into 2 weeks instead of 4. Sadly, since the one class was canceled and we had to make it up, I would miss the final class. So the instructor showed me how to make the Wilton rose. The one in the front is my first rose, the one in the back was the instructors. Oh well...
February of 2010 The Hubble and I decided to participate in the Race for the Cure in El Paso, TX. I decided I wanted to finally do my finale cake so I made a cake to commemorate the Race for the Cure.
My Wilton roses got much better after a bit of practice.
In March 2010, Little Butt and I were staying with my best friend until we could move to the Middle of Nowhere, Missouri with The Hubble. Every year, she has an Oscar party. And she always creates a menu to go along with the nominees. This year, Up! was nominated for animated film. So I asked if I could make a cake. It didn't turn out too bad. It was a half sheet cake so it was huge! And that was my first time working with fondant (the house is made of fondant).
I then tried to make a "candy box" cake with cake balls as the "candy." Not the best, but not horrible for a newb. The cake pops were super delicious!
Then, in April, I made this crazy 3 tiered Tinkerbell cake for Little Butt's birthday! Crazy!
And because it was Easter, I made some fun cupcakes! Too cute!
We finally arrived in The Middle of Nowhere, Missouri and I was able to continue my Wilton education. Course 2 was all about the flowers. This was the final cake for the class. I was really happy with it!
About this time, I started really getting into food blogging and joining baking groups. I made this hummingbird cake for a group bake and wanted to dress it up a bit. So I free handed the flower on top and the dots on the side.
This was the final cake for the Wilton course 3 class. That's a lot of fondant baby!!
Thanks to the Daring Bakers, I've even gotten to play around with decorating cookies! Fun! But a lot of work...
Now, I just like to try to challenge myself. I made this Rapunzel doll cake with cupcakes for a friend's daughter.
This was Little Butt's birthday cake this year. She asked for it...I just obliged!
Both my nephews were celebrating their birthdays recently. They both really like Toy Story and I saw THIS CAKE on Cakewalker. So I replicated it my way.
And finally! My mother needed a dessert for her 4th of July potluck (on July 1st) and this is what I sent with her.
And that's it for now! I haven't been doing too much decorating lately but I enjoy it when I do. Thanks for walking down memory lane with me. I hope you are craving cake now!!
