Adventures in Cake Making

My cousin Kim got married this past weekend and I made her cake.....that's right everyone I made her cake. First let me say that her wedding was delightful. It was very simple and sweet since it was both Kim and Joe's second marriage. So when she was planning the big day she mentioned that Joe was going to make the wedding cake. I thought to myself...why would he want to do that when he has plenty of other things to do on his wedding day. So I offered, as my wedding gift, to make the cake. She, of course, said yes!




So after months of non-planning the time came. I took Thursday and Friday off from work in order to work on the cake. I was told very little about the cake: heart shaped, blue, and 100-125 people. So that's what I did...I made a cake for a little over 100 people that was heart-shaped and included blue accents. The final result was great (at least that is what I was told) but it was the process that became annoying.

I bought almost the perfect amount of supplies. I started baking on Thursday morning and I was plowing right through until the incident.



I had just put the crumb layer of icing on the bottom layer of the white cake when my baby boy woke up from his afternoon nap. I pushed the two layers of cake to what I thought was the middle of the table and went to get him. A diaper change later and I came to find my older beagle craning his neck to eat as much of the white cake as he could. As you can see he took such a big chunk out of the cake I had to remake the white cake. I must say Ted Beagle is one lucky beagle, because I really could have tossed him out on his beagle rear-end and not cared one bit.



This in turn caused a delay in everything. By Thursday night I was exhausted and my back and feet hurt. So my wonderful hubby offered to stay up with me to make the white cake and he made the icing for me on Friday morning. Once we got down to my mom's house icing the cake went pretty smoothly. We delivered the cake on Saturday morning and from then it was out of my hands.

The lesson learned from this experience was that detailed cake making is difficult, always put your cake near the back of your kitchen counter, beware of counter surfing beagles, and take some time before you attempt to make another.....at least a few weeks.

C25K, Cake and Beautiful Weather

As I previously had blogged my brother said that he would go to my birthday party if I ran in a 5K with him that morning (I have a feeling he would go even if I didn't run). Well I have officially begun my training. I started the Couch to 5K running program to get started. I started Week 2 Day 1 this afternoon and I seem to have my breathing under control. It's my ankles that are bothering me. I know the following: I need new shoes (desperately) and I have horrible ankles. My dear athletic trainer hubby has offered to tape my loose ankles for me every morning. I'm hoping they start to feel better once my body gets used to jogging again. And I signed up for the 5K along with my brother, so now there is no looking back as I've spent the money and I'm not going to waste it :)

Oh the wedding cake.....I have a few weeks left before my cousin's wedding. Why oh why did I even consider making the cake. I have requested the two days off before the wedding to prepare and now I am working on the ingredients. I plan on doing at least one more test run on the icing before the big day too. This process has definitely made me rethink my future decisions to make a wedding cake.

The temperature has been awesome lately. I would love to say the weather has been perfect, but the rain has hindered some fun outside time with the little guy. But when the sun has shown itself I have loved it. I truly can't wait for summer....which reminds me I am going to play softball this spring!!! I was asked if I wanted to play on a coed rec league and after thinking about it I said yes. I haven't played softball in close to 10 years....in fact the last time I played I got to play the US Olympic team before they went on to play at the Olympics in 2000. It will truly be an experience this spring.

Here are some cell phone pictures of our weather and one of the little guy!! (My camera is in the shop AGAIN.)