My sister got married! It was a touching ceremony--not a dry eye in the house. And the reception? One of the most laid-back, enjoyable ones I've been to. And my brother-in-law started off on the right foot by fixing my car, even. Overall, it was great. But enough about that. I know why you're really here: cake!!
So, as you probably already know, Randy & Tal finally got married. And, two weeks after that, Siobhan & I made a couple cakes for their reception. It's what we'd been building up to for almost a year, and it all came down to this.
You may recall from my first entry in this series that Siobhan & I started this icing-laden trek because we're making the cakes for Randy & Tal's reception in January 2005. Well, January 2005 is two days away at this point, and we've been working our cake-makin' mojo once more.
OK, I'm sorry it took so long. I'm lazy, I admit it. I would like to point out, though, that my photos of the cakes stink and I was looking for better shots that I know certain friends of mine took. Tal was kind enough to reply to me and give me the shots she had (sadly, she didn't get all of them). So, I held out a bit longer, hoping that someone else would come forward and help me complete my set of non-lousy photos. No such luck. So, due to much popular demand, here's the photos of cakes from Ben & Lanya's wedding.
Ok, I've been bad. Turns out the subtitle of this blog is, in fact, true: This blog was proof I had too much time on my hands. Now that I've got a job (that's another post) and been decorating cakes for a wedding (yet another post), I've neglected this site for well over a month. And in that time, I've made some more cakes. SO, This is my catch-all, "Let's see what Andy's been doing in class for the last few Mondays" post.
This week's class was part two of our flower-making extravaganza. Thing is, I don't have too much to say about the class besides two things:
Anyhoo, let's just move right on to the photo, shall we?
Here's my flowers for the week. Actually, some of the daisies are probably Siobhan's and one might be Sue's--they got mixed up pretty good during class. Anyway, the daisy's are supposed to be slightly curled, to make the petals seem more daisy-like, but not that curved. That's the result of being jostled around the box on the way home. Ah, well. I don't really like making daisies anyway.
The Victorian roses, on the other hand, are just fun. I don't know if it was the bag, the tip, or the frosting, but something makes them a lot easier and nicer than the roses we did a couple weeks ago. They're a little squished, but not too bad.
The daffodils, pansies, and primroses, on the other hand, got smooshed something fierce. The daffodils came through the best, only getting their little center cups bent, but the other two are supposed to have these nice, upward-curving, overlapping petals, and at one point they did, trust me. But a little too long piled in a box & shifted around and boom, flat flowers. I know they look fine & all, but they looked even cooler before. Ah, well, guess I've just got to make some more...
So, when I said that I'd be writing about cake decorating again "tomorrow", what I really meant was "three days from now". The subtleties of the English language are just too much for the printed word sometimes, I guess. I apologize for leaving a gaping void in your life like that without so much as a warning. Anyway, I'm here now and I've got pictures!
After some consternation as to whether Michael's would be offering their Wilton Cake Decorating Class II in May, we finally got the word Sunday that the class was a go. Turns out that, though they wanted four people, our teacher, Sue, decided that three was enough, especially since we three were really interested and didn't want to disappoint. Or, at least that's the impression I got. In any case, Sue is an exceedingly awesome person.
Today was the end of our Wilton Cake Decorating Class I. Assuming that one more person from our class signs up, we should be starting Class II next week. Otherwise, we end up waiting 'till June & spinning our wheels or practicing or something. Or maybe, just maybe, not making a cake every week and losing a pound or two. Or not.
But enough about the future, let's live in the (recent) past! And get ready, 'cause there's a lot of photos tonight.
Since Siobhan mentioned it in her comment to the previous entry I thought I'd just point out that MoveOn has a fun little grassroots project for you Godless Lefties out there: Bake Sales for Democracy, or "Bake Back the White House". Personally, I'm all for punny political action that results in me eating tasty baked goods.
Also, I've gotten Siobhan's permission to post that photo of her and her cupcake. So, read on to see her work.
Oy, a guy's a little slow in putting up pictures of cake, and people start getting on his case...
Anyhoo, I should point out that last week's entry promised clowns for this week, but sadly there will be no clowns. As it turned out, all the clowns we made in class were rather freaky and lopsided, so they were quickly scraped back into our frosting bin. That and the fact that they didn't have heads to speak of, because we didn't feel like spending $2 (plus tax) on little clown heads.
With that confession out of the way, let's continue....
Tonight's adventure actually began yesterday, when we baked and iced our homework cakes for class tonight. The assignment was to bake an eight-inch cake and ice it for class. Easy enough, right? Right?
My pals Randy & Tal are getting married January 2005, and I--perhaps rashly--volunteered to make their cake. I have an utter lack of knowledge when it comes to the decoration of cake, so I, along with Siobhan, am taking the Wilton cake decorating classes offered at Michael's. Since previous online documentation of my cake-baking skills has been less than flattering (there were extenuating circumstances!), I've decided to chronicle my growth as a cake decorator. Just the sort of silly thing blogs were made for.