Slaaaaaacking!

So... I haven't baked nearly as much as I have wanted to! It's been all about the kids this week, hanging out with them, cooking for them, making sure they are entertained, and have a decent amount of quiet time. They are loving movie nights and camping out in the basement on the pull-out!

On the weekend, my husband and I went through our little guy's room, Caleb, and cleaned out all of his small clothes and junk toys that he never plays with. We cleaned out ALOT! Over a tote of clothes and a whole tote of toys.. mostly toy cars. He's never been into Hot Wheels cars, and we had this big collection... it was so nice to unload the clothes to my sister-in-law, who's little guy, Thomas, will be 1 on June 30th.

You really never can plan too far ahead... and both my sisters-in-law had pitched in and got us a ton of boys' clothes for Caleb when he was a baby, from eBay, which was awesome! So it's nice to return the favour.

I did bake chocolate chip cookies from a cake mix... it's so simple and they are so soft and delicious! I take a box of yellow cake mix, 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of oil and half a package of milk chocolate chips, and I mix it all up thoroughly. I have this awesome Pampered Chef scooper that is perfect for scooping dough so that the sizes of the cookies are pretty much the same.. so I use that, and pop 'em into the oven for 10-12 minutes at 350*C, and YUM! These cookies never last long in my house! I have also tried the same trick with chocolate cake mix and white chocolate chips! I was kind of in a rush that night so I didn't want to stand around and bake for the whole night... I scooped the dough into an ice cube tray, and froze it overnight... and the next day, I popped the frozen dough into a container and stored it back in the freezer. Perfect for the next time I want to bake some cookies in a flash! That ice cube tray idea was from Pinterest... my newest addiction! LOL We also had ham n cheese crescent rolls today... my husband's reaction to that was that I was clearly putting him to shame because he never is awake enough to make a lunch like that for them lol...


Today, I was working with my son Caleb in teaching him to ride his bike. He is hellbent on his tricycle and doesn't comprehend that he is too big for that thing. We bought a bike trailer a couple of years ago.. and even as amazing as that thing was, it's now too small. Last year, we had to leave it unzipped, because he is too tall for it... lol! Soooo, we had a chat today and I explained to him that he needed to be a big boy and ride a big boy bike like his older brother, Tyler. Our kids measure everything by when we go camping in August, so I also added that into the equation. I said, if he wanted to go for a bike ride when we go camping, we aren't bringing the trailer, so he either sits at the site by himself, or he learns to ride a bike! He is so stubborn, I really have NO idea where he gets it from (smirk)... So he whined and complained about his bum hurting and how much he hated his bike, and asked me if I had ever fallen off a bike.. My answer was MANY times.. we didn't do training wheels in my day... so scraped legs and bleeding ankles was the story of my life when I was bound and determined to learn to ride a bike! That seemed to give me a bit of status in his eyes, so he stuck it out and kept on...

He is not looking terribly thrilled here, but it's nearly the end of the ride home, so he was happy about THAT.

I am really loving my time off from work this week. We actually had a destination today, and it was... work. Ugh! I wanted to replenish some of the clothes we had upcycled (which reminds me, the reason Caleb's pants were so big when we were at that indoor playground yesterday is because they were a size 8, and he is a size 5-6!!! LMAO... I didn't want him to wear his brand new jeans and I knew these particular ones were bigger but I didn't check to see how MUCH bigger they were... LOL.). We did good... and the kids don't look like they are wearing floods anymore... instead, they look like they are about to drown in their new clothes :D Mom's work is done here!

Hope everyone else is enjoying our gorgeous weather/temperatures... savour it... never know how long it will last :)

Stay sweet,

Denise

What a fun weekend...

I am so thankful to my clients! Without them I'd be baking for myself and my family and I'd have a butt the size of Texas! :)

I had a request last weekend to do a cake for this weekend for my second cousin's birthday.. no problem! I could handle it! Then I checked on the deadline for another request I had already accepted, for a baby shower cake. They were for the same weekend, lol! No worries... when I was in the bakery, it wasn't unheard of to have 10-15 orders for one day, especially on holiday weekends... but it's different when you are making stuff from scratch, and working with fondant.

So I got to work baking and freezing and filling the cakes... and everything turned out beautifully. Both were picked up yesterday by some very happy clients.

Here is what I made for my second cousin, Jackson:

And this is the baby shower cake:

I was more worried about how I was going to do the Toy Story cake... I had no plan, really, except that it was a road scene with Woody and RC... but as soon as I had all my colours mixed, it was easy to whip together. I was surprised when I was done because it didn't take as long as I had thought it would!

The baby shower cake was time-consuming, only because of the fondant pieces. I was up late the night before working on them because the pieces for the bow had to dry. I hadn't done a bow since my cake classes, and I needed to pull out my books and make sure I was doing it right... but it all came back to me and turned out awesome :)

The cake was HEAVY too! Four layers of cake, with filling and icing and fondant... I am always surprised on cake shows when they say how much the cake weighs. Really? It's JUST a cake! I mean, okay, so it's the size of a body- building bouncer, but really... how can it be that heavy? But cakes can really weigh alot if they have multiple tiers.

So yes, it was a successful weekend, and even though I am still worried about the baby shower cake sinking (I need to rely more on dowels!!!), I am very proud of what I've done, and thankful to my clients for choosing me to make their special cake instead of going somewhere else. :)

Stay Sweet!

D