Invader Zim

Today I finished up an Invade Zim cake. Yeah, he was a new character for me, too. But pretty cute, and his little pig is adorable! Fun to make, and I do appreciate my young friends and their unique cake requests. Hope they liked eating it as much as I liked making it!

Princess Barbie Doll Cake

I've been working on a princess Barbie doll cake for a friend who's turning 5. Naturally, colors are pink and purple. I got a barbie with hair to match the birthday girl's hair. It's fun to try to personalize these as much as possible. Her hair was a bit weird on the ends so I cut it a little. Still not the best hair. She's beach barbie - probably spent way too much time at the beach :) She also has regular feet, not high heeled barbie feet. Never seen that.

Baked two cake mixes, one in 2 8 inch round pans, one in a wonder mold pan. Pampered chef batter bowl works too. They come out pretty much ready to stack with a little trimming of the tops. Crumb coat and fill with buttercream.

Fondant...used marshmallow fondant. It's great, and easy. I really like this new find. Made a purple ruffle to go around the bottom, as a sort of underskirt. Next I put a purple panel in front. Then pink panels as the overskirt. Took three altogether and I should have left the seams alone instead of trying to blend them. Next a purple bodice with little ball cap sleeves. I needed a patttern for the bodice. Next time I'll make one out of fabric.

Then some flowers, and done! Turned out pretty well. The birthday girls will be pleased!

Watch out for those bumps in the sidewalk

Several years ago I made a cake for Sarah's teachers' surprise birthday parties. The cake was made to look like the butterfly garden that the class tended, complete with dirt made from chocolate cookie crumbs and cute plants and flowers. Even a "path" made from shredded wheat crumbs.
As I was trying to sneak it in to school without the class seeing me out the windows, I tripped on a raised piece of sidewalk. Slow motion in my mind....I'm tripping, falling, but must save the cake....I ended up doing a volleyball fall and landing on my stomach. The cake gently hit the ground and slid away from me. Wow. Save! But no, the decorations had all slid off and now the cake was a lovely dirt garden. (Chocolate dirt, not real dirt!) Oh, no! What now? Can't bring in a plain cake....but wait! The cupcakes! I had decorated cupcakes to go along with the cake so there would be enough for everyone. I just put the cupcakes onthe cake an no one was the wiser. Cake and cupcakes were a hit.

Later on after school, I felt something a little weird. Like a cut or something, near my hipbone. I cent into the bathroom to check it out, and I had a 2 inch cut through my skin into the layer of fat. I guess keys are sharp. Note: do not carry keys in your pocket, especially when carrying a cake. Julia was so grossed out. Ooooh, fat! Hmmm, stitches might be needed.

Of course, Sarah was at play practice and Jon was out of town. I couldn't go to the doctor. Who would pick up Sarah or make dinner? Well, after I picked S up and got McD for dinner, I called my in-laws who were living in town at the time. Kids went there, I went to urgent care. Short wait, got examined. Had to tell the story several times. "What cut you?" Then the doctor said he had to go check something. Turns out that when they are giving stitches, there's a magic number. The magic number is how long you can wait to be stitched before too much bacteria get in and they won't do stitches. And he did not know the magic number for torsos. We might be past the time limit.

Apparently it was ok. I got stitches (NOT pleasant!) And I hardly ever carry my keys in my pocket anymore.

A dog, a cake and a bird

The other day, I was in the dining room working on Sarah's birthday celebration cake. She wanted it to look like a bed, with frosting, not fondant and with a rice krispie treat frame. OK. Sounds cute. wished I could use fondant for the covers, but ok.

Suddenly Sarah alerts me to the fact that a bird has hopped into the house through the open dog door in the screen. Oh, no. The bird's flying all over the place, panicking. What to do?

First, cut off dog access to the bird. That's all we need, her chasing it too! So we closed Kiwi into the living room/dining room by closing the dutch door between there and the kitchen. We try and open more doors, windows, anything but the bird is trapped behind blinds. The sliding glass door in the music room won't open (we never use it.) Finally we get the bird to come back into the family room and it flies out the door. Whew.

Wait a sec. We closed Kiwi off with the cake. This is bad. She loves cake. And has eaten parts of at least three cakes...we dash back to check and there's the cake. Looks ok. Kiwi looks a little guilty. Did we escape caketastrophe? Well, partly. Upon closer inspection a 2 or 3 inch section of "covers" on the side of the cake was gone. Just licked away.

Well, what to do? What would you do? We decided, what's a little dog lick? No big deal.

Oh, and we served from the other side :)
No one ever did eat that part of the cake, come to think of it.