Cake #8 Marbled Fondant

Requirements for this cake: use a marbled fondant covered cake board, and be prepared to make fondant fabric swags and put them on during class. The marbling doesn't show well, but you get the point. And since the base was marbled, I figured I may as well do the rest of the cake that way. Things I learned: 1. When fondant is too thin, bumps show easier and tears will develop as it begins to slide off your cake like aging skin. 2. Don't use a butter based frosting under the fondant, it will start to melt, dissolve the fondant and leak out of your cake at the base. 3. Gum paste flowers are fun! And it's easy to make up your own flowers once you get the basics down. (The large one is made up.) But they take forever...get several movies to work with. The Chiffon cake is dry and not very chocolaty so I won't be passing the recipe on. We have yet to try the other flavor. I'll post it later, if it turned out.

Olympic Young Women

Every year the Young Women organization at church puts on a little program called New Beginnings. It highlights the girls who have earned awards, introduces the girls who have turned 12 and are new to Young Women, and also explains any changes to the program. Parents are invited so they can help us encourage the girls to set and accomplish their goals. So, this year we chose a winter Olympic theme. Budget: $65.00 Below is the invitation. I love that the Young Women logo is a torch. Perfect coincidence!

The invitation was enclosed in these colorful packets. Each of the eight rings represents one of the eight values the Young Women program is based around. (Values, meaning qualities we want them to develop, like faith, choice and accountability, integrity and so on...each value is also associated with a specific color.)

I really wanted to fill the room too. But we had to do it cheaply. So we decided to fill the ceiling with snowflake garlands. The girls helped with the cutting, whew! Behind the podium we taped up Olympic rings out of poster board, and in front, a fun red carpet! (LOVED the carpet. The girls had fun walking on it when they presented their parts.) We also wanted Olympic flags flags with the values on them for the girls to carry down the carpet. They were a lot of work, but we'll be able to use them in the future—and they turned out great!

We had fun with the refreshments too. I made snowflakes out of royal frosting and poked them into cupcakes that our secretary feverishly baked.

And check this out...one of the counselors made this fantastic cupcake stand. Fun huh?

I really liked this project because it came off looking very clean and simple, and yet it didn't look homemade and wasn't too sparse. Good job team! Thank you for all your help! Oh, and Adam gets a gold medal for putting up with my mess. I worked on this the same time I've been doing cake decorating. Every room in the house has had some part of some project in it. Adam never once got frustrated. First place! Top notch! Good form! (I never know if you guys like reading the "how to"...I don't want to bore you :) If anybody wants more details on this project...just let me know and I'll add to this post.)

Our Little Babies are Growing Up

Instead of purchasing small plants from a nursery, Adam's parents decided to have us start a little nursery for them. They handed over this planting greenhouse (only 6 bucks if you want to start your own) a bunch of seeds, and we got to work.

We planted tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and cucumbers. Cucumbers were by far the fastest growers.

Look how much they grew in just week. So if you are thinking about starting a growing project with your kids...this is totally the way to go. They'll see results so fast!

Below is after week two. We've already handed over the plants...*sniffle* and we will miss them. I will also miss the conversations Adam and I had, on our tummies, on the floor while examining the progress of our nursery.

Two Rule Cake

Our last cake for course three only had two rules. First: The cake must be two tiered, using the columns provided in our course kit. Second: We must use at least one flower we learned in this course. Here is the result.

(You wanted recipes Melissa...you got 'em.) Click here for Fluffy Banana Cake, The recipe is from my Grandma, and uses real bananas. Click here for Hershey's Deep Dark Chocolate Cake—it's so moist you'll actually exclaim your surprise.