Tiny House Bakery--Cakes and Desserts by Andrew and Lee

So...I nearly crushed my finger...

2009-09-18T14:59:00.007-05:00

We all know what a fishing story is, right? Well, if not, let me explain.
It's a story about someone having a small problem reeling in a medium/small
sized fish and then the story explodes exponentially with each telling and
by each person involved in the situation. That's what I kind of feel like
my story is going to be, lol.

The other night I was making a cake for a lady at my church. She needed a
relatively huge cake. It turned out about as big as the Construction Cake.
Anyway, I wanted to use a wooden cutting board I had stowed for such an
occasion. I could not find it and Andrew didn't know off the top of his
head where it was either. So, being the procrastinator I am, I didn't have
time for a wild goose chase. I decided I'd make the board out of some scrap
plywood in our shed. Oh, by the way, this was 8:30/9:00 the night before I
needed to get it delivered.

I found the plywood I needed, but it was all the way in the back and I
couldn't get it out easily. I had to open up the back door of the shed to
slide the plywood out the door and then back into the shed so I could cut it
in the light of the shed. (Remember, it's dark and the only light I have is
a solar light on the inside.) The shed has a barn-type door in the back
with a siding outside and studs on the inside. I wasn't paying attention to
where my hands were in comparison to where the door was. I made one good
tug at the plywood and this happened:

While they were on my finger. The only thing I can guess is that the ring
took all of the blow. The stone was up against the door stud and the
plywood hit the band. I came out with just a bruise, but I still finished
the cake! :D Well, finished it the next night. Andrew found the cutting
board right after this happened....

Here's the cake! :D

Cake Decorating Class

2009-07-16T16:20:00.007-05:00

Isn't this awesome?!

And, no the cake itself is not hanging upside down, lol.

Can you believe this was done by a first time cake decorator and high school senior? I can't. Everybody was showing me up that night.

My church's youth group had a girls' night sleep over back in May, and they needed something to do. So, I volunteered to bring some cake and icing and "teach" some basic decorating techniques. It was a lot of fun. :) And, like I said earlier, everyone had an awesome cake! I couldn't believe the talent everyone already had. I was so proud.... *tear, sniff* :) Here are some more pictures.

These are the two senior girls that came. Congratulations Senior Class of 2009! :)

Birthday Cakes and Tasting Appointment Tonight

2009-04-03T14:38:00.007-05:00

I know what you're thinking:

"Two posts in one day?!? Is this girl crazy or something?" Well, as I was writing this one, I remembered that I forgot to post one about the pies. Interesting wording, huh? Anyway, here's a very rare, second post for the day.

I’m so excited about tonight. A friend of mine is ordering a cake—a free cake, but it’s an order nonetheless—and is coming over for a taste test. It’ll be my first time making cake and icing for a customer to try and see which one they like. It was supposed to have happened last night, but the weather was horrible over here. Tornados, straight-line winds, and torrential down-pours lasted until about 9 or 10 o’clock last night, and a tornado watch was in effect until 2:00 AM this morning.

Anyway, her birthday was last week, but she didn’t get a cake. I felt so bad about going to her birthday shin-dig and not bringing a cake. Especially since she knows about Andrew’s and my business dream and has been spreading the word around. So, she called on Wednesday to order and tell me what she wants. She’s ordering a chocolate cake with butter cream or regular sugar icing. The icing is what she really wanted to taste test because I told her in the real cake world, there is a difference and that I prefer the real butter cream icing over the other on a chocolate cake. I didn’t tell her this, I’ll wait until tonight, but I’m also going to give her a choice of chocolate cake. I found some Chocolate Fudge cake mix when I went shopping and knew I just had to try it….umm….I mean my friend just had to try it. So, I got that and some devil’s food. [Thinking about what I just typed] I’ve always said it, but it’s really funny to type that flavor of cake. I guess because chocolate is “sinful,” it’s called devil’s food. Sorry for the tangent thought.

I had been thinking of how to make the cakes and also make her a sample of it without having to eat two whole cakes and buy another mix of the one she liked. It worked out perfectly that we are tasting tonight instead of last night so I can just make both cakes like I normally would, but reserve a little bit and put it in a ramekin for her own tiny cake. I was quite proud of myself for thinking of that. Then, whatever cake she likes the least will probably turn into cake pops like what Bakerella makes. I love those little things! And plus Andrew made some recently and they were SOOOO delicious. And, the cake pops will go with me sometime Saturday to our church where the “youts” are having a car wash.

The second birthday cake is for Andrew’s best man. His birthday was almost two weeks ago. Yes, we’re a little behind, but remember why we are---

I just love this house. The kitchen may be small, but it’s still a lot bigger than the apartment.

And, I love the investment we made in a steel worktop table from Sam’s. It’s one of the best $80’ish we’ve spent on a kitchen item. I got to find out just how much I loved it when I made fried apple pies. Those batches went SOOO much smoother at the house with room to work with than the apartment.

Well, I’ve already made this post a lot longer than what I had planned. So, I’ll post with updates soon—really this time. I know sometimes my soon means months, but seriously, I’m going to do better.

Procrastination Pays Off on Fried Apple Pies

2009-04-03T14:31:00.008-05:00

I have a confession. After I posted about National Pie/Pi Day, I completely forgot about it. Here was a holiday that I could fix a pie, and I forgot! I was so sad and couldn’t believe I did. It wasn’t until the day was almost over or the next day that I had realized. So, I did what most procrastinators do best—I waited.

I had thought about making something for a co-worker’s birthday that was the week before. I didn’t know it was his birthday until it had past (he was working on location in Shelby County that week). Several days went by and I still didn’t make anything. The procrastinator in me was doing it again—waiting, I didn’t know what for, but I was waiting.

St. Patrick’s Day rolled around and I still didn’t do anything.

Then it dawned on me: Why not have all three celebrated at once? So, I waited again. lol. Since St. Patrick’s Day was on a Tuesday, I decided to wait until Friday to bring in my pies. But then I thought that wouldn’t work so well because Fridays are bagel/muffin days at work and I didn’t want to compete with that delicious treat. Thursday was just going to have to do, procrastination or not.

The next question was: What am I going to fix? I thought about making tiny apple pies in a tiny aluminum tin and I thought about fried pies. [drooling] I love fried pies…. So, that’s what I went with, apple, cherry FLAVORED cranberry, and apricot fried pies. Andrew’s reaction to my thinking about making fried pies also helped with that decision.

Let me explain why I made “flavored” all-caps. I went to the store to get dried apples, cherries, and one more fruit/berry. I wasn’t paying attention and only saw “cherry” on the bag, and did not see that it was an ocean-spray bag, which usually only sells cranberries…[face palm] I realized what I had done after I emptied the bag into the pot and actually read the print. lol. Needless to say, those cranberries got a TON of sugar to mellow out the tart flavor.

I invited a friend of ours over to taste test because he’s a huge fan of my fried pies. He loved the apple ones and almost would only eat that flavor, until that night. He ended up preferring the cherry flavored cranberries, which turned out to taste a lot like cherry. [sigh of relief]

I love to invite people over for taste testing. Except when the food turns out not as good as I thought it would, and then I feel really bad for having people eat it, even if they’re being polite.

With the exception of having to use toothpicks to identify which pie was which flavor, they turned out pretty good, and only two were left out of the 15 I brought to work for the 7 employees at work that day. This is including me. I had to have one. And, man, was it good, especially warmed up in the microwave. DELICIOUS! And, I made a cute little sign to go on top of the carrier, which said:

Happy Belated
Pie/Pi Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Birthday to CJ

Well, it was just a quick print out of that and how to tell which pies have what number of toothpicks in them on a grassy green piece of scrapbook paper. I liked it though.

Oh, I didn’t mention this. Andrew and I bought a brand new fryer to use for these pies. I hope we didn’t waste 80 bucks on something we’re not going to use that often. You, know since fried food is really kind of bad for you. I think you can steam vegetables in it, too. We’ve got to figure it all out. It’s nice though, since I’m used to old Fry Daddy bucket fryers. Those are dangerous. I would be very cautious and somewhat scared I was going to dump the grease all over me. But, this new one is a sturdy box of a fryer with cool-touch handles and a digital thermostat. This was obviously an Alton Brown inspired purchase on Andrew’s part. Oh! And there’s no plastic lid that you can melt. And, yes, I’m speaking from experience. Lol.

At this point, I think I need to start thinking of a catchy ending phrase. You know, like “You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy?” Wow, that was a pretty random thought. lol.

Mmmm....Pies

2009-03-12T09:44:00.003-05:00

I just found out from a favorite blog of mine, Cakespy, that Saturday, March 14, is National Pie Day. Well, it’s actually one of two, but she explains that in her post--Humble Pies. So, I’ve figured out what I’m going to do Saturday besides move.

Oh, yeah. I haven’t mentioned that yet. We’ve bought a house….. YEA!!! We are so excited to be out of our apartment and moving into a house. Here’s our “take a picture in front of the SOLD sign” picture right after signing on the dotted line.

Anyway, back to pie. I was thinking of making one in between moving trips, especially now that I have a bigger kitchen and a pantry and a NICE stove, oven, fridge, dishwasher, etc., etc. I kind of want to go with the traditional apple pie with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Yum! But, I may try something off that list from Cakespy.

We’ll see what happens….

Oh, and be looking for me on Etsy.com in the next few weeks. I’m going to try to start putting up some stuff on there. I have a few ideas right now, but I don’t want to say anything yet. You’ll just have to be surprised.

A wrap up of this year--part 2.

2009-01-25T15:13:00.002-06:00

(Spongebob voice) "Part 2?! Part 2, part 2, part 2.....!!" Yes, I am a Spongebob fan. But, before you start groaning, just remember how old Spongebob really is--10! Yes, Spongebob turns 10 this year! I was barely in high school when it first came out, and now I'm in my mid-twenties. And, yes, again, he has really been around for that long. I can't believe it either. The other day, Andrew and I sat down and turned the TV on to find out Powerpuff Girls was actually on CN. So, we were all like "Yes! Finally, some good, classic stuff." (At least, for us.) Then, CN just had to do it--they announced it was a 10th anniversary of the Powerpuff girls and was having a special "new" episode on next. We looked at each other saying "10 years?!?" No, that can't be. It's true, though. Just look it up on IMDB.com.

Anyway, I digress. On to cakes!

These are some really cute turkey cupcakes for Thanksgiving Day. The idea came from the book Hello Cupcake. It's an adorable book with the cutest cupcakes you have ever seen. So, I decided to make these for my family for Thanksgiving. My mom made some place cards with some Bible verses about thanks and giving thanks for last year and used them again this year. I had a whole lot of help with these cupcakes. Two of my little cousins, an older cousin, and a date of another one of my older cousins helped. Andrew just, well, I don't know where he went. He just kind of disappeared. Haha...

They were cute, but I couldn't find all the stuff to make them. The caramel frosting turned out to be more of a ganash instead of a frosting and the mini cupcake wouldn't stay on top of the big cupcake. So, I had to use a lot of toothpicks to get all the stuff to stay on. It was a little morbid to be poking toothpicks into the turkeys' forheads, but what else could I do. It was either a headless turkey or jab a toothpick into them. They were still delicious though.

This was pretty cool too, and heavy. I am a member of the Madison County Band here in Huntsville. It's a concert band and one of the officers found out I make cakes. Well, I may have helped a little with that. Anyway, Andrew and I were asked to make a cake for our Christmas concert reception. A cake that would feed 120-200 people! The biggest cake yet. So, we decided to make a gingerbread village cake. It turned out to be more of a town square, but it was still cute. Unfortuately, nobody touched the cake! Everyone was all "It's too pretty!" lol. So, I was told several times that I was going to have to cut it myself and eat some because nobody else would. I didn't want to because that cake was 4-11"x15" cakes with tons of plain/vanilla frosting and tons of gingerbread, etc, etc. I was tired of cake. Just thinking back now to that night is making me a little nausous. I ended up doing that anyway, and a few people ate some, but we were left over with a ton of cake. So, it got wrapped up and frozen for the next week for our Christmas party...still only three or four pieces were eaten. Ahh..oh well. It was a nice $200 center piece. lol.

These were delicious cupcakes that I made, also for work. They were my own (sort of) concoction peppermint cupcakes. Regular cake mix with peppermint extract and peppermint flavored frosting with crushed peppermint candies. I ended up, coincidentally, making them and giving them to everybody on National Cupcake Day. After that Monday had past, I found out about National Cupcake Day and was wishing that I had done something. Then, it hit me--I did! Yea! Yes, it's the little things. Especially when I am at work and staring at my computer screen all day. I think these went over better than the halloween cupcakes. My manger/boss guy kept saying all day, "I need another cupcake." It was funny. They were surprisingly refreshing, too. Most all cupcakes I've made and eaten needed a glass of milk or water to rinse it down. Not these, though. The peppermint left your mouth refreshed and actually wanting more...a lot more!

This was a simple little baby shower cake for the youth pastor's wife at my church. The ladies throwing her the party just wanted something simple and traditional. I wanted to put animals on the ark, but I decided to simplify things for myself.

Still more to come later.

A wrap up of this year--part 1.

2009-01-25T14:40:00.002-06:00

Well, I am back. And I'm sorry for not posting for a really long time. Full-time day jobs seem to always get in the way. lol. Anyway, a lot has gone on since October and have a got a ton of pictures for you. I won't put it all in one post to save you some reading time. So, without further ado, here you go.

First off, this one was before my Mom's birthday flower pots. Here's a "chocolate bar" cake. A girl in our youth's Sunday School class that Andrew and I teach was having a birthday and she was talking about just wanting a huge chocolate bar for her birthday. It was actually a huge conversation and "you just had to be there" to get it. The cake is chocolate with chocolate fondant. It was fairly easy to make. There wasn't really any crazy stuff happening with this cake. Thank goodness.

These cupcakes were AWESOME. I loved them, anyway. I had made them mostly for work for some halloween goodies. They were regular white/vanilla cupcakes with a peanut butter frosting, chocolate molds with orange colored chocolate webbing, and a halloween pumpkin and fall leaves sprinkles for decoration. The difficulty with these were the chocolate molds. They just kept breaking and especially during handling and the kitchen was warm--all just not good conditions for setting up chocolate. So, I just ended up putting them all in halloween type cupcake cups and they turned out just fine. Everybody at work loved them, too.

Here's the last cake for this post--my first topsy turvey cake. I'll have to dedicate a whole post just for this cake. This was also for the family that we did the construction cake back in August. The girl liked soccer, music, shopping, and, since she was turning 15, driving. So, we incorporated all those themes into this cake with her favorite colors green, pink, and brown. The brown was the chocolate cake. Then, for the frosting/icing in the middle we used a cookies and creme frosting.

More to come later.

Terra Cotta Pots, Some Crumbly Cake, and Some Fondant

2008-10-24T11:07:00.001-05:00

Well, a couple of weekends ago was my mom's birthday. So, I decided to make her a cake--a flower pot cake. I only told her I was doing her a cake and wanted the design to be a surprise. She was still so excited, though, because in all the years she's done cakes, very rarely has somebody made her a cake.

I've just got one thing to say about what I did. I need to do more work with fondant. Gosh! That stuff was hard to sculpt and mold to the shape of the cake. Oh, and another thing, I need to stop using the box cake mix that is too moist and crumbly. That didn't help out my cause in getting the fondant to stick to the shape of the cake. I will say, however, that I got the color of a terra cotta pot down. That part looked pretty awesome.

Oh, by the way, I did it again by staying up until midnight to finish the cakes. One day, hopefully soon, I'll get to start on the cake sometime in the morning and finish sometime in the afternoon rather than starting late in the afternoon and finishing early in the morning. Yuck.

Update finally (1/25/09)
Pictures! Yea!

An Anniversary Cake_Part 2: The Completion and Delivery

2008-09-13T21:32:00.000-05:00

(Sigh of relief) The cake got there safe and sound, was pleasantly commented on, eaten, and eaten some more. Andrew's mom and aunt invited 50 people to the party, but not very many people showed up--about 25 people. So, needless to say, we left with some cake.

So, the beginning. We waited until the last minute...as usual. Yesterday Andrew baked all the cakes while I was at work. Unfortunately, one of the cakes did not come out so well and he had to go get more cake mix, eggs, butter, and then gas. And as we all know, getting gas yesterday (and today) was no easy feat. He was going to get it from Sam's, but there was a line out into the streets. I'm sure it was the same wherever you're reading. However, I digress. It was very yummy to come home to an apartment that smelled of cake. (Hmm......)

When I got home from work, I piddled around a little before my clarinet lesson student came over at 6. After the lesson, around 7:15, we decided we were hungry. Again with the food...can't do anything without it. We ended up going to Sam's (the back way because there still was some gas traffic) to get a hotdog and pizza. Did you know Sam's has a fantastic deal on powdered sugar?!? It's a little over $4 for 7 lbs of sugar! I love Sam's.

Anyway, we got back and started on icing. Those cakes ended up being more trouble than we expected. The butter cake Andrew made was so crumbly, but it was SOOO good! The buttercream icing was lighter than the edge of the cake so it was a little difficult getting the cake itself hidden.

Not only was the cake crumbly, but trying to use icing techniques was difficult, too. Since we are in an apartment, we don't have any raised countertops or high bars to use for eye-level decorating. Then, I remembered what my mom suggested a while back--using bed risers for the table. It is the best idea I was ever told and ever decided to try. The bed raisers worked perfectly to raise the table up so the cake would be closer to eye-level for me. Being 5'9-1/2" it's really hard to bend over a table or short counter to decorate, and sometimes even getting down and standing on my knees makes me a little too tall or maybe we just have small stuff. I really like the table up like that. It makes me want to get some bar stools and leave it like that.

Anyway, nothing else really eventful happened last night other than we stayed up until 1:00, again, trying to finish this cake. (Ugh!) Why do I do that? Why do I wait until the last minute to finish things? Well, it's a time honored tradition of mine to ALWAYS wait until the last minute to finish any project.

This is the awesome rig that Andrew came up with to transport our cakes safely and coolly. (Is that a word?) He went into our spare room to find some cardboard and came up with this. We put an open cooler full of ice under it so the cardboard acted kind of like a refridgerator. To my surprise, the cakes did not move under that cardboard. Usually my truck doesn't have much of a center, a place that doesn't move as much as the rest of the vehicle (just in case you didn't know). I know that one center point is under the cup holders on the dashboard, but that doesn't help out much for anything. But, after all the turns and bumbs in the road and 2-1/2 hours, the cakes arrived in perfect condition.

We used about an hour before the party assembling the cake. Back on the whole eye-level thing, there was nothing there to really help me in that situation. But, I have the best in-laws ever. Andrew's mom saw me kneeling on the floor trying to decorate, and she went to get me a huge stock pot so my lazy suzan could sit on top of it, and it on the table. So, thanks to her, I was able to comfortably sit at the table and decorate.

Everybody loved the way the cake looked and loved the way it tasted. Come on, butter cake with buttercream icing...butter, butter, and more butter.......how can you go wrong?? It just makes me think of Paula Dean--butter, ya'll! (Not making fun of Paula Dean, all you Paula fans, just joking around. )

I'm just glad that's over, the cake that is. The party was amazing and fun. I love being with family, and since they are my family now, it makes it even more special to be apart of their celebrations. I just hope more people get along so well with their in-laws like I do. I love them so much!

Here's some pictures from the road trip through Scottsboro and Fort Payne, AL and pictures from the party.

This is from the bridge going over the Tennessee River in Scottsboro.

The view from going up the mountain in Scottsboro.

This hand is kind of scary for a nail salon. Looks like a cartoon witch's hand.

"And my home's in Alabama!" Yeah, the group Alabama is from Fort Payne, AL. And they love it. There's even life-sized bronze statues of them in the downtown area. I didn't get my camera out fast enough to take a picture of it.

The finished cake at the party.

I think I did pretty good with this picture.

My new family, well, only part of them.

An Anniversary Cake_Part 1: The pre-decorating

2008-09-12T09:14:00.000-05:00

For this weekend, Andrew and I volunteered to make his grandparents a 50th wedding anniversary cake. So, I am attempting roses...on the cake...for the first time. (Just picture a scared look on my face, right about now.) I've done roses before, but in the decorating icing (regular "buttercream," without the butter), and not on a cake. They were pretty good and stayed firm for several days. But sometimes I'm not too clever on some things and I think this was one of them.... I'm trying them with very, very, greasy, buttery, buttercream icing. This is not your ordinary buttercream icing that you get on a cake from a grocery bakery, this is melt in your mouth and your hand, buttery, sweet, creamy (and cream colored) icing--which tastes best on a red-velvet cake....hmmm, yummy.

I've already started on the roses, actually started on Wednesday, and I'm keeping them in the freezer. This is partly because it's so humid down here in Alabama this week that the icing thaws out in just a few minutes....or is that because we have a crappy freezer? It could be both. Either way, I hope we can make it to Rome, GA from Huntsville, AL without any disasters. Oh, by the way, we're taking the air conditioned vehicle.

A Busy Weekend

2008-09-08T08:38:00.001-05:00

I hope for other posts, I can come up with better names than that. But, seriously, this weekend was busy. We did three separate gigs--cupcakes for a co-worker's birthday at my job, birthday cake for my nephew's 16th birthday, and a birthday cake for a girl in my husband's and my Sunday School class. Wow, pretty much a Friday, Saturday, Sunday kind of delivery schedule.

For people's birthdays at my day job, the secretary girl gets some form of cupcake/pastry for that person's birthday. So, this time it was her birthday and I volunteered to make the cupcakes. Well, I told her after a previous birthday, that I would do it because she got some Wal-Mart cupcakes. Now, don't get me wrong, if you like Wal-Mart cupcakes, then I'm all for it. However, I am spoiled and think Wal-Mart cakes taste like they were made by a press on a conveyor belt. When I eat one all I can think about is somebody pulling a lever down, a big metal press coming down onto the conveyor belt, then lifting up to reveal a "cake." I'm sorry if I'm offending anybody who works for a department/grocery store bakery. I'm not meaning to, it's just my opinion. Anyway, back to my cupcakes. I had no idea what to do for this girl's birthday cupcakes and I was suppose to deliver the next day. Yeah...nothing like waiting until the last minute to finish a project. I started out making a swirly flower design with a couple of leaves around it on pastel pink, white, pastel'ish yellow-iced cupcakes. This looked horrible and very messy to me. Then, I tried a generic flower design (on a plate) and didn't like it either. So, I scraped off the icing from the cupcakes I did the swirly flowers on. Then, re-iced them in the pink I had left over. At this point, I was back at yellow, white, and pink. I arranged them in a circle and asked my hubby to come and tell me what he thought I should do. He said that they looked kind of like a sunflower. I went with that to sprinkle some left over crushed oreos from the construction cake on a yellow one, arrange the white ones as a stem with a few leaves, and the pink ones as random flowers with a few leaves. This did not work out either and I was getting more and more frustrated by the minute. I left it alone for a while and decided to take the "leaves" off and eat the one with the oreos on it. Eating seems to always help me calm down, and a hot shower helped, too. Andrew and I started taking the leaves off and realized that they were too soft and green spots were left on the background color. So, being the wonderful husband as he is, Andrew said he would go get some chocolate to make green happy birthday letters from so we could try to hide the green spots. The letters ended up being a lot smaller and a lot darker than was planned. But, thankfully, when I came home for lunch the day, and minutes before, I was to bring the cupcakes to work, it dawned on me to mix up some colored sugar to match the green spots. It worked perfectly, the green sugar blended nicely with the random spots and made them disappear. The letters were still a little dark, so I sprinkled some of the sugar on them. The pink ones with the green sugar didn't look all that great to me, so I set them aside as the "ugly extra ones." Turned out that everybody loved the cupcakes and the "ugly extra ones" were the first to go. Go figure... Out of 18 cupcakes and 9 co-workers (including the birthday girl) I took home 3 cupcakes. Needless to say they're gone, too.

On to Saturday, it was my nephew's 16th birthday. He hasn't gotten his license, yet. But, I think he'd be a good driver. Well....hopefully. Anyway, I asked him if he wanted me to do a cake for him, and of course he said yes. But, to my surprise, he just asked for, as he put it, "one of your famous butterfinger cakes." I thought he'd want like a decorated cake or a car cake or something like that, but he wanted a butterfinger cake. If you don't know what a butterfinger cake is, it's just a german chocolate cake with sweetened condense milk poured over it (while it's still hot) and a cool-whip and crushed butterfinger candy bar topping. It's more of a leave-in-the-pan cake. So, that was easy, especially compared to the cupcakes I did the day before. I did just that and wrote "Happy 16th Kyle" in cool-whip and melted chocolate. Oh my goodness, there were 13 people there and I made an 11x15 cake. It was huge. By the time I got the cool-whip and butterfingers on there the cake was about 3" maybe 3.5" tall. When the party was over, 3/4ths of the cake was gone! Andrew had a sugar rush and tummy ache on the way home, but my nephew ate more than anybody...I can only imagine his pains. He said while he was eating it, it would be worth it. I was glad he liked it, he had been craving one for a while and was very satisfied.

The last cake we did was for a girl in our Sunday School class. She wanted a huge chocolate bar from somebody else in the class, so I decided to make a chocolate bar cake. I tried a chocolate cake recipe for the first time, which turned out pretty good. Then, Andrew made some of his marshmellow fondant and I made some molding chocolate to make the fondant a chocolate flavor. I also used some of the molding chocolate under the fondant layer on the cake to make the indentions like a candy bar. The cake turned out pretty good. I probably could have used more indentions than I did, but again, I was finishing this cake at the last minute. Literally, I skipped first service to finish the cake in time for the Sunday School during the second service. Oh, by the way, she didn't come to Sunday School. lol. I think she was major tired from her soccer game the day before. It's ok. I gave her what was left that night. She is so sweet though. I didn't want her to feel bad about that. I just wanted her to enjoy her birthday cake.

First Paid Cake

2008-08-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

First off, I guess I should describe who we are. My husband, Andrew, and I, Lee, are recent college graduates and are still newly weds. I graduated from UAH in May of 2007 with a degree in Communications (the technical track) and minored in music. We got married May 3, 2008, then the next weekend Andrew graduated with a degree in Communications (rhetorical track) and Philosophy and *sort of* minored in Theatre. I've been making cakes for several years now, but just for roommates, family, and Andrew. Andrew is just starting out, but he is very talented for a beginner. Still, we are both pretty green and have a lot to learn. I wanted to do cakes for most of my life because I grew up watching my mom bake and decorate cakes for years. She would make cakes all the time while word of mouth spread like wild fire about her talent. Then, she got a full time job and had to slow down, and eventually the calls dwindled and quit. Sadly, not too much longer after that her hands developed arthritis and she was no longer able to hold and squeeze an icing bag as well as she used to. She still made some cakes with as soft of icing that would hold up on a cake, but it still wasn't the same before the arthritis settled in. That's where I come in. Granted, at this time I was living two hours away in Huntsville going to UAH. So, I didn't quite take her place at home, but I've been making a name for myself up here.

Fast forwarding to today:
Today was the day that Andrew and I delivered our first paid cake. It sure was exciting. The cake was pretty awesome if I can say so myself. This is what it looked like with all the parts. (Yes, I said parts.)

We were commissioned to make a construction cake for little boy's 4th birthday party tonight. The boy's parents asked us to make a sheet cake and possibly put some small construction toys on there. But, they wanted us to go with any other ideas we had. The only specification they wanted was to put "Happy 4th Birthday Brandon" somewhere on there. And, since I am a fan of the "Cake Wrecks" blog, I made absolutely sure that I had everything spelled and worded right. ("Cake Wrecks" is an awesome blog!) The parents were so gracious as to give us about a 3 week heads up on this event. I hope that we have a lot of customers to do that. So, when we left our meeting with the parents, Andrew and I started brain storming immediately. He had the idea to use the crane to hoist "the last piece of the cake." We got the construction set from Toys R' Us about a week ago. Let me say, that was a steal. It was on sale for $19.99 and was the last one in the store. We got it home and played with it like we were little kids. The crane has an infrared remote control, the boom moves 360 degrees, and the hook lowers and raises. Oh, and it makes noise. Isn't that so nice of us to give a 4-year-old a toy that moves, makes engine noises, horn noises, and lights up?? Here's a video of it.

However, getting to the cool and exciting part of delivering the finished cake takes a lot of planning, thinking, sculpting, arguing, etc. Working with my husband is fun. It's one of the ultimate experiences of working as a team. You know, besides having kids. Oh, did I mention we're newly weds? That is making a big difference in our team work. We're still trying to figure each other out and how to work with each other. We argued a little yesterday trying to figure out how the cake was going to look. I then made the executive decision that I needed food before I could make any decisions. (It was around 7, I got off of work at 5, and had not eaten since 12'ish.) So, we went to Arby's. Food is such a wonderful thing. After we were nourished, we were laughing and cutting up as we normally do. We went to Lowe's to get a piece of ply wood for the cake and some other stuff. We then, came across some construction tape. Anyway, that's all the stuff we needed. As soon as we got home, we started on the cake and didn't go to bed until after 1:00 A.M. I was made to go to bed because my writing was looking kind of wobbly, but we got it finished the next morning.

The real feat was to deliver the cake. Andrew has an Isuzu Rodeo, but no air conditioning and I have a small Toyota Tacoma with air conditioning. Obviously we had to take the Rodeo because there was enough room with the seats folded up and everything. So, guess who had to look after the cake? Yep, me. I rode in the back, held all the trucks, and made sure nothing catastrophic happened to the cake. With all the arguing and decorating stress, the delivery was worse. I found out that is the most nerve wracking out of everything else. You've got a wonderful masterpiece that is completely in the will of the temperature of the car, the mercy of the driver and other drivers on the road, and not to mention the mercy of the road with all the bumps and turns.

We got to their house safe and sound. The mother of the boy loved the cake. I can't wait to hear about the boy's reaction. She told us that if she had gone to Wal-mart or anywhere else to get a cake, she would just get a "cake." But, we gave her an "interactive cake." So, there begins our business.
"Rocket City Cakes. We don't just make cakes, we make interactive cakes."

Ok, it's cheesy and not very cleaver in the word department. But we're going to keep the "interactive cakes" part. Wow, that's pretty bad for a communications major to say.

I hope you've enjoyed my first entry and first blog, ever. I promise my other blogs won't be as long.

Here's some more pictures of the cake.

**Update: Tuesday, Sept. 2

The little boy loved the cake, and so did the rest of the family. The mother was going to bring the rest of it to a bon fire she and her husband were hosting for the youth at our church the next night, but her kids wouldn't let her. They said it was too good and had half of it eaten already! I'm glad they liked it.