Christmas Time!!

     "Oh it's the most wonderful time of the year..."  What a beautiful holiday season to be baking, spending money on Christmas presents for others, decorating a lovely tree with every sort of sparkle and shine!  My kids and I have had an incredibly wonderful December already and still two weeks to Christmas!  I love watching the kids dance to Holiday music while I bake and clean, and to join in and feel like a kid again myself!  I am in the process of making delicious pumpkin fudge and peppermint fudge!  YUM!!  My eldest, Malachi, tried fudge for the first time at the store, "taste testers", and immediately said, "More budge please mom!"  So cute!  The four of us had a photo with Santa and my two boys wrote letters to Santa as well.  Malachi rehearsed all morning what he wanted to ask Santa for and tried to figure out how we could cut a hole in the ceiling so that Santa could come in since we don't have a chimney!  Love it!

Thanksgiving

There is so incredibly much to be thankful for! We celebrate with a heart of Thanksgiving every day at my house!!!

I created an entire choir of Thanksgiving Turkeys  out of Oreo cookies, chocolate covered Carmel balls, Reeces Peanut butter Cups, black icing, candy corn, yellow icing, black and red licorice.  They turned out incredibly cute and were easy to make even for the kids. Photos soon...

Fondant and Chocolate!

     I did manage to roll out my fondant a few too many times with too many interruptions and too much Crisco!  So, it worked the first roll out and was not so happy with me after I worked it too much.  But, all about experimenting with new flavours, ideas, and the three kids to tend!!  I opted for something even tastier and much more relaxing and lovely to work with..........yes, CHOCOLATE, white and dark. 

     I made molding chocolate, white chocolate roses, white and dark chocolate leaves, and dark chocolate baskets!   The dark chocolate cake I baked to apply my fondant to ended up covered in mocha butter cream icing and my white chocolate garnishes!  I will have to work more with fondant to find out its' secrets!  I have already learned so much about fondant from numerous internet videos that I found very helpful. 

Fondant

     I made butter cream flavored fondant from scratch today!  It was hard work kneading out the icing to form a perfect consistency.  It has a great flavor, which was my main goal.  Fondant can look so amazing on cakes, and then I find the flavor to be disappointing.  So, my aim to create a great flavored fondant worked. 
     I have yet to roll out the icing and decorate a cake with it.  I am looking forward to seeing what happens and if I can get just the look for a cake I hope to create with the fondant icing.  My 1.5 year old son decided he would help me and poured out the expensive bottle of butter flavoring all over the kitchen table.  I just kept a smile on my face and gave him a different project.  Glad I had already used the 2.5 tsp. needed for the recipe so I did not have to head to the store at the last minute.

Marshmallow Animal Harvest Farm

     What a fun filled, busy few days as I stayed up til 1:30 am a couple of nights decorating cakes.  It is the best time to do it with no interruptions from my three little kids!  I enjoy the art of detail and realism, so combine that with baking and lots of icing, wow!  Terrific!  I love to experiment and found some new creations to do for Thanksgiving, so keep your eyes out for new photos on my blog.  I am also excited to try my hand at making my own fondant as well.  I will let you know how it turns out, as I try to come up with an incredible flavour of fondant, not just a great look.

Autumn

Pumpkin Fruit Cake!

     What a beautiful time of year, Autumn!  I love the crisp air, the colorful array of leaves, the smell of wood smoke, and a house full of the smell of baking!  I just completed a Pumpkin Fruitcake and decorated it to look like a pumpkin with chocolate leaves!  It tasted delicious!  My older son helped me decorate and taste test and even made two chocolate covered leaves on his own. 

Happy Birthday Bear!

 This was the Teddy Bear cake I made for my son's 1st Birthday!  I used colored M&M's, rolled out gumdrops, and jelly beans for decorations!  And lots of chocolate icing!

For a Love of Cake!

After watching and helping my mom bake cakes and being absolutely amazed at her incredible talent of cake decorating, I decided it was time to get more serious and dedicated to the art of cake decorating myself.  I have since spent numerous years experimenting with cakes for many occasions and taking photos to create quite a collection!  My craziest moments in time were the heat and humidity in Australia, and trying to get the icing just right so it would not melt off as I was putting it on!