Friday, March 7, 2008

Sweet Hobby

Recently (since my children were born) I've taken up a new hobby. Cake decorating. It started with wanting to have special cakes for my children's birthdays, and then I realized that I enjoyed doing it and getting the positive feedback. I've taken one cake decorating class which has given me enough skills to go forth and wing-it with whatever I want to do. The first problem with this hobby is that, when I have a cake to do for someone, it turns in to an all-consuming project until it's done. I usually stay up way too late finishing them up. But I still love to do it! The second problem is, well, the obvious. A lot of sugar. Frosting for the licking. Trimmed off cake pieces. You get the idea... yum!
This week, I took on two projects. First, my son's school is having a fundraising auction tomorrow. Everyone's supposed to bring food. Plus my auction donation is to make a custom cake for each of two winners. So, I'm bringing mini cupcakes to eat and a giant cupcake for each of the two winners to take home. The theme of the party is "Under the Sea." They came out at least as good as I hoped they would!

I spent two whole evenings just making the sea creatures from royal icing. (Royal icing hardens to basically a sugar candy.)

The second project is a cake for my nephew's 11th birthday. I was reminded of his birthday on Monday and decided to go ahead and offer to make the cake. He's having a slumber party with five of his buddies. Lately he's into being cool. Or, should I say, avoiding anything that might not be cool. He's getting a skateboard for his birthday so I decided to make a skateboard cake:



Now I need some sleep!

5 comments:

Susan Z said...

Those are really cool looking cakes. My kids and I watch Ace Cakes on Food Network...those cakes could be on that show!

Jill in MA said...

I'll have to look for that show. I never think to watch the food network -- I need to figure out what channel it is!

Ann in NJ said...

Wow! Those are cool - love the purple octopi.

I always find that by the time I'm done decorating, I'm sick of the sweetness and not hungry for the finished product. Until the next day. :)

ooolia said...

wow! those are awesom.

I'm lucky if the cake doesn't look like it's about tip over when I'm done icing it.

You should definitely check out Ace of Cakes on Food Network. It's one of Timothy's favorite shows. (ugh. should I admit that?)

Jill in MA said...

My cakes brought in $125 and $100 for the school. Not bad! Now I need to live up to that! (Of course, one of those beautiful sea cupcakes was included in that....)