Fondant

I have wanted to get into cake decorating for some time now, esp. after witnessing (and helping with the first cake ever) my dear friend start up a successful cake business. I really enjoy decorating cakes for my kids' birthdays and thought Christian's Buzz Birthday would be as good a time as any to try my hand at fondant.

I made Marshmallow Fondant- And coated the cake with it in plain white. It looked practically perfect. Yay!
But...then I remembered I was going to color the fondant (since buzz is white...)
Boo.

So- I took it all off, worked in food coloring and put it back on. Eh. Not so good. There were cracks and bumps that I could not get rid of. blah.
Oh well.

For the flesh of Buzz's face, I used a mixture of green-tinted molasses (the molasses jar leaked all over the bin that had the food coloring..), yellow, and red food coloring. I was pretty dang happy with how perfectly fleshy it turned out.

Christian was very excited about his buzz cake. And with all that boy has been through- and how highly anticipated this birthday was- the 3 decorating attempts and staying up till 2am were totally worth it. :)

1 down, 9 to go. :)

Goal #

I'm super excited about all my goals (obviously), but one that I'm really having fun with and am reeeally excited about is cooking my way through Emeril's 20-40-60 and Food Network Favorites cookbooks. Patrick is pretty excited as well. :)


I believe there are 253 total recipes. Yes, I plan to cook every. last. one. And yes. There are some weird/exotic things in there. :)

I'm going to try to take a picture of every recipe and review each one for personal future reference.

Before I thought of actually taking pictures....
E: Gaaahlicky Sizzling Shrimp.
Rating: 8/9
Notes: I served it over spaghetti- would like to try it over white rice. Also, definitely needed some good hard-crusted bread to 'sop' up the juices. P's only complaint was that he couldn't really get to the juices.

E: Broiled Zucchini
Rating: 4/5
Notes: Too oily. I didn't use the fresh thyme, and I'll try it again with it. Also, I served with the Sizzling Shrimp. Not a good combo.




E: Kicked Up Tuna Melts
Rating: 9
Notes: Deeeelicious. Christian Loved it! Patrick thought the tuna mixture was too 'wet' for his tastes, but still said they were awesome. Personally, I'd say it wasn't 'wet' at all. :P


FN: Butternut Squash, Apple & Onion Galette with Stilton
Rating: 5
Notes: Needed more of the mustard (my fault on misreading the recipe). Interesting flavor combo. Good crust. Not bad at all, kinda good really, but P & I agreed this one isn't likely to get a repeat performance any time soon.

annnd, yes- the blue cheese melted looked repulsive. :)