And you thought I was on vacation...

In November I was in Hawaii, visiting my daughter after the birth of third baby...little Hunter Owen. While there I played maid, nanny, grandma, mom, and of course, cake decorator. I was able to attend Hunter's baby shower while there and this is the cake that we came up with...

Dad is in the Air Force, hence the little camo outfit and dog tag. We had extra cake, so we made a few cake pops for the kids also. I used the buttercream flow-in method for the design, and chocolate buttercream for outlining and trim. I grabbed one of dad's hats to use as a sample for the camouflage pattern.

Here is a picture of little Hunter in his Hawaiian outfit that mom made for him...

I love my new KitchenAid!!

I know, you're probably saying "she bought another KitchenAid?" Well, I have had my other ones for an eternity and yes, they still work, but...this one was on sale at Costco for $50 off...and it's a professional model, so it's more heavy duty...and it has a larger, wider bowl...and it matches my KitchenAid food processor and my KitchenAid blender...and I used my cake money...and I think I deserved it...and, and, and... Anyway, I absolutely love it! It's very easy to work with, and the speeds start out very slow, especially compared to my old ones, which really means less mess. 

So I needed to make a batch of fondant last night for a cake I was doing today, so I thought I would check out how the new mixer would handle the job...oh wow! It was perfect! I first slightly greased the bowl, then put in 5 cups of sifted powdered sugar. I poured in the melted marshmallow mixture after putting on the heavy duty spiral dough hook, and on a low speed, let the mixer do it's thing. You will notice that part of the sugar looks like it will be stuck to the bottom of the bowl, but a little at a time the dough hook will pick up the sugar, and eventually incorporate all of the sugar into the dough. At that point, is when I transferred the dough onto my silicone mat and kneaded the last 1 cup of sugar into the dough by hand. It turned out so smooth and perfect after letting it set overnight, and no air bubbles whatsoever. I'm wondering now what would happen if I kneaded the final cup of sugar with the dough hook instead of by hand... I was always afraid to do that before because the dough gets so stiff, but with this pro model, I may be able to do the entire kneading with the mixer. It would sure save time. I will try next week with my next wedding cake. 

Just for the record, I now have 4 KitchenAid mixers plus my other KitchenAid appliances, and we just bought a classic KA mixer for my oldest son's family for Christmas. Both of my other children have KA mixers. I should have a share in the company.

Here is a picture of the cute shower cake I did today...just so happened that the shower was postponed until next weekend because of inclement weather, so we packaged it up for the customer to put in the freezer until then.