Who knew teaching could be this much fun?

I think I have always had a passion for teaching... now combine that with baking, and well, I'm in my zone. Tonight I had several ladies from our church over for a dinner roll and cinnamon roll making class. I set up a table in the living room (which is right next to the kitchen, but where there was more room to set up chairs) and plugged in my KitchenAid mixer and we were good to go. 12 ladies and a couple of kids later and the rolls and cinnamon rolls were about devoured. Thanks ladies for a fun evening, and for letting me share my passion and a few of my skills. I enjoyed it! Click here for dinner roll and cinnamon roll recipes.

Busy mixing the bread dough.

 Ladies intent on learning...

Lauren enjoying her roll. (I wish I had looked this cute pregnant.)

  All that was left from the 2 dozen rolls.

Cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven.

Lots and lots of cookies!

This was one of those weekends that really made me appreciate the new double oven. I had a catering order for a cookie and punch reception for 100 people on Saturday night. That meant baking 17 dozen cookies on Saturday, after decorating a cake that morning. So I baked a variety of the large bakery style cookies... all my faves... marbles, snickerdoodles, peanut butter chocolate chip, and oatmeal coconut with cranberries, pecans, and dark chocolate chips (these went fast!). Anyway, however you look at it, that's alot of cookies! My kitchen looked like a little cookie factory for sure, and the house smelled heavenly for about 2 days afterwards. A side note... I was very proud of myself for staying on track with my Weight Watchers program... all those cookies and I didn't get into any. That's a first I think. Miracles do happen!

First of the cookies ready for the serving table

Wedding cake or party cake?

So, if you are a big superhero fan, why not have a superhero party for your wedding reception? That's exactly what this bride and groom did, and the wedding cake reflected the rest of the decorations. Here is the cake with logos from their 4 favorite superheros... Deadpool, Green Lantern, Captain America, and Batman. The logos and side decorations were all cut out with my Cricut Cake. The most time consuming part, other than coloring and assembling the pieces, was putting all of the little windows around the four sides of the 14 inch square Batman tier. The top and bottom tiers were covered with dark chocolate fondant. I must say that this was the most unique wedding cake I have ever designed. 

Newest Additions to Kitchen

So when I replaced my old oven with the new double oven, I lost the storage space I had in the bottom drawer. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to exchange storage space for a second oven. It's just that now I needed somewhere to put all that stuff that I had stored there. Hubby to the resue, after daughter having a brilliant idea. I had two fake drawer fronts under my counter that we decided to turn into "real" usable drawers... perfect size for the items I needed to store plus extra space. Then we also put flip out drawers for my kitchen sink goodies under the sink. I love being organized and the extra bit of space I acquired. Thanks to my hubby for sacrificing some of his extra time to help me out. A side note... I found a new home for my "old faithful" oven. My old oven still worked well, it was just old, and I needed the room in a double oven. I was hoping to find a good home for it, and yesterday I was able to give it to a sweet young mother from our church. So glad someone will be able to use it. 

 

Autumn and Fall Leaves

Oh, how I love the fall... the crispness in the air, the fall colors, and the leaves changing! One thing I always missed about living in Arizona was all the beautiful fall leaves... it just didn't happen. Being in Colorado, I look forward to this season every year. I designed a couple of pretty little cakes with fall leaves this year. I had lots of fun shading the leaves to look like something Mother Nature would do. Some of the leaves were modeled from modeling chocolate, others were part modeling chocolate and part gumpaste. I started with ivory color for some, and yellow for others. I think I liked the yellow ones the best. There are all shades of petal dusts and luster dusts to shade with. Just pick out ones that you think would best reflect what you see in nature. Some of my favorite are spiced pumpkin, mahogany, old gold, forest green, red velvet, and brown. One hint-make sure you get the kind that are "non-toxic" if you plan on eating the leaves. :) Roll your gumpaste/modeling chocolate out thin, but still thick enough to show the veins after using the veining tool. You can also use the back side of a real leaf as a veining tool. I found this out after I had made mine and I wish I would have used  this method instead, as some of my veins disappeared when I thinned out the edges. Let your leaves dry on pieces of crumpled up foil, so they have more of a realistic look and movement. You need to let them dry at least overnight, so that when you shade them, they won't fall apart. Then just be creative! This is the fun part... just use straight colors or blend them. I just use the same soft brush for all the colors. So much fun to be creative with your decorating! That's one reason I love cake decorating.

 Use crumpled foil to dry on

Be creative with your colors

 Simple little 6 inch anniversary cake

 8 inch birthday cake...I added some pine cones to this one

Here is a great little tutorial on making gumpaste leaves. Thanks to Alice Currah for sharing it.  Fall leaf tutorial

Experimenting with modeling chocolate...

You can make some really cool stuff with gumpaste, but when you try eating it, it's not so great. So, I have been playing around with modeling chocolate lately, so you can eat the decorations without them tasting "nasty." The latest cake I experiemented with was a flower basket for a little girl's birthday. Of course they would want to eat the flowers, so instead of making them out of gumpaste, I used modeling chocolate. It is a little tricky to work with, but of course, they will taste yummy. The things that I don't like about making flowers from modeling chocolate is that you can't thin out the petals like you can with gumpaste, so they don't look as realistic as they normally would. Also, I noticed that the airbrush color does not go on as well. I had a problem with it beading up and taking forever to dry, so I guess I will have to stick with other coloring methods. Also, the modeling chocolate has a yellow tint, so the color is not as true as it is with gumpaste. I really like the way the basket turned out. It was made with 1/2 modeling chocolate and 1/2 fondant...still tastes good. I like the way it resembled a real basket. For the handle, I wound the 1/2 and 1/2 combination around a 1/2 inch clear vinyl tubing piece, and then let it dry for a couple of days. To insert it into the cake, I put 2 hollow plastic dowels in the cake and then inserted the ends of the handle into those, which gave it more stability. The vinyl tubing kept the handle from cracking. 

See how the basket looks real

Modeling chocolate roses

Mums from modeling chocolate

Leaves and daisy from modeling chocolate - not bad, but thicker than I like

1/2 chocolate, 1/2 fondant around vinyl tubing-I ended up cutting some off of each end

Allow to dry a few days

Harvest Time!!

For those of you with a sweet tooth, this kind of gardening may be right up your alley. First you have to start with that rich dark soil... crushed Oreos make the perfect "soil." Just put the cookies whole into the food processor and whirl away until you have Oreo dirt. Then model veggies and fruits from 1/2 modeling chocolate/ 1/2 fondant. Use your fondant tool to add details, but mainly just use your imagination and hands to make them into fun veggie and fruit shapes, and then cut out leaves to match each kind, then shade both the veggies and leaves with a little petal dust. Push aside a little of the "soil" on top of each cupcake, so the veggies and fruits will stick to the chocolate buttercream underneath. No need to water or weed this garden. The produce will be gone soon enough.