Practice arrangement

I have needed to get flowers for my urn i got from my personal trainer for one of my wedding presents. Well, i finally went to my local Hobby Lobby (only because i had a coupon for 40% off all Wilton products). While walking in, i saw the HUGE selection of flowers they had. I chose dark red and ivory. The colors go well in our bedroom. I'm proud of how it came out! Now i can't stop looking for things to spruce up and decorate.

Sprinkles!

I have started a small sprinkle collection recently too. It started with wanting the giant confetti sprinkles, then Crate and Barrel had a sale on bake stuff, then i had a coupon to Party Time, then it all went downhill from there. I bought these cute little glass containers too. The better to see them with my dear. So cute! I will be using the red, white, and blue non-pareils for the 4th of July baked goods.

Fabrics and Canvas Love

My favorite type of art is stretched canvas so, I decided to cover some stretched canvas with fabric for art in two of my rooms in my house. The black, white, and pink fabric i will use in my workout room and the blue, green, and brown fabrics will go in my guest bedroom. I love colorful patterns. They came out much better than i thought they would. Now if i can hang them on the wall!

My new obsession...

I have been looking online at all the cool baking accessories and have come across and purchased a lovely selection of baking cups. I love baking cups! Look how cute some of these are especially the pink and black zebra ones and of course the polka dot ones. I am sure i will find a use for all of these some time in the future right? If only i could find a baking cup holder of sorts. They are just in a box right now in my house and i want them to be more organized than that. They are also made out of greaseproof paper so the color won't change while baking due to the grease in the batter. How awesome is that? I'm in love...

Flowers, shells and figure piping oh my!

Today was the third class of the Wilton beginners basic course. We had to bring 8 iced cupcakes to class to practice decorating on. Hope and I made the cupcakes last night and couldn't stop talking about how good they were. Seriously, these were the best cupcakes i have ever tasted in my life. They are white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream icing and Bavarian cream filling. Yum! The icing was a little different from the classic icing we have been making but much better tasting. Not good to decorate with, but great to just ice and eat!

I have bought a ton of books with various cake recipes so i want to experiment on the flavors of each one to add to our offering. This is where i got the white chocolate cupcake and icing recipe. One book i bought has a ton of cupcake recipes and another section with a ton of icing recipes and even a chart for which icing tastes good with what flavor cupcakes. The options are endless!

Well, i got my wedding dress cleaned and had to go pick it up so i put the cupcakes in my trunk for just about 15 minutes. That was too long and the icing started to melt, not to mention to carrier I used didn't exactly hold onto them tight so the cupcakes toppled over and smudged on the side of the carrier. Oh well, i know now to use my other carrier with deep cups so they can't move next time.

In class we learned the beginnings of the rose, some drop flowers, shells, and the startings of figure piping. I am not good at shells or figure piping but will practice because the results are so cute. I have included pictures below but only if you promise not to laugh. They are horrible! The icing was way too runny and was not cooperating. The classroom is so hot that the icing starts to melt. I included a separate of my favorite: the caterpillar. I was using the grass tip and figured a caterpillar would be so easy! You can't go wrong with the dot tips.

Decorators-in-training and our polka dot aprons


Hope's Cupcakes - look at the baby carriage!

My group - the flowers kept sticking the people look spooky! (we had limited colors to use)

The cutest one i had - the caterpillar

Ok, now you can stop laughing!

Father's Day Sweets

Today we had a family get together for father's day and i was designated the dessert lady. Because not everyone loves chocolate, i decided to make a berry trifle (strawberry, blueberry, and blackberry) with cream cheese whip cream filling and a chocolate truffle cake. The chocolate truffle cake was my first ever made from scratch cake and it wasn't hard to do at all. I thought both desserts came out gorgeous! It took forever but i loved the end result. I was going to make cheesecake balls too but i figured that was overkill for only 14 people. The chocolate truffle alone serves 16.

The desserts were a hit. The truffle cake was so rich so we could only eat a small piece but the trifle was so delicious. I can't wait for the next event so i can experiment more!

And so it begins...

I have decided that i want to learn how to decorate cakes. I am taking every class that Wilton offers at my local party store. My first class, the cupcake class, was last Tuesday. The class opened my eyes to so much! Really, i didn't even know that confectioner's sugar was powdered sugar. Yes, dumb i know! Anyway, the class was awesome. We learned how to fill and decorate cupcakes. My next class, the beginner's course started that Thursday and my friend Hope took it with me. It's a four day class that is every Thursday for a month. We had so much fun. We learned about each of the tools in our kits we bought that were so expensive. We had to bring a baked and iced cake to class the following Thursday. I also took a cookie bouquet class that next Tuesday.

Well, Hope and i got together at my house because i bought a new Kitchenaid artisan mixer so we mixed and baked and iced at my house. Our cakes came out okay but nothing like the book looked! I couldn't get the icing to spread right because it was too stiff but i wasn't sure what to do. Well, now i know that i should have added a little more milk so it would thin up and be easier to spread. Practice makes perfect so i will do that next time. We transferred a pattern onto our cake so that we could practice decorating the cake with different tips. Well, of course we ran out of time and had to finish at home where i ran out of my colors and really did not feel like making more so i just used what i had made.

Without further ado, here is my very first baked, torted, filled, iced, and now decorated cake! The beginning of my new path into baked yummy goodness.






Ta-da! Not too bad for a first cake i guess. I brought it to work and everyone acted like they liked it. The filling was way to gel-ly for my taste so i will try something different next time. Well, just from this cake and everyone knowing that this was my first time, i had three events booked for parties. CRAZY! It will be fun though because i will get to practice. I am so excited to see what my next creations will be. Hmm, HodgePodge Creations... What a great name that just popped into my head!

Well, off to celebrate my Mom's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Background

I have so many things going on that i cannot help but to share them with you! So, here goes a quick background to get you on track.

I just got married three weeks ago tomorrow and I already have a busier schedule than i had prior. I work out two days a week and now have started going to cake decorating classes two days a week as well. I am and have always been on the go and have always wanted to do just about everything. I have always been very driven but not necessarily hobby oriented but when i got engaged, i acquired a creative side to me that i did not know existed. So, I'm running with it!

I am still going to school to finish my Marketing degree and will be done September 21st. I want to get my graphic design degree because i just loving using Adobe Creative Suite to create things (monograms, address labels, and anything else that is aesthetically pleasing to my eyes) and there is still so much that i do not know. I want to get my Human Resources certification because i am a nerd. I want to decorate cakes because... well, i have no idea! I would like to add quilting to my know how because i LOVE patterns and fabrics. My mother-in-law quilts and she has made me things that we gorgeous, which is where my interest came from. I want to know and do everything!

This blog was born out of my new creative side that I'm not sure how to approach. I want to cook and bake and decorate and oh my goodness, i think i am being domesticated! What an interesting journey this will be...