Pig Cake

THIS is why I love to do cakes for friends who are really past the "getting to know you" stage. They are so 100% comfortable that they will ask for just about anything that pops into their heads..........like my kids.

A friend bid at a school silent auction for a cake that I put in the hat for sale. When she called she had been thinking about what she wanted. It went something like, "I would like to get a cake that has a pig on it in a farm scene." My response was, "Okay no problem" and then she added, "But the pig HAS TO HAVE RED LIPSTICK on."............my response was "What shade?" - because I totally admire anyone who wants more then Happy Birthday written really pretty.

I could include pictures of this cake from different angles.........but let's be honest - this cake is all about the pig (although I really love the sheep).

The cake was a half and half - Chocolate and Yellow. Vanilla Buttercream Icing. And lots of fun and giggles for ladies who work together and often say, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." to each other.

Princess Castle Cake

Here is a cutie and a Quickie. I really wish that I took more time to take pictures of things as I put them together. Because the one thing that I am really giggly happy about this cake is the edging on each tier. Kinda like a railing to keep the princesses from falling over the edge........

Yet at the same time totally similar to a Crown.........yet completely edible. The person who asked me to do this cake sent a picture - and I was doing a sort of a copy job of that cake. As I looked closer at the cake I realized that the railing and the windows were plastic add ons. Disappointing, yet at the same time understandable - but copyable too. So I tried. I am pretty sure I got it. There was also a purple crown at the top (that I forgot to take an aerial pic of!) and a flag that went into the center and had the Birthday Girls name on it. Those things were given to the family to put on right before the party......so no pics for me, but safer for Michelle so she didn't have a crying princess.

Speaking of Princess - Michelle had a totally clever idea! In the original cake all the windows held princesses. Michelle sent a note saying, "What if we add my Princess into one of the windows?"..........Totally Clever!!! and.........Why Didn't I Think of That!!?? See her in the window above the door?? So cute!

I love it when the people asking me to do a cake have specific and clever ideas of things. Makes it more fun!

this cake was Chocolate in one tier and White in another tier. Vanilla Buttercream icing (we were trying not to cover the cake in fondant) and then Gumpaste for the railing crowns and Vanilla Fondant for the other additions.

Taking a Tractor to a Wedding

Okay I should have posted this AGES ago!! That comment was primarily for my friend, Pennie. She was talking to another friend the other day saying how my website is updated so often and then I pointed out how almost all my posts start with - "I made this cake MONTHS ago".......because really I have a million no posted cakes. Okay not a million (don't have that many friends - close though)........but I have been super busy this spring working in the various committee's I am on and doing things for the kids now that they are home.


But......this cake was SO MUCH FUN to make!! It stretched some of my thinking a bit - kinda like the Rapunzel cake did. The whole "how do I get that to stay put" and "what shape would I need to cut this into to reflect what it is supposed to be" thing was a bit exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Primarily because - while this person heard of me through another person I know from our elementary school - I didn't really know this person - and more scary - this was for her wedding as a SURPRISE gift to her Brand Spanking New Hubby!! Technically I know she was under way way way way way more pressure for perfection then I was........but somehow I was able to create enough pressure for myself that I could live enough stress to exhaust myself for a day too.


More so then the stress though - This Was So Much Fun To Make!!


What is it? Oh......well the title kinda gives it away, but the two shapes above are the start of a Kubato tractor. You don't see it? Oh.........well the big hunk of cake is the base and the little hunk of cake is the cab on top. You still don't see it? Oh.......well let's keep going then.


Here are the dowel rods that I cut down BY MYSELF with the high tech tools my hubby keeps in the garage that I have not ever touched due to wanting to keep my fingers. However, Dave wasn't home so I had to risk my fingers to get this done.


These keep the cake in place so that they don't slide around a bunch.

Okay NOW do you see the tractor? NO? Well the dowel rods are in place. The short ones went into the Base of the cake and then the 2 longer ones went through the cab piece & base piece. Now (hopefully) this won't slide. And I promised myself I would NOT obsess over this and NOT invite my friend Sheri over to confirm that it wasn't sliding because she totally tells the truth too much. Here is a twist. Rice Krispy Treats!! Yea something new to try. See I may never have lived on a farm OR be a farmer (which makes sense since I have never lived on a farm - although maybe you can BE a farmer without LIVING on the farm.....but that would seem difficult) - however, I do know that tractors have GIANT wheels - especially in the rear of the vehicle. I was not at first certain how I would make such big wheels and then I flashed to every cake show I had ever seen and realized - they generally use Rice Krispy Treats.

So I searched something similar to "using Rice Krispy Treats in cake decorating" and found nothing really. This shock shock shocked me. I kept finding references to this RKT stuff and how great it was for molding shapes and when set it was lightweight and didn't hang on the cake much. So I did a search for RKT finally - hoping that the cake stores near me sold it so I could mold the tires - without some direction I was worried about using Rice Krispy Treats - I mean this was a gift to a brand new husband AT the wedding reception - no way did I want to mess this up!!

As I watched a video of a caker (my word - caker - definition: person who makes cakes for fun and decorates them and is so dedicated to the fun they do something weird like a blog of informative videos or start a business) using RKT to see if I wanted to find some for the tractor. Now - since you all are not blinded by the fear of goofing up the tractor cake I am sure you have already figured out what RKT is - yes, Rice Krispy Treats. As I watched the beginning of the video I couldn't help but laugh at me. Geez O.

Then I went and mixed some RKT up.

Here is the beginning of a tire. I have to say - molding stuff with RKT was quite fun. And in the end I had enough left over from the tires to do the arms and legs of a Sponge Bob cake too!

The big square thing is the roof for the cab of the tractor. You will never see that in another picture. It wouldn't set enough to not be at least a smidge floppy on the edges - and since I have never seen a tractor with a rounded roof I figured I needed to let it go.

Back to the tractor. Stacked - Dowel roded - and not Iced. Kinda looks like a shoe right?

Still kinda looks like a shoe. Insert the beginning of Cake Worry here. See there is a point with every cake that I look at it and say ............"ugh what am I doing?"......well almost every cake. Some really are just fine through the whole process - some cause me to freak through all of it - and some just get a moment of doubt.

So then I began putting on the "touches". The dark trim at the bottom is to give the cake the illusion of standing off the ground and having a hollow area where the wheel would be. I considered making a cake stand that would elevate the cake, but I didn't want to lose the servings.......and since Dave was busy wasn't sure how I would craft it and have it be sturdy.

The green around the edge of the board is - well grass. It will look more normal in the next shot.

Aerial.....cool right? Can you picture me on a giant crane looking down taking the photo? Yeah, I know - just a step stool.

See now the grass is filled in a bit more - there is ground up Vanilla Wafers and Graham crackers for "dirt" and I made a few fondant hearts & wedding rings for the scoop. The K&J are initials of the bride & groom. I tried to write them in a font Kubato uses on their tractors.

The scoop. The scoop was a bit easier to make then I would have imagined. Honestly most of this was easier to make then I imagined - I mean certainly not easy, but I envisioned fearful moments with tears and

The tires........cool right? Once the RKT was set and dried enough that it didn't more around I covered it in black fondant. The cut strips to place on the edge to look like treads. After that was set I added the rims......the orange part is a rim right? I need to brush on up car lingo - tractor lingo - vehicle lingo. I thought they turned out really cute. And the fact that you can just bite into them is fun too!

Final picture! When I went to deliver it to the banquet center they had almost everything set and ready to go. The Bride looked like I would have imagined - scanning the room - excited - more focused then I remember myself being. However, I had Dawson with me. Couldn't find a play date for him and not a single person in the family was home. Ironically the cake was at the golf house banquet center here in our neighborhood - so it was not far away at all - but you can't leave a 5 year old at home alone even for 15 minutes.........too many possible adventures they could get into that might end poorly. So he came on delivery - and flopped all over the floor doing Super Hero Ninja type moves. I tried to be In & Out of there fast enough that nothing would be damaged. Given our stealth delivery - I am pretty sure that the Bride loved the cake - and the Grooms Mom..........so Success.

I know I loved the cake - because I can now say that I built a 3D Tractor out of Cake!!

This cake was one of my personal favorites - Pumpkin Cake with a Cinnamon Buttercream icing and Vanilla Fondant. Yummm!!!

Something Savory

My friend, Chris, has decided to dedicate her summer to mastering yeast breads. While I have never had the kind of focus that would call for mastering anything - I have at times become obsessed with doing something so well that it just becomes something I know how to do - so total hats off to Chris for taking it a step even further and mastering things. Well I got my masters degree in counseling......but I don't think that really qualifies since I think you really have to get a doctorate in the topic of choice for people to be all "oh my gosh you are a doctor!" and even then some people get confused about your being a doctor if you can't prescribe medicine - so I will leave getting a doctorate to the masters to avoid that kind of confusion where I might then become funny/sarcastic and pretend to prescribe fictitious medicine. Although the true reason I won't be getting a doctorate is I am just lazy (which is kind of funny to type out since I hardly ever really sit down - wait I am technically sitting now.......see how confusing life is?!).

Anyway - back to topic. This post is for my friend, Chris. Back when I first became a Stay At Home Parent our finances changed. We went from - buy whatever we want whenever we want - to spend as little money as possible on things so that we can still buy fun things. Groceries were one of the items that I scrutinized for cost change. We went from luxury groceries (name brands) - to researching cutting costs - like shopping bulk at Sams (which we ended up dropping because it wasn't all really a deal at all) and sale shopping (but not coupon hoarding) and in the end settling on Aldi for most of our groceries. To replace some of the luxury groceries I began trying to duplicate them myself - like decorated cakes obviously...can't let a little kid have a party without a rockin' cake right?......but also delicious breads and other foods that we were getting when going out to eat. If you took the time it can be done I found. So Dave became the master of most grilling/smoking/meaty things and he is way better then many of the restaurants I have been to and I took up most of the rest. Bread became a fun obsession for awhile (because remember I am not disciplined enough to master). I got a bread machine - which I eventually discontinued - and then started doing them from scratch. Vowing at one point not to buy any specialty breads anymore - which I discontinued once the children began to multiply.

This recipe featured in this blog is a family keeper though. Challah bread. Yum - Yum - OHMYGOODNESS we love this bread - Yum.

If anyone wants the recipe I will gladly send it to you. I picked it up from a boyfriends mom when she asked me to bake it for Passover. We dated about 3 years and I became the Challah and Kugel bringer to gatherings. Ohmygoodness I should make a kugel for our next friend gathering.......I forgot about kugel.

Through the years we now do bread really only for holidays. In the summer we mess around a bit. Ben loves to do breads a bit more then the other kids. The Challah bread recipe we have fun with because we turn then into surprise pockets. In the top picture you see Ben putting the egg wash over the bread. He was left out of the bread creation because as we waited for the yeast to rise a friend came over and knocked on the door......he then disappeared for the flour and the rising and the pounding down and the rising and the special surprise pocket ingredients.

In the end though - apparently gathering the ingredients - egg washing the top and smelling the delicious smell of the bread baking was enough for him. And who can disagree right?

Now here is the special surprise......

Yummo right?? So basically what we do is take ground meat (this is turkey, but you beef lovers can beef it up) and since I have a split household I do one half as just basic cooked beef with seasoning to favor a loose meat sandwich. The rest of the meat is treated to some brown sugar, seasonings and ketchup and other things to make it a sloppy joe kinda meat. Tuck a little of one meat of the other into the bread - add some cheese - close it up to look like one of the breads above - bake and then OHFORTHELOVEOFCUPCAKES you have a dinner treat that the kids don't even complain about the veggies on the side to eat. Well...unless the side is brussel sprouts - honestly I can't trick the kids or Dave into eating those at all.

In fact it has been a few months - maybe we will make some for our next friend gathering......hmmmmmmm.

Let me know if you are interested and I will post the recipe or send it to you personally.

Family Fun Cakes

I want to start this post by saying.............Sometimes I worry that I am passing my need to make sure that I have done things 100% perfect onto my kids - well maybe not the boys - but Andersen. Okay in some cases the boys too.....but with Andersen lately it is mostly her.

Here is a perfect example. We were having two of our grands over for a celebration of Andersen - she was being baptized at our church. However, it was also the Grands birthdays........so we thought it would be fun to celebrate them with a few cute cakes. I asked the kids "what" said Grandpa O to them and they said - Diet Coke!! I swear to goodness that I did NOT plant this idea in their heads, but I have been wanting to try to make a soda can. So we went with their idea and I carved the cake to look like a soda can - fondant over the top - and a tab to open it up........Tah Dah.....

I got it right? The only thing left to do was paint the fondant.........Now I wasn't sure how to make the fondant silver - and foolishly I hadn't searched it on any cake blogs - and even more foolishly I asked Dave's advise (who has totally said he is NOT the person who knows about cakes) and he said go with White Fondant and then paint it.............

Well just in case anyone follows this blog for TIPS - here is a TIP - make your fondant a light Grey if you are trying to create a silver color - THEN paint over it with some Silver luster dust or tint to make it look shiny silver. We made do though and in the end it was still doable. You learn by doing right? So totally cool right? Andersen painted this!!! Personally I think this is AWESOME!! Andersen however kept complaining that it didn't look great. That the word was crooked - that the swoop was wrong - that the circle around the register mark wasn't round - so many little things that were cool in my eyes. And I realized ....... I think I do that when I am creating a cake too.

I wish she could have seen it in the rest of our eyes - because what we saw was a giant edible Coke can done fabulously.......especially for an 11 year old!! Besides - the slightly wonky looking silver part of the cake was all my fault anyway for listening to Dave - who gave the wrong adivse so really it was his fault.........(this is how I divert responsibility in my head).

This cake was Lemon cake with Vanilla buttercream icing and a Vanilla fondant - total Yumminess - tastes like a lemon bar with icing..........yummo!!

Carrots On Top

Geez O I can't seem to catch up.......ahhh!! But next week I don't have a SINGLE cake request. So I will likely have time to put together a few of the posts and set them to be scheduled and just pop up. Although I think I am 20 cakes back at this point......that should get me through the whole summer for posts right?

These cupcakes were for a neighbors friend - Carrot Cake!! We have the BEST ever carrot cake recipe at our house. While I like a few cake flavors.....Carrot has always been my favorite. Add in some pineapple and take out the nuts and you have a great recipe. Dave created this one with a recipe he found somewhere that he tweaked a bit. It is delicious!! Create a nice little Cream Cheese icing and you have a dream!!

The carrots were just a simple little cute topper. There are a few recipes that I love - and they all seem to involve fruits and veggies in them - which adds to the cost of buying the ingredients AND to the time of prepping the fruits and veggies for baking - Lucky for me I don't have a ton of extra time and money to put into them on a more common basis or I would be ginormous from eating them - but when it is time for a treat it is 100% worth the effort to do it.

Total Apple Yumminess!

Again........I am certain that if I searched this idea it would NOT be original. At the same time - when the thought occured to me it was totally new in my head. Of course if you watch ANY cake or cupcake show on TV it is completely obvious that if you can stick it in a cupcake at this point and time Someone Has Done It!

For me to CASE (copy and steal everything) is not a shameful thing - doing it builds up my own confidence in doing something - what I mean is ...... if I see that you have done something so completely wonderful I would like to see if I can do that wonderful thing too. Once I build my skill at doing something I can master without having to recreate the wheel....then I can move on to original works of my own art with confidence. I know there are folks out there that do not agree with that - they feel that if it is a copy of something else then you aren't really showing that you have the ability to truly create. To that I say...."eh".....the world is how many years old? Someone has likely been there - so don't stress yourself out (my husband might cringe and giggle that I said that - he so doesn't believe that I don't stress - and he is right, but I am stressing about perfection, not about creativity credit - TOTALLY different).

Now on the day of these cupcakes we were both stressing about something not cake related. I came downstairs and found water all over the floor. Thinking someone had been messing with the water button on the fridge I went to get a towel. Then as I did that I began to think that Dave was the only one up after me the night before and unless he got giddy on treats before bed it didn't make sense that he would play with the water button. So as I laid the towel down I opened the freezer door and found a frozen waterfall that was dripping. Our ice maker had decided to go bezerk (how do you spell beserk? bezerk? - oh well phonically you can read that right?). Woke Dave up - began to dismantle the freezer contents and look for the problem. Ice maker.

There were tons of things thawed out........some thrown away - others saveable. And then there were the 5 bags of peeled & cup up pie making apples I had put in before winter came (like we are the Ingalls right?). What to do with them? Pie? No. Crisp? Yum. Cupcakes? Hmmmmm.....

What made the cupcake idea the winner? My new cupcake huller. Just fresh from the store bought for my by my dad for my birthday!! Yes!! I needed something to fill the cupcakes I was longing to use my huller on.

Cupcakes baked - Huller out - simple as apple pie - place into the cupcake - twist - pull out.

Then I dump them into a bowl - originally the idea was for time saving - so I didn't have to twist around and put them in the trash to save my ass (literally)........but then I began to realize that kids like to pop these little pieces in their mouths. So we don't have them often - but they are fun when we did. Probably how donut holes started.

But this pictures shows what the BEST part of making these cupcakes was. The Ginormous vat of apples baking..........yummmmmmmyyyyyyy........all appley and cinnamon and brown sugar with just a smidge of butter to keep them from sticking (you don't really need an entire stick ya know - just a few chunks).

This was the reason that it made it most fun - the house was filled with this yummy smell. Way Way Way better then any candle you can get at the store.............

Once it was cooled off I popped the batch in shifts into the food processor and got rid of the slices and made it a nice, midly chunky, apple sauce like texture. Then took an icing bag out and began to fill the cupcakes................topped them off with some Cinnamon Buttercream.........

and just because some days I have the ability to Over Achieve.....whipped up some homemade from scratch (yes, I realize homemade means "from scratch" - but it was hard and I deserve the double) Caramel.........and drizzled it on top.

Ummmmm Yummmmmm!!! I called them Apple Pie Cupcakes. We were headed to a gathering and called ahead to see if I could bring these and if the hostess thought people would like some Apple Pie Cupakes. My friend, Pennie, said that it was against the law in the US not to like Apple Pie. You get kicked out of the country - which made me think - Red, White & Blue cupcake papers........and so it was........but that night only Pennie got the connection to the papers being all about Apple Pie and Patriotism.......oh well - not everyone can be as brilliant as us.

These cupcakes turned out to be the BOMB. I farmed out a few of the extras to neighbors because the apple filling made more then I could take to friends that night - and I ended up getting folks asking me to make them for other events - SCORE!! Winnner!!

So.......just in case you didn't read the whole post (cheater)........these cupcakes were White cake with Apple Pie filling and Cinnamon Buttercream touched by Caramel sauce. Delish!!

More Girl Scouts!

Here is a Girl Scout Bridging cake that was used for MY Girl Scout troop this year. I love LOVE love my Girl Scouts. When Andersen joined GS's in 3rd grade I went to the registration meeting with her. My goal was NOT to sign up as the leader. I had heard ahead of time that there already was a leader so I figured I was good and there wasn't any big need to scan the room ahead of time and figure out what things were big enough to hide under if they asked for volunteers. We all know I have a Volunteer problem.......although we were just moved into a new town and no one knew us and before leaving I had promised myself that I would enter a 12 Step Volunteer Program.

There we are filling out paperwork - almost to the end of the meeting and the GS Council coordinator says, "Well the troop leader that has this group has decided she only wants to lead 4th & 5th grade. So in order for this troop to happen we will need parents to lead this group". Immediately I started an inner mantra of "I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER. I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER. I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER." And it worked - some other woman said she would lead it.........only.......I had been listening to that woman through the meeting and knew she was NOT a parent I would want leading my daughter anywhere. She was pretty much Miss Inappropriate Universe winner for the area. I won't even waste time writing out some of the things she talked about - just know they were no empowering to little girls in anyway. Then the GS Council person said "Great"........then I raised my hand and said I would "co" to keep things empowered for young girls. Fortunately the leader was not only not appropriate - she also wasn't committed or reliable. By the time the meeting ended she had quit as leader (no I didn't do anything) - but that also meant that I was the leader. I did have a "co" though - she was coming from the older girls troop with her 3rd grader. I figured "how hard can GS's be?"

Little did I know that my "co" leader would become a great friend and I would end up leading a 3 level Girl Scout troop and coordinating our school and becoming friends with many of the parents in the troop - taking girls on trips out of town - camping - scraping outdoor potties and then painting them - selling 1,000's of boxes of cookies with my daughter - watching her earn awards - becoming close with the woman in the Council office - taking on being the Service Project coordinator for the entire council area - and really really loving it!!!

This year was our 3rd Bridging Ceremony. The first year we had 3rd grade and the other troop which covered 4th & 5th. Maybe we had 50/60 people attending. It was modest, but it was fun.

The next year we added the 1st grade Daisies troop. We bumped the number up a bit and also added in the girls entertaining the group with songs and doing the Flag Ceremony.

This year our Bridging Ceremony spanned all grade - K Daisies, 1st Grd Daisies, 2nd Grd Brownies, 3rd Grd Brownies, 4th Grd Jr., 5th Grd Jr. & 6th Grd. Cadettes. It was awesome!! We had the room filled and we actually ran out of cake!! I love that my daughter is part of a community of girls that work hard for the community and accept one another for who they are - goof balls to the end really!! I also love that I can walk through the halls at school and say, "There goes one of my GS's" and on occassion have them call my name and run up and hug me.........Girl Scouts are awesome!!

This cake was half Chocolate and half White - Vanilla Buttercream icing with all deco's in Vanilla Buttercream. Fun to make - Fun to serve!

Down on the Farm........so cute!

Another fun Cake request I had was for a Farm Yard of animals. This was for another friend that I have made through Catherine and her love to share my cakes with others. Stacey is great and she comes up with fun ideas and she is very specific - often giving me pictures. She searched farm animals in fondant/gumpaste and sent me pictures of what she wanted. Originally she said that since she didn't want the expense of all the animals we would leave one of the 5 off - but who can leave an animal off - I just baked extra cupcakes without cost - it is sometimes more fun to make things then to worry about having the expense re-coop'd.

The most important animal she said was the horse..........done

Then this pig was just A D O R A B L E!! He was so easy to make and so cute when he was finshed - she was finished - he/she?

The sheep were cute too though. Dang honestly they were all cute! The sheep kept wanting to sheer themselves though - hunks of their white coat would fall off so I had to figure out how to glue the balls to the head - Karo Syrup.

Then there were the cows.........the original pic had them sticking their tongue out. I thought that was the cutest thing about it and included it. When Stacey looked at them she said "Oh my gosh you have them sticking their tongues out - that is so cute!!"......so when I told her the original picture was the same she was surprised.

The last animal wasn't really an animal - and maybe why it was bumped off the list. The duck. Ducks have to be included though - too important not to be - you can't have a farm pond without ducks and geese. So I made them anyway.

And here are the Farm Animals..............but where would they live?

Well a barn of course!! Stacey suggested a 1 dimentional cake that the animals could live around, but in my head it was a 3 dimentional cake.......she was open to the idea.

It was tiny. Just a couple little 6" rounds stacked and then carved. Easy enough.

I painted on the boards and then cut a few boards out of white to create the windows and the doors. Remembered the shingle work I had done on the Rapunzel cake and brought that into play also. I think my shingles worked better this time, but I left a gap at the top - that will not do if it begins to rain.

A bit of grass around the outside and a sign for the birthday boy...........Done! Thought about putting all the animals around the barn, but didn't want to risk losing any by accident.

These cakes were all Chocolate Chocolate Chip......always........every cake they ask for ..........I am putting Stacey in a "try other flavors" program. Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla fondant.

Moo!

Wedding Shower Cookie + Cupcake = YUM

Short, but sweet. I think I posted these cookies on facebook. In fact I am pretty certain I did. Funny how things work...........I had a rash of sugar cookie requests for awhile and then - nothing. After the original request for Palm Trees I bought a few fun cookie cutters that I thought might come in handy. Then I was looking for things to do with the cookies - so I started sticking them on things I was giving to people.

These went on a little box of cupcakes I gave to a friend who had just gotten engaged. Sweet!

Cupcakes were White cake and Chocolate cake with a pretty Vanilla Buttercream swirl on top.

Meow - Fushia Kitty Print

Here is another cake that is from last year - or at least January - which kinda seems like last year at this point. Having raised a daughter that has made a personal pact NEVER to like pink (although I think at 11 she may be changing a smidge)........when this person asked me to do a leopard cake and then said in Fushia my head went into a clicking mode. Leopard print I could totally envision - and I thought SUPER COOL - but when I had to switch gears and envision the print in a shade of pink.......all those years of thinking "No Can't Get Her Anything With Pink" "No Pink" "Shun Pink" came crashing in and it was almost like my brain could not even fathom pink.
Even the beginning process of painting the print in pink was overwhelming, but that may be because the first step was to paint a bunch of pink blotches/circles/odd shapes all over the white fondant - and those shapes were VERY bright without the black outline. VERY PINK.

But I trudged on and eventualy had the whole cake finished. Made some fushia balls to place around the edge and called it done.

Then my Anti-Pink daughter came into the room and said, "Wow that looks really cool!" I mentioned the pink being not her color and she said, "It isn't my cake, but you did a really good job!" Yea - even an Anti-Pink person thought the cake was nice - which was good to hear because my retina's were burning from pink shock and I couldn't tell if it was nice.