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D Day Final Thought

As I begin to make this cake that I unwittingly agreed to bake post many glasses of wine, I feel the need to honor the moment.  She has been a force to recon with my whole life, from the early days of delivering tutti fruiti underwear to each other, playing bozo the clown card games with grandma and driving rock cars in the backyard, my sister has been one of my closest companions.  We haven’t gone without our share of troubles, but we have been unshakable partners in crime.  My sister and future brother in law are fortunate to have found each other at just the right time.  I am so happy that she is going to get the opportunity to share her life with someone and experience the joys (and not) of marriage.  I welcome her now into the family of married people.  We are happy, insane and complete in ways we weren’t before.  I love you.  A lot.

The final countdown

Are you kidding me.  The day is upon me.  Today I looked around the house for all of hte little pieces of everything that I need for tomorrow….cake boards, icing tips, color gels, everything.  The flowers arrived, the topping is done and I like an insane person tried to make a new filling for the cake.  I followed the recipe and I clearly can’t make fudgy wonderful chocolate filling.  It tastes good, but has the texture of…hmmmm….sand.  So, wish me luck tomorrow.  We’ll see how it goes!!!

Near vomit mode

The cakes are made. They are on the freezer where they’ll stay till early Friday morning. The topper is done and the funniest flowers will be delivered ups on Thursday. Seriously cutting it close. Eggs and butter bought tonight…the rest will come. Can’t wait to share photos of it all. Most worried about the stacking aspect which I’ve not done before. Ill be happy my dad, mom and sister will be there to help. I do think the topper is beautiful. Thanks for the positive comments. Good night!!

Date Night Horrible

Husband and I had an unexpected and welcome chance to go out for a date.   It has literally been months since our last date, just the two of us.  It used to be we’d go out all of the time, but the past few months we’ve been much more home and neighborhood bound.  So, I dusted off the printer, and processed some Groupons I had bought a while ago.  I found one to a local restaurant/watering hole.  When we arrived a sandwich board outside said is was karaoke and $1 well drinks.  How bad could that  be, we’d have some drinks, apps and dinner.  Well the spinach and artichoke dip tasted like pork….not a good fit for husband dear.   The lobster alfredo tasted like fish mac and cheese.  Super disgusting.  We sent the fish mac back and got a filet sandwich.  That tasted more like  a salt lick and was earthy in a bad way.  My blackened chicken was okay, not even really okay.  The pasta as heinous.  That said, the service was awesome and the cocktails were good.  But, I won’t be eating at the velvet rope again.

Pitiful me….I blame the blizzard.

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When facebook was young I got into that petsociety game.  I created a little cat named the budge and I visited, cleaned him, fed him, made him a house, etc.  The first few days it was fun, but it started to feel like work, like an obligation and I developed guilt about the budge.  My daughter LOVED to clean him and feed him so it was great to just stick her in front of the computer to work away at caring for my pet.  Lately, I have had similar problems with the blog.  I know it is here,  I know I worked so hard last year to be consistent, but I am really bad at updates.  Unless my daughter can learn to write, she can’t help me out here.  I really blame the blizzard for throwing me off.

Here is to a renewed effort.  I think of stories to write all of the time, funny little things to share. 

Here are a couple of shots of the blizzard and post blizzard family bed.

Cake CATastrophy

Wedding cake practice #2 happened this weekend. It was a family friend’s birthday. She was having a winter ice skating party. I decided to give the purple hue of the frosting for the wedding cake a try.   Chose chocolate cake for the girl and used the Swiss Meringue recipe given by baker friend.   The cake itself seemed to bake a little unevenly this time around with more burning on the edges.  I saw a remedy for this online and a family member offered to donate some of her baking tools to the cause.  Apparently she has something that helps the cake bake evenly.  The frosting turned out better than even the first time.

I had my newly purchased whisk attachment for the mixer which helped a great deal. I also found a weight to volume conversion chart to help with ¼ or ½ ing a recipe.

I also bought some beautiful snowflakes for the cake on etsy. Once finished with the cake, I went to a party and when I returned, I learned that a cat in my house ate the number 8 off of the top of the cake.

So, I had to take off the top layer of the frosting and come up with an alternative. The alternative wasn’t as beautiful as the original, but it worked.  I just didn’t have the stamina to even out that buttercream to a smooth surface again.  But, I was able to make something that at least made a smiling 8 year old happy.  There  The little ice skating girl is actually a drawing by the birthday girl!