Yum!

In love…

Posted by Margaret on Jun 29, 2012 in Blogging, Me, Yum! | 0 comments

I am so happy with my CSA share.

This is my first year ever doing it, and already I’m thrilled. Not only do we get enjoy fresh veg, but I also get a dozen fresh eggs each week and beautiful cut flowers.

Who doesn’t love a cupcake?

Posted by Margaret on Mar 31, 2012 in Blogging, Family, Yum! | 0 comments

Daisy and I enjoy watching Cupcake Wars.  Though I don’t think I’ll ever be inclined to try the savory sorts of cupcakes they often feature in the first round, I do enjoy my sweets. 

>Lessons learned from my latest fondant creation

Posted by Margaret on Aug 22, 2011 in Crafty Maggie, Yum! | 8 comments

>
I made this cake over the weekend…lemon, with lemon icing under lemon fondant.  The white accents are plain fondant.

I used one 13″x9″ lemon cake for this one.

I topped the icing with lemon curd–warmed in the microwave to make it easier to spread on the smooshy icing–and topped with the second layer.

Then I repeated the process with a 4″x4″ square from the remainder of the cake.  Both layers got frosted around the sides after they were stacked.

Then I rolled out the fondant and placed it on the frosted cake layers, tried desperately to center the 4×4 tier (I didn’t succeed), added embellishments and voila~

A few of things I learned:

• Don’t use tub frosting to coat the cake prior to the fondant–it’s too soft and sort of runny compared to good old fashioned butter cream.
• Also, be sure to make your ribbons long enough to cover the circumference. Then you don’t have to meet them up in numerous spots around the cake.
• The lemon curd I layered on top of the frosting in the layers (two layers per tier) was kind of a wasted effort.  For me to say it’s too much lemon is really saying something.   
• Extra cake is never a problem in our house.

>Fun with fondant–Now with pictures!

Posted by Margaret on Aug 20, 2011 in Crafty Maggie, Yum! | 4 comments

>As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been having fun playing with fondant.  Hey, anything that involves cake can’t be that bad, right?  Especially if you consider, as I do, cake to simply be a tasty excuse to eat icing.

Last weekend, my closest friend in Podunk celebrated her 40th birthday.  Not only was it a great party, with an excellent, wide variety of people, but they hired a fire spinner, who also happens to swallow a little fire on the side.  Unique and incredibly cool way to celebrate four decades on this planet, if you ask me.

So, bearing in mind the fiery theme, I created a birthday cake for the party.  It had to be a big one, because there were many of us celebrating.   This was made with four 13″ x 9″ cakes, two yellow and two chocolate. 

There’s four cakes underneath all that fondant goodness

The flames were a lot of fun to make.  I used yellow fondant and sprayed it with orange and red food coloring spray.  Then I brushed the colors together with a paint brush to make sure they blended well and didn’t look spotty.

side view of fondant flames

Tomorrow I’ll post photos of my lemon cake.

>Fun with fondant

Posted by Margaret on Aug 19, 2011 in Crafty Maggie, Yum! | 2 comments

>I made a cake last weekend with fondant frosting.  It was for my friend’s 40th birthday party, and it came out pretty well.  I sort of impressed myself.

So, now I’m fooling around with fondant.  I bought some to do the birthday cake, and had plenty left over, but boy, that stuff is expensive considering it is just pliable, moldable sugar!  So, I’ve purchased the essential ingredients and will make it myself from now on. 

Seriously, this is fun.  Fondant is like play-doh for grown ups.  Plus, it’s far less salty and much more yummy than actual play-doh, so you can snack on your screw-ups! 

I don’t have photos right now, because I’ve not downloaded the camera, but I’ll show some tomorrow or the next day.