Hello out there?

I don't know if anyone still reads this thing.  I've been a bit tied up lately.  You know, with another one of these....















So, needless to say, there is no sleep and peace around here lately (unless there is a baby on top of me!)  I have had time to make a cake for my sweet little niece who just turned 4... WHERE DID TIME GO?!!  She had a Tinkerbell birthday party and I was asked to do her cake again this year. So of course I had to make a Tinkerbell cake!  It's been a tradition so far that i make her cake, and it's quite the honor.  I'll share this with you.

I'm pretty proud of it since it's my first time doing flowers or scroll work... and I stood on my feet for 8 hours making this cake...after just having a baby! Well, down to baby business.... his name is Oliver.  He has quite a set of pipes on him.  He has red hair like my hubs.  His brother is absolutely smitten with him and wants to help me as much as he can.  He's turned our life upside down.  My heart aches to be with him while I'm at work.  I never thought I could love my first child as much as I do, and I certainly never thought there would be room for another child in my heart.  But, by goodness, there certainly is!  I'm hoping to post some recent projects as much as I can.  My sewing room is now inhabited by a miniature red headed boy, so I'm not sure if there will be much more sewing in my future.  But, I hope to try :)  Thanks for checking in :)
Oh, and here's more of my little men :)

one extra little thing.....

OH!!!  I almost forgot to let you know.... if you cake decorating people haven't seen this yet, hold onto your toilet paper, because your about to pee yourself.........
My most covetted machine that I will never be able to get or afford has come out with a new product!!  The Cricut is now out for cakes!!!!  ..... take it in..... that's right.... it cuts fondant and gum paste...... I KNOW!!!!!  I'M.IN.LOOOOOOVE.!!!!!!!!

Here are some pics from the "Cricut Cake" website:

Ok.... that's enough stealing of their pictures.... GO TO THEIR WEBSITE!!!!  Also, check out this corny little video of the DIY girls demonstrating the machine.  Now, I'm going to go change my pants again.... excuse me......

Ganache Greatness

As I stated on my last post, I made my first "fancy" cake with ganache, and tried the Chocolate Cake from Whisk Kid's blog (my new favorite blog by the way).  It was soooo good.  I couldn't use her icing due to the whole "raw egg" factor and certain health issues some of my co-workers are having right now.  So, I used the "Quick Vanilla Buttercream" recipe that I found on the Food Network site and it turned out really well.  I also used Whisk Kid's Peanut Butter Ganache recipe, but added 1/2 cup more peanut butter because I wanted the PB taste to sing a little more.  Her picture of the cake was just gorgeous, but I'm still starting out and needing a little (as in a whole heck of a lot) more practice to get to her level.  Her ganache called for dark chocolate, so I used Hershey's Dark Chocolate Chips.  I had some left over and didn't have time to make the chocolate curls so I threw those on top.... don't judge me!
The cake was insanely delicious and I will make it for all other chocolate cakes in the future.   I really enjoyed the ganache, too.  It got the wheels in my head turning about how to make it mocha flavored next time. 
Here's the pictures.... and yes.... the cake is a little lopsided and not iced perfectly but it was crazy late and "Biggie Smalls" was having a rough night so I didn't have time to purty' it up like I wanted to.  

 My co-workers are still fighting for this very last piece of cake.  I wont lie, it makes me feel good!  Heeh heeh!  I know the last 2 pics are a little gross, and not "blog beautiful" but I thought it was hilarious how these 7 women tore this cake up!  The last picture shows the ganache in the middle above the icing layer.  The recipe made A TON of ganache and I wished I had used more, but I was afraid of it squishing out and being gross. 
Check out Whisk Kid's blog for the recipes and also see her insanely gorgeous rainbow cake that is the next task on my list. 

cake trials

I made my first "fancy" cake last night.  It turned out pretty good.  It was supposed to look like this (from Whisk Kid's blog):

.... but suffice to say it did not.  But it still tasted delicious.  Little man is good, we are good, things are good.  I'm a little bit out of my mind with work and having to move my office since our satellite office is closing.  I thought I was originally going to have to work out of the Pittsboro office (an hour and a half commute) but I begged my boss and the agency has graciously allowed me to work out of the downtown Durham (insert gun shots, pepper spray, and scream sounds here) office, which will "only" be an hour commute.  I'll take it over not having a job at this point.  We're supposed to move tomorrow.  I have no boxes packed.... NONE.  It's my own person protest.  Needless to say it's not getting me far. 
I'll post pics and reviews of this cake when I get a little more settled.  Love you all.  Thanks for checking in!