More Cakes!

I am in dire need of a cake update.

So here it is.

"Gail's Birthday Cake" - March 4th, 2009

We all had a little get-together for Rick's mom's birthday at her house. She likes forget-me-nots, so I tried to include them on her cake in some way. These flowers mostly look like them. :o)

This is a chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream icing.

"Great's Birthday Cake" - April 5th, 2009

We love our Great! Rick's grandmother is the sweetest lady, and she's in her 80's so we wanted to make her birthday as special as possible. She loves daisies, and one of her grandbabies (Danny) loves baking, so I had Danny over for a day and he helped me make the cake, and a few of the daisies for it. She loved it!!!

This is a white cake with buttercream frosting and royal icing decorations.

"Monique's Baby Shower Cake" - April 25th, 2009

Monique is expecting, and my friend Carin asked me to bring a cake to the baby shower. My only guidelines were to include the color blue and brown, so I had some creative fun with this one! This is a white cake, with fresh strawberries as a filling, buttercream frosting, and fondant decorations.

"Corbin's 4th Birthday Cake" - May 16th, 2009

Keeley is my best friend ever, and I have known her son since he was 9 months old. He very sincerely asked me for a Batman cake (with his big, batting brown eyes) but then later I was informed by his mother that he wanted this ferris wheel cake he saw in a magazine. The picture of it was lost, so I did my best to make the rice krispies ferris wheel from Keeley's description. And, of course, Batman had to rule the cake. (He was Corbin's favorite part.) :oD

This is a rice krispies cake, with dum dums, m&ms, candy necklace, licorice, good n' fruity, and Batman decorations, with buttercream frosting.

"The Rainbow Cake" - May 16th, 2009

Oh my gosh!!! This is my favorite cake of the cake. Just because of the insides. I will even put a picture of what it looked like cut. I mixed the batter colors to create a rainbow inside. The mom had made an outfit for her 2-year-old daughter to wear for her big special day, and she wanted a rainbow cake to match. She also said her daughter loved her stuffed penguin, so if I could put one of those on the cake too, that would be awesome. It was a big hit!

This is a white cake (colored), with buttercream frosting and a fondant decoration.

"Memorial Day Weekend Cake" - May 22nd, 2009

Rick's brother, Sean, is 14. Apparantly he had been spreading word about how "awesome" my cakes were at school, so his teacher ordered a cake from me! (She also referenced - in a way - the woman who ordered the "rainbow cake")

This cake is a yellow cake, with buttercream frosting and a raspberry pie-filling-esque filling.

"The Impromptu Chocolate Yellow Cake" - May 23rd, 2009

Well this cake was the fastest decision cake I've made yet. The afternoon I was assembling the Memorial Day Cake we had a maintenance guy come to our apartment to replace our fridge, and he saw that I was making cakes. Apparantly, a few years back, there was a lady that lived in the apartment across from us who used to make cakes regularly, and he would come by two or three times a month to buy a cake from her. He asked if he could buy a cake, and if I could have it for him tomorrow. Of course I said yes!

This is a yellow cake, with a chocolate buttercream/chocolate cream cheese frosting.

And that's all for now! (More to come!!! A wedding cake in June!)

Happy baking!

:oD

FAT

If you couldn't tell from the heading, I am having a fat moment.

Why does weight have to be a struggle? An existence? Does anyone feel like there should be a simple co-inhabitance with themselves and the food they love? Lol.


I LOVE food. LOVE it. But I don't have to live in it. I think that all things in moderation is great, unless your body can't process it for crap! Exercise is dandy, unless you have a horrible back problem (such as mine) which limits you to basically swimming. Which is not readily available everywhere!

I think that you should be able to enjoy the foods you love as you live your life. Nobody should have to starve themselves their whole life to feel comfortable in their own body. I'm at that point!

When I was younger, I wasn't really fat, or chubby, but I felt like it because other children made me feel that way! Oh the childhood poison cruelty bread that we all had a slice of and served to others in return! After peaking at my high weight in high school, I donated blood and was pretty sick afterwards. I couldn't eat anything for two days, and lost TEN pounds. Terrible - but awesome - and felt like that was a good launch point for me to start losing weight. I suddenly realized that if I didn't eat that last piece of cake, it was ok. Yes, someone else would eat it. But I was living in AMERICA. If it was a cake from Costco, I could go buy another one. Literally. Down the street.

When I started feeling like everything was always going to be readily available to me, I stopped eating everything that simply looked good, and started dropping the pounds like mad. Two months later, I decided to join the swim team at school, and partnered with my 'you-don't-have-to-eat-that' mojo, I lost 50lbs in 5 months. I had a tan, was toned, and healthy - and found a new love for apples. :o)

Now, what happened?!?!?! I'm a mom of two, my body has held onto everything through both pregnancies. Everyone makes it out like losing the weight is so easy but my old tricks don't work!!! I want cake..... and sometimes, I let myself have cake too often. But I can't just not eat bad food and watch my weight melt off anymore!!! I feel like my body gave up.

So, I'm totally frustrated. TOTALLY FRUSTRATED. And I'm not a religious Oprah watcher - sometimes... I can't do some of the shows they have topics on - but I totally feel motivated to start caring about my body, and stop giving in to foods like... yes, I should enjoy cake. Because no matter what, I'm a strong believer in enjoying your life. And I'm sorry - I don't care who you are - but you can't enjoy life if all you can eat is tofu, lettuce, and lean meat until you die. (Or whatever else your diet is)

EVERYONE NEEDS A LITTLE CHOCOLATE CAKE ONCE IN A WHILE!


Anyway.

I refuse to be this uncomfortable anymore. It's not about how it's unfair to my kids, because when they want me to do things, I'll have to go sit down, and it's not about how it's unfair to my husband, because he married a svelte hot mama and now has the aftermath to deal with, it's not about how I view those things that way, it's about ME and me being uncomfortable and tired of being uncomfortable.

I remember feeling healthy and like I could run a marathon three times in one day - the energy, the motivation... I want that back. (Just like I could build the pyramids if I have enough sleep!)

It's goal week!


Well.

It's goal day. We'll see how long I last. But I want to take better care of myself, and see if the weight comes off. And I'm going to take more time for me. (I'm looking into taking some college classes about baking and pastry art, and learning how to do all the things I dreamed about but never imagined could be real! Like blowing sugar, like they blow glass! THAT is amazing!!!!)



I'm feeling excited.



Nervous ---



But excited. Hopeful. Nauseous.



:o)

Best Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting EVER!

Today, I made a cake. (Since it is Mother's Day weekend, and I love a good chocolate cake)

Suddenly, as the cake was baking, I realized I did not have the ingredients I needed to make a good chocolate frosting.

Sigh.

WELL what I did have was a few ingredients, which when combined, made the best tasting chocolate cream cheese frosting ever. No recipe! Well, MY recipe!!!

Not only do I feel like I am, indeed, a genius, but, I feel like I have to share. To see if it's really any good.

Trisha's Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

1 8oz brick of cream cheese, softened

4 cups powdered icing sugar

2 1oz squares of unsweetened baker's chocolate, melted

Directions

1. Beat cream cheese until smooth.

2. Slowly add icing sugar, one cup at a time, beating thoroughly.

3. Add melted chocolate while mixing.

4. Ta-da!

Delicious. Also healthier than making it with a bunch of butter and crisco. Which is nice.