This will be fast and dirty because my friend Scooter (also fast and dirty) has my camera.
I am not a begrudger, I am not being hateful, but I am absolutely DYING to post pictures of my new window treatments, and since Scooter still has my camera, I am waiting, not so patiently.
I can go weeks without using it, so I had no problem lending it to him, as long as he promised not to take naughty pictures, as I will be the one downloading them. He agreed to abide by the rules.
Now, I know where he lives, but it is really, really far away, plus it is fun to harass him about it.
So, Scooter, if you are reading this, please put my camera in your man-bag and bring it on back to me! I will only keep it a day, then you can have it again. I expect a truly stunning photo documentary from him when all is said and done...
Watch this space!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Twice in Two Days!
Try not to get excited, dear reader. The fact that I am going to post two days in a row is not a renewal of my earlier pledge. I think we have proven that I will not be able to maintain this torrid pace.
I do have more cake pictures to share, so I thought I would put them out there.
This cake was made for my friend the Mangler. Her birthday was June 22nd, and she requested a yellow cake with chocolate icing. She even said I could use the frosting out of a can. A CAN, people! Heresy!
I ended up making her a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but, being me, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I ended up making a really yummy chocolate frosting. It is basically a fluffy ganache. The Mangler doesn't like super sweet icings, and this one is a bit lighter than the standard buttercream.
Naturally, I couldn't leave well enough alone and just write "Happy Birthday Mangler" on the cake. So dull, so trite! I ended up trying the Frozen Buttercream Transfer (hereafter referred to as FBCT) process that went so horribly awry on the Lizard's Elvis cake. No, I don't learn from my mistakes. I just keep right on making them.
The FBCT process sounds complicated, but is pretty easy, if time consuming. It is a way to get a more complicated picture on a cake without having to draw it freehand. Super if you want to put a character on a cake, or match the napkins for a party, or whatever.
Basically, you take an image and reverse it, then tape it down to something that is sturdy and will fit in the freezer (that is where the "frozen" part comes in). In this case, I took the picture that I wanted, and taped it to the window, then traced over it. This gave me an exact copy, so I flipped my tracing over, taped it to the window again and copied over the lines, giving me my mirror image. Ordinarily, this type of image manipulation is best done on a computer, but I was lazy, and have old fashioned tendencies anyway. Plus, it really freaked out my neighbors.
I then taped my mirror image onto a circle of cardboard and covered the whole thing with waxed paper. I should buy stock in 3M. I don't know anyone else who could run through this much tape baking a cake.
Once I had my circle of fun, I began piping white icing in the appropriate areas of the image. I was lucky in that the image only required three colors. Once I was done with the white, I put the cardboard in the freezer and wandered off to do something else.
Recalled to my duties (I know, I know, I said "duty", but this is the Mangler's cake, so it works), I pulled the circle out of the freezer, and added the medium color in the appropriate spots and shoved it back in the freezer. One more round trip to add the dark color, and I was done!
After I pulled the final image out of the freezer, I peeled the waxed paper off of the cardboard, and peeked under to see what would be the top of my design. I was looking for holes or light spots, found a few and slathered more icing. Back in the freezer until it was cake time.
I had previously torted and iced the Mangler's cake, knowing that I wanted to slap my image on the top, then add a border.
I placed my hand (my freshly washed, super-sanitary hand) on the top/back of the image and flipped it over (cardboard up). I then was able to take off the cardboard, leaving me with a handful of icing covered in waxed paper. I gently centered my icing disk onto the cake and removed my hand.
Now for the tricky part; removing the waxed paper. This is where Elvis had refused to leave the building on my earlier attempt. I took a moment, quieted my mind and entered a zen-like state. I would like to tell you that I grabbed one corner and peeled that sucker off like someone pulling the tablecloth out from under a place setting for 12. What actually happened was that I grabbed one corner with extreme trepidation and tugged oh so gingerly and watched with startled amazement as it pulled free with no impediment. I do wish I had done it with a bit more flair, though. Maybe next time.
To make a long, boring post even longer, I managed to add a border around the top and bottom of the cake and pack it up for delivery.
I took it to the restaurant where we were celebrating the Mangler's birthday. I almost had a stroke when one of the servers started to walk out with it, to cut it, before anyone had even SEEN it. Mercifully, my agitated shrieking stayed his course, and we were all able to stare down at it's unmolested state.
So, here it is.
For those of you not from Louisiana, this is the "eye of the tiger" that LSU paints in the center of their football field. The Mangler is a huge LSU fan. (The colors are purple and gold, but the restaurant was quite dark.)
Hope the pics are worth the 73 pages of rambling prose!
I do have more cake pictures to share, so I thought I would put them out there.
This cake was made for my friend the Mangler. Her birthday was June 22nd, and she requested a yellow cake with chocolate icing. She even said I could use the frosting out of a can. A CAN, people! Heresy!
I ended up making her a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but, being me, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I ended up making a really yummy chocolate frosting. It is basically a fluffy ganache. The Mangler doesn't like super sweet icings, and this one is a bit lighter than the standard buttercream.
Naturally, I couldn't leave well enough alone and just write "Happy Birthday Mangler" on the cake. So dull, so trite! I ended up trying the Frozen Buttercream Transfer (hereafter referred to as FBCT) process that went so horribly awry on the Lizard's Elvis cake. No, I don't learn from my mistakes. I just keep right on making them.
The FBCT process sounds complicated, but is pretty easy, if time consuming. It is a way to get a more complicated picture on a cake without having to draw it freehand. Super if you want to put a character on a cake, or match the napkins for a party, or whatever.
Basically, you take an image and reverse it, then tape it down to something that is sturdy and will fit in the freezer (that is where the "frozen" part comes in). In this case, I took the picture that I wanted, and taped it to the window, then traced over it. This gave me an exact copy, so I flipped my tracing over, taped it to the window again and copied over the lines, giving me my mirror image. Ordinarily, this type of image manipulation is best done on a computer, but I was lazy, and have old fashioned tendencies anyway. Plus, it really freaked out my neighbors.
I then taped my mirror image onto a circle of cardboard and covered the whole thing with waxed paper. I should buy stock in 3M. I don't know anyone else who could run through this much tape baking a cake.
Once I had my circle of fun, I began piping white icing in the appropriate areas of the image. I was lucky in that the image only required three colors. Once I was done with the white, I put the cardboard in the freezer and wandered off to do something else.
Recalled to my duties (I know, I know, I said "duty", but this is the Mangler's cake, so it works), I pulled the circle out of the freezer, and added the medium color in the appropriate spots and shoved it back in the freezer. One more round trip to add the dark color, and I was done!
After I pulled the final image out of the freezer, I peeled the waxed paper off of the cardboard, and peeked under to see what would be the top of my design. I was looking for holes or light spots, found a few and slathered more icing. Back in the freezer until it was cake time.
I had previously torted and iced the Mangler's cake, knowing that I wanted to slap my image on the top, then add a border.
I placed my hand (my freshly washed, super-sanitary hand) on the top/back of the image and flipped it over (cardboard up). I then was able to take off the cardboard, leaving me with a handful of icing covered in waxed paper. I gently centered my icing disk onto the cake and removed my hand.
Now for the tricky part; removing the waxed paper. This is where Elvis had refused to leave the building on my earlier attempt. I took a moment, quieted my mind and entered a zen-like state. I would like to tell you that I grabbed one corner and peeled that sucker off like someone pulling the tablecloth out from under a place setting for 12. What actually happened was that I grabbed one corner with extreme trepidation and tugged oh so gingerly and watched with startled amazement as it pulled free with no impediment. I do wish I had done it with a bit more flair, though. Maybe next time.
To make a long, boring post even longer, I managed to add a border around the top and bottom of the cake and pack it up for delivery.
I took it to the restaurant where we were celebrating the Mangler's birthday. I almost had a stroke when one of the servers started to walk out with it, to cut it, before anyone had even SEEN it. Mercifully, my agitated shrieking stayed his course, and we were all able to stare down at it's unmolested state.
So, here it is.
For those of you not from Louisiana, this is the "eye of the tiger" that LSU paints in the center of their football field. The Mangler is a huge LSU fan. (The colors are purple and gold, but the restaurant was quite dark.)
Hope the pics are worth the 73 pages of rambling prose!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Aloha, Mistress Badtrip
My friend, Mistress Badtrip, is moving to Hawaii. I know, I know, what a hardship.
Fortunately, she was to attend one last meeting here in Atlanta before flying off to live perched on the side of some volcanic vomit in the middle of NOTHING.
I can hear you asking, 'Why is she called "Mistress Badtrip"?' The story shall not pass my lips, but I can tell you that she earned it once and lives up to it on an almost daily basis.
I picked up MBT on Friday night, and we met some Atlanta friends for dinner at Shaun's. Let me just say, oh, my, god. So good! There was a watermelon and goat cheese salad with a balsamic vinaigrette on a bed of microgreens that made me practically stab the Lizard in the hand. The frites part of my steak frites were fried in duck fat (?!?!!!!) and were OUTSTANDING. My mouth is watering a little while I am typing this. I am looking for an excuse to go back again, so drop me a line...
Naturally, MBT and I went shopping and then met up with some of her coworkers at JCT Kitchen. They were looking for "Southern food", so I took them there and force fed them collard greens and some of the best fried chicken I have ever had! The service was a bit iffy (they seemed short of bus staff), but the food was delicious. I had herb roasted chicken, served over roasted fingerling potatoes with roasted dates. It was a fabulous combination of sweet and savory. The true star was the dessert that I ordered; gingerbread bread pudding served with a scoop of lemon curd ice cream. I almost cried when my plate was empty. I am toying with how to do the gingerbread bread pudding in my mind. Hopefully, the recipe will spring from my head fully formed.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea; we did do things other than stuff our gullets. We managed to carve out a few hours to waddle over to the new World of Coke. It opened about a month ago, to reports that they spent almost $100 million on the facility. I have to say that I never thought I would spend almost three hours in a product "museum", and that I seem to like the Central/South American Coke products the best.
I cooked dinner for 10 on Sunday night, and managed to burn my fingers pretty severely. I have completely recovered, but I was wearing latex gloves with aloe gel squirted into the fingers for several days. It looked peculiar, and my hands got amazingly pruny and white (think bloated corpse pulled from a body of water).
Fortunately, I had finished MBT's cake prior to the incident. I don't think I could have done the work with burned fingers.
Here they are:
I have long been fascinated by the Barbie doll cakes, and was looking for any excuse to make one. When MBT requested a chocolate cake, I had a flash of brilliance.
The skirt was baked in a small mixing bowl and one "normal" layer.
I trimmed the layer to match the edge of the bowl cake and iced.
The doll is not really a whole doll, just a torso on a stick. Totally disturbing.
I made a bunch of the royal icing flowers (similar to weird blue/purple ones in an earlier post), but on a much smaller scale. Each flower on the cake is smaller than the end of a pencil eraser. I also wrote "aloha" and MBT's name in royal icing about 10 times. I broke most of them, trying to pick them up, but did end up with one good "aloha" for her hands.
Please note that I am not posting the pictures of the fight over the doll stick thing, or the subsequent icing licking.
Fortunately, she was to attend one last meeting here in Atlanta before flying off to live perched on the side of some volcanic vomit in the middle of NOTHING.
I can hear you asking, 'Why is she called "Mistress Badtrip"?' The story shall not pass my lips, but I can tell you that she earned it once and lives up to it on an almost daily basis.
I picked up MBT on Friday night, and we met some Atlanta friends for dinner at Shaun's. Let me just say, oh, my, god. So good! There was a watermelon and goat cheese salad with a balsamic vinaigrette on a bed of microgreens that made me practically stab the Lizard in the hand. The frites part of my steak frites were fried in duck fat (?!?!!!!) and were OUTSTANDING. My mouth is watering a little while I am typing this. I am looking for an excuse to go back again, so drop me a line...
Naturally, MBT and I went shopping and then met up with some of her coworkers at JCT Kitchen. They were looking for "Southern food", so I took them there and force fed them collard greens and some of the best fried chicken I have ever had! The service was a bit iffy (they seemed short of bus staff), but the food was delicious. I had herb roasted chicken, served over roasted fingerling potatoes with roasted dates. It was a fabulous combination of sweet and savory. The true star was the dessert that I ordered; gingerbread bread pudding served with a scoop of lemon curd ice cream. I almost cried when my plate was empty. I am toying with how to do the gingerbread bread pudding in my mind. Hopefully, the recipe will spring from my head fully formed.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea; we did do things other than stuff our gullets. We managed to carve out a few hours to waddle over to the new World of Coke. It opened about a month ago, to reports that they spent almost $100 million on the facility. I have to say that I never thought I would spend almost three hours in a product "museum", and that I seem to like the Central/South American Coke products the best.
I cooked dinner for 10 on Sunday night, and managed to burn my fingers pretty severely. I have completely recovered, but I was wearing latex gloves with aloe gel squirted into the fingers for several days. It looked peculiar, and my hands got amazingly pruny and white (think bloated corpse pulled from a body of water).
Fortunately, I had finished MBT's cake prior to the incident. I don't think I could have done the work with burned fingers.
Here they are:
I have long been fascinated by the Barbie doll cakes, and was looking for any excuse to make one. When MBT requested a chocolate cake, I had a flash of brilliance.
The skirt was baked in a small mixing bowl and one "normal" layer.
I trimmed the layer to match the edge of the bowl cake and iced.
The doll is not really a whole doll, just a torso on a stick. Totally disturbing.
I made a bunch of the royal icing flowers (similar to weird blue/purple ones in an earlier post), but on a much smaller scale. Each flower on the cake is smaller than the end of a pencil eraser. I also wrote "aloha" and MBT's name in royal icing about 10 times. I broke most of them, trying to pick them up, but did end up with one good "aloha" for her hands.
Please note that I am not posting the pictures of the fight over the doll stick thing, or the subsequent icing licking.
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