It's been a while since my last post (why does that feel like I'm in confession?) Ron and I had a quiet Christmas & New Years, as I was suffering from a head cold. (Classic, two long weekends and I'm sick!) Ah, well, at least I could rest. The house is already de-Christmased (if I can use such a word) and we're back in the throws of regular life. I have a stash of pictures from our Christmas and New Year dinners. Our down the way neighbours, Vicki and Preston brought us some lovely treats (including snow crab legs) so we've had a couple lovely feasts:
 |
| 6lb of lobster for $25 - at Christmas! |
 |
| No trick shot, that's how big his claw was! |
 |
| New Years Tapas - thanks for the chestnuts Vickie! |
 |
| We ate crab until we exploded! |
It was over the holidays that another friend called and asked whether I would make a cake for her daughter's birthday & being a glutton for punishment, I said yes. You know the phrase "use it or lose it?" It applies to cake making. I had problems with the butter cream icing, the first batch of strawberry cake failed, I ran out of supplies the second batch of strawberry cake didn't want to co-operate when it came to cutting and shaping it. The cake board wasn't quite big enough, so I only had room for three turrets, I almost ran out of filling, but because I was short on butter cream (due to whatever the issue was when I made it) the top tier of the cake only had three layers, instead of the planned four. I ran out of purple fondant. (I do have to say that the fondant turned out perfectly - thank heavens!) I drove Ron nuts with "this isn't working" and "that isn't working"..."what am I going to do?" There were many bad words thrown around (at the cake, not at myself or Ron - he kept a civil tongue and just cleared out of the kitchen when I was having a melt down.) All that being said here is the final result.
 |
| Front - obviously... |
 |
| Draw bridge |
 |
| Straight on from the front |
 |
| During construction...just to prove I did make it! Hard to believe that it turns into the finished product, eh?) |
That might be it for cake making...I don't know if I can take the stress and I'm pretty sure Ron may want to kill me because of all the drama involved. (One could call it creative spirit, but no, it's really just utter panic.) I get less stressed the more frequently I make cakes, so these long intervals in between make it difficult, and so does all the time I put in to it. This cake probably took me somewhere around 15 hours or so (maybe even 20...I can't begin to guess), even with Ron helping with decorating and production. I keep thinking there must be a better way. Well, that's all for the time being. Be well, miss you all!
It looks beautiful. And as a fairly experienced cake maker - you did a fabulous job! The last castle I made was nowhere near as good - but, of course, Lucas was 'helping' a lot; and he was about 10 at the time. Love Collette
ReplyDelete