Checking in

This home schooling gig is kicking my booty.  I realized that I haven't blogged for two weeks, and yet there were several things I wanted to blog about.  The first is my foray into the world of fondant cakes.  My friend Sarah gave me a oh-so-simple recipe for marshmallow fondant, and the cub scouts were having their annual cake sale to raise money for day camp.  Since I was obligated to bring two cakes (one for each scout), we all decided this would be a great time to try out fondant decorating.  I made a grand mess....

...but I had happy boys in the end.  We looked online for cake designs.  Dylan wanted a lego cake, modeled after a much larger and more elaborate wedding cake that we had seen on Cake Wrecks.  For Ethan's I decided we needed a lucky green cake.  (The cake sale was way back on the 9th of March.  Yeah, I've been out of touch for awhile.)

This is a close-up of Dylan's cake.  He did the lettering himself.  We used rice crispy treats to shape the top notches and the pot of gold below.  I know it's not perfect.  It doesn't look near as good as the ones Joanna does for her girls' birthdays, but I'm hoping by the time we get to birthdays, I will have the technique down.

And, here is our pot of gold cake.  I learned that the fondant lightens as you work it into a dough, so neither of my colors were vivid enough.  Plus, the black was from a different kind of food coloring, and I can really tell the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff.  I think I will be buying the good stuff soon.

I also decided that I need to buy myself some new cake pans.  I used spring form pans for the pot of gold cake, but the lego cake we just put in a 9 x 13 and cut it.  It wasn't quite even. 

The best thing about this was that the process was easy enough for the kids to be involved.  They helped cut out the designs and stick them to the cakes.  Mazie helped Sarah form all the little balls and stick them on.  I am so looking forward to to making a girly cake and maybe a Father's day cake.  That is, if we ever finish kindergarten, second grade and fourth grade. :)