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Jungle Cake and thanksgiving :)

So back in September i made this amazing three tier cake for a little boy that was turning 1 years old. His room theme was a jungle animal theme, so i decided to make him a Jungle cake :)

I was very excited about the outcome :) it was the first time for me to form figures and accents with gum paste. After squeezing a ball of gum paste in my hand i just decided to treat it like play-doh and it turned out so easy and fun to work with.

Here are some close ups of the cake:

and here is the final product:

Two more cakes that i have recently made was for thanksgiving. The first is a deluxe carrot cake with pineapple chunks, walnuts and raisins in it. It was covered and filled with  cream cheese icing and decorated with gum paste leaves.

The second one is my all time new favorite cake. It is a chocolate fudge cake filled with a sweet ricotta frosting and topped with a chocolate glaze and walnuts. YUM!!!!

 

WAY TO LONG and here is an old cake from April!!!

So, Since Last December a lot has happened:

1. IT was CHRISTMAS :)

2. In January my Husband and I went to Cancun Mexico. Thanks to Him do amazing at his Job they gave us a free deluxe vacation :) 

3. In February we moved From Fishers, IN to Lawrenceburg, IN.

4. IN March Stephen went back to Mexico for a Missions trip with HOMES OF HOPE

5. Also, in March Grace and I flew to AZ to be with my sister Malyssa as she got married to my now brother-in-law Chris Cleveland. In this time a very unusual and jet amazing thing happened. This was the first time since my brother's wedding in 2003 that we all had been together.

5. My little Rebekah Grace turned 5!!!! We celebrated with us going to Steak n Shake and Golden Corral (this kid likes food) In the picture the girls are wearing the dresses that their daddy brought back from his missions trip to Mexico.

Oh and I did make a cake :) A ladybug cake. And my hubby helped me decorate the grass and create the antennas :) It was fun!!!

6. I had a baby!!! May 23, 2011 God blessed us with a wonderful baby boy Micah Stephen Hornback.

We can not be any happier with our kids. Every one of them are truly a miracle. Micah was born 6lb 9oz and 19 inches long.  Here is a picture of Micah and I right after they pulled him out :)

7. My parents visited :) During the time of Micah's birth and recovery stages my parents came and visited us :) It was so great having them here. The girls threw through themselves all over them hehe.

8. We MOVED AGAIN!!! the beginning of July We moved from Lawrenceburg, IN to Fairfield OH to be closer to the church and Stephen's work place. We now live in a house and we love it :)

9. Oh and did I mention that we also became the Children's Pastors at Towne Worship Center? We have the privilege to be serve over 100+ kidz every Sunday. God is so good. See the picture? that is Stephen and I as "teacher" and "faith man" :)

10. Grace Started Kindergarten This Week!!! what a big girl!!!

So as you can see, I have been a little busy. Just a little. Usually this blog is not filled with all this non creative topics, but hey, i had a lot of catching up to do. More cakes to come soon :)

what i worked on today

Snowflake Wishes Noir Holiday

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Monster ice chest

So this is an interesting creation:

AN ICE CHEST WITH MONSTER CANS

Just want to give heads up that the cans are not edible. They were actual Monster energy drink cans cut in half. But the rest is, eve the "ice" and from what i heard, it was yummy.

This cake was designed for a Young lady that loves monster energy drink. She just celebrated her 16th Birthday :)

Hamburger Cake and Fries

So a boy at youth had his birthday and I thought hard what kind of a "manly and cool" cake i could make. And since all teenage boys are obsessed with food I made an 8 inch Hamburger and fries:

Buns were made with vanilla yellow cake, hamburger was made with chocolate cake and the lettuce, tomatoes and cheese was fondant. then i made yellow, red and light brown icing to cover the bun, make ketchup and spray mustard on the burger. 

The fries are cake hehe.

So fun, so different and so not savory.

Cow Cake

I made this cake for my 2 year old daughters Birthday. Her favorite cuddly animal at that point was a cow beanie baby. So, being the silly mom that I am I decided to make her a replica for her cake out of fondant :)

I placed it on a 3 layer carrot cake filled with cream cheese icing that had been decorated with green cheese icing and here you have it: The cutest cake in the world :)

Her face was priceless when she walked into the room and saw the cake. she ran and grabbed her cow beanie immediately and kept looking at her cow and then the cake and bake to her cow, saying "COW" over and cover again. So Cute!!!

Guitar Cake

This was a cake that I made for my father-in-laws birthday in July.
It was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. 

It was yum, but it was also fun to make. The Strings were white icing and the knobs and frets were chocolate fondant. 

My first guitar creation and being left handed I made the guitar for a left handed person, but oh well, It was not for playing but for eating hehe. 

Eiffel Tower Cake

So, here it is, my first 3D royal icing creation. 

 

And where best to put it then on top of a dark chocolate fudge cake filled with dark chocolate fudge frosting?

The Eiffel Tower and letters were created out of royal icing and left to dry. After filling, icing and decorating a 3 layer 6-inch cake I chilled it for 15 minutes before placing the letters and Eiffel tower on the cake.

Love, love, love the result!!!

 

Flip flop cake

I made this cake for a 3 year old shoe fanatic :) 

I figured that since her party was a luau and she loved shoes this would be the most fitting choice. 

I created a purple vanilla sheet cake with vanilla icing and covered it with icing and graham crackers. The flip flops were cake decorated with vanilla icing, sprinkles, m&ms, and fondant for the straps. 

It was so much fun making this, it definitely brought the kid out in me :) 

Enjoy the view!!!

HAPPY CAKES

Chocolate yum Cake

Here is my newest cake: Dark chocolate and marble layer cake with dark chocolate filling and milk chocolate icing. Long title i know. Actually its simply Kerri's cake. why? because it was a cake i made for my pastors wife Kerri for her birthday.
It was a practice for me to work with royal icing again, and it was a bit of a challenge, but i managed and got lots of yum sounds from people when the ate it. Well, i mean, who would not say yum to chocolate?


Even though it is a crazy contrast i choose pink for the royal icing because i knew that pastor Kerri likes pink flowers. In case anyone was wondering hehe
So here it is:

Wedding cupcake hearts

I was looking through my photos of cakes i have made and i realized that i hadn't posted these cupcakes yet. :(


I made these over a year ago for some very special friends of mine, Vasek and Kristina,  that got married January 2009. I made vanilla cupcakes with purple buttercream swirls topped with homemade royal icing hearts. I loved making the hearts. It was the first time for me to work with royal icing. It amazed me how easy it is to make something so pretty so quickly; and while jet-lagging hehe. I made them 1 day after returning to the Czech Republic from the USA. The only thing that would have made it nice is the constancy of the icing (confectioners sugar is so different in CZ) and nice cup liners for the cupcakes.
I am actually preparing another project right now that will have royal icing and so this post is very fitting :).


Here are two samples of the hearts i made. Every heart was unique :)

"Feeding 4 under $5 - in a healthy way" Episode 1

So, what is this all about?
I was looking around and saw all these articles on the internet, in magazines and in fliers i got giving American moms advice on how to feed your family for as little money as possible. Except, most of the foods that were suggested were foods like mac and cheese, hot dogs, pasta and sauce from a jar. And so i thought to myself, how much do i on average spend on a meal for us? And i can to the conclusion that it normally is right around $5. This is not including the condiments in that price and when i add things up i consider if i used the whole pack of something or only half when calculating the meal price, but still; feeding 4 for under$5 is a great accomplishment.

So here is my first recipe:

Roasted chicken thighs, carrots and caprese
Cost: $4.50

Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs ~ $2.00
1/2lb of carrots ~ $0.50
4 roma tomatoes ~ $1.00
4 slices of mozzarella cheese ~ $1.00 (pack of cheese is around $2.50 with 10 slices so 2.50/10x4=$1.00)

1 tsp basil
4 tsp olive oil
salt
pepper
1 tbs butter
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp favorite seasoning

How to: PreHeat oven to 400F. rub 2 tsp of olive oil all over chicken thighs. Place on backing tray and season with favorite seasoning and thyme. Place in oven on middle wrack for 45 minutes.
Cut carrots length wise in half. Then cut in to 1 inch pieces. place in pot and add water so it comes about 1 1/2inch up from pot bottom. add a bit of salt. Cover and cook on medium head for 30 minuted till tender. Check in between that there is enough water so you don't burn the carrots. Once done mix in the butter and serve.
While carrots are cooking slice tomatoes and place on an 8 inch cake pan. Arrange them so that they dont overlap. sprinkle with 2 tsp of olive oil and the basil and add a pinch of salt and pepper as well. tear slices of cheese and lay them on top of the tomatoes. Put them in the oven with the chicken and let them roast for about 15 minutes.
If timed right, the chicken, carrots and tomatoes will be done at the same time. :)

SO where is the pasta or rice? Carrots have carbs in them. So adding them to the meal makes up for the pasta or rice. You have the protein in the chicken, dairy in the cheese and then the tomatoes: you have never had tomatoes like these. the acidity is gone and all you have is a yumminess that melts in your mouth.

This is child tested and they loved it!!!

Sorry that i Don't have a picture. Will add it when i make it again. Made this last week and thought of the 4 under $5 thing while eating it and by then the plate did not look so nice.
Enjoy!!!!

Chocolate Chip Smile

So i realized that i never posted the cake i made on Gracie's Birthday. I showed you the one that i made for her party, but not the "Chocolate Chip Smile" as she called it.


As most kids, Grace loves cookies. So i made a gigantic chocolate chip/m&m cake for her. Oh and the smile on her face when she realized that she was eating a giant cookie :)


For all you moms out there that are thinking "my kid (or husband) would love this" here is the recipe:
mm-chocolate-chip-cookie-cake recipe


The only thing i would suggest is to reduce it to
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
because it turned out rather sweet.


I doubled the recipe and put icing in between. Be aware, it is deceiving how much it serves. We ate this cake for 4 or more days.


So, and here are the pictures of the cake:

Gracies Super Why Birthday Cake

I proud to announce that as of April 8th, 2010 i am a mother of a 4 year old!!! WOW i can't believe that my little Grace is already 4 years old. Time flies so quickly!!!

Anyway, enough reminiscing. This is not a sappy blog, this is a baking and cooking blog so stop already.

So my daughter decided this year that she wanted a SUPER WHY party.

I had no clue what to do since not much deco exists yet. So i started researching and letting my imagination go wild. I had to lean the character and figure out what kind of cake to make. Grace requested to make a WONDER RED cake and i was like "no way"  there was no way i was that advanced to do that. So i moved on to another option. I was gonna use the Book Club approach of SUPER WHY and create two books stacked on top of each other. 

Even though i could not give myself a 5 stars for it i think i was very pleased with my attempt and I was very happy with my daughters response. 

So here it is: 

The blue book was carrot cake filled with butter cream icing and covered in vanilla fondant from Satin ice. The Brown book was chocolate cake filled with fudge chocolate icing and covered with chocolate and vanilla fondant from Satin ice.

Here are some pictures of the actual party deco and of my lovely Grace dressed up as WONDE RED:

Love you my dear Grace!!! 

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY!!!

CROCK POT CREATION: pork and mushroom yumminess

So the other day i made this pork and mushroom yumminess and i need your advise.

I made it and thought it was oh so good, but my husband just thought it was  "OK". Us ladies in the house (which consists of a 25, almost 4 and 1 1/2 year old) thought it was a yummy dish that made our palettes melt. 

This is how i need your help: Cook the meal at home and tell me what you think. It's that easy and so is the recipe:
Prep time: 25 minutes, Cooking time: 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high, plus 15 minutes on high on the end. Makes 4 servings.


Ingredients: 
1 1/2 lb boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 tablespoon cooking oil
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 (14oz) can chopped tomatoes
1 cup water
1 teaspoon dried marjoram 
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoon  instant beef bouillon granulates
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/3 cup cold water
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups of hot rice or your choice pasta

1. In a large pan brown meat half at a time in hot oil. Drain off fat. 
2. In slow cooker place mushrooms, onion, and meet. 
3. In a bowl combine tomatoes, 1 cup water, marjoram, thyme, bouillon granulates, salt and pepper.
4. Pour into crock pot. 
5. Cover, cook on low heat setting for 8-10 hours or on high heat setting 4-5 hours. 
6. After cooking desired time: Mix 1/2 cup cold water and flour in glass and pour into crock pot. Stir together. 
8. Turn crock pot to high heat setting and cook another 15 minutes.
9. Serve over hot rice or pasta.

Let me know what you think :) be as brutally honest as possible.

long time no bake

Ok so i have not posted in a while.
Here is a little update of my life: As of October 29th i am a USA residence. Getting used to life here in the USA did not exactly provide me with lots of time to bake. One of the problems is that a lot of my baking tools and my baking pantry needs to be restocked. So when i get fully settled and make friends that trust me with my creations then i can start blogging about cakes again. Until then, I might just write a few entry's about cooking in America. That on its own has shown to be a challenge. All kinds of new ingredients and temperatures to cook with. So bare with me until i got my kitchen together.


If you would like to help me get my kitchen set up so that you can see more of my blogs click here. Thanks!!!

And thanks for your patients,


Charity

Little Miss Hello Kitty

The summer kept me busy. There were many birthdays and events so i got to learn and try a lot of new techniques. So ended up worth showing and others i am afraid the "CAKE WRECK" lady might write about me. So i decided to only post the good ones.
Little Miss Sophie, also known as my niece, turned 4 the end of August and so i had the privilege to make her birthday cake. Totally obsessed with anything that has Hello Kitty on it, there was no other option than to make her birthday a Hello Kitty theme.
using my daughter to pick the design i showed her 5 cakes i had chosen and she picked the winner.

Never having done this kind of icing technique, i was nervous and excited at the same time. On the end i was excited the my sis-in-law was able to find the exact figures to place on top.
This time, to save time, i cheated and used funfetti cake mix. For the icing i used partly store bought icing and partly home made Decorators butter cream icing.
I have to say, that using a professional pipping bag really made a huge difference. it helped me have a lot more control as well as cut the time it took to decorate in half.


I was so happy about the result. Here it is :