spoolsisters

Ok – so we got slammed with about 25″ of snow. And this is totally not normal for where we live! But we were prepared… to make lots of food! I had 2 cake jobs cancel (thankfully!) so I had plenty of time to play in the snow and make lots of treats. So I hope to post on all the fun creations we made. I’ll come back with  more details but until then – you can see picts on flickr (the little box on the left will take you there). Here are just a few highlights:

Be back soon!

I know. Even the title of this post is too busy. But believe me, the cake wasn’t that bad. I did avoid the other 4 or 5 suggestions the mom had for this cake, so for that, I am proud!

As you can see from the picture, this is a 30th birthday cake. It was created to feed 100 people and to be in the shape of a barrel keg. The birthday boy loves Dogfish Head (which you should too and if you haven’t tried it – I highly suggest you do!)

He is a University of Delaware graduate as well so that is where YouDee comes in.

This was a fun cake to create and had a mix of fondant, icing, and edible pens to make the final product. Even YouDee gave it a thumbs up!

Last weekend, Tracy came to visit and, among other things, we had to make time to shop for some upcoming projects. I decided I need to recover the glider for the new baby’s room and that involved shopping for acceptable fabric. We found some cute green ticking that should go great in the room and still be classy when not used for little babies!

While at the designer fabric store we came across some fabric sample books that were no longer being used. The styles were probably discontinued, updated, or otherwise no longer needed.

I asked about the price with my big baby belly poking out and the sales lady said “$1.” Needless to say, we stocked up. We ended up with four but that will last us through many fun projects!

To prep the fabric for said projects, we had to first remove the fabric from the binder (Tracy had fun ripping them apart!)

Then we removed the sticky labels from the back of each one. For that task, we decided on soaking in lukewarm water:

Once they were wet enough, we were able to pull the labels off fairly cleanly. We were also multi-tasking by adding some laundry soap and cleaning the pieces of fabric.

After we felt like they were clean and no longer sticky, we hung them on a drying rack to dry:

Now what are we doing with these fabric samples? Well, we have a few ideas up our sleeves. One, I want to make fabric baby blocks. The different textures will make it look fun and is great for young kids. (I’ve actually already made one so I’ll post that soon!) We’re also thinking about doing some taggie fabric books as well. Any more ideas for uses for this fabric??? We’d love to hear them!

This dessert is not one you make when you are trying to impress your friends. Instead, it’s one you make for family – or just for yourself when you want something yummy and easy. The great thing about it is that, if you’re like me, you just might have all the ingredients to make it in your house!

I just happened to have a sample pack of Oreos (6 cookies), some french vanilla jello, some butter, milk and a chocolate bar. What I made can only be called: perfection. Or at least, delicious enough for seconds!

To make the crust, food process the 6 Oreos (or more if you have them – I think 10 or 12 would have made a nice thick crust!). Add a little melted butter (1 T or 2) and press it into the bottom of a pie plate.

Make your jello according to the instructions on the side of the box. It will start to solidify right away. pour it on top of your Oreo crust and refrigerate for about an hour. When you’re ready to serve, shave the chocolate bar into pretty little shavings on top of the pie. Cut. Serve. Eat.

Yum!

The second Superhero cake I made was a Batman Cake. I have a feeling a similar cake will have to be made one day for my own son!

The cake was Vanilla with Strawberry Cream filling. It was iced and covered with yellow fondant. To get the right color, I used some premixed yellow fondant and added a lot of white. It worked well with just a small amount of yellow fondant to cover the entire 10″ round cake!

The batman logo and buildings are also fondant. I traced the logo off of a license plate my husband owns onto some parchment. I then used the parchment as a stencil to cut out the bat signal. The buildings were all irregular sizes and the windows were individually “glued” on with icing.

I used the gray icing from the Spiderman cake for the writing. Voila! Two superhero cakes and, hopefully, two happy birthday boys!