The Bailey Chronicles

I did a cake for a friend's son's 6th birthday this weekend.  I had a lot of fun focusing my creative energy on this new project.  I really love how this one turned out, and have already had 3 new inquiries about Mario cakes for this month!  Enjoy!

Aside from playing with Bailey and helping her learn the valuable lessons in life such as the dog goes woof woof and the duck goes quack quack, I have been keeping pretty busy.  

Bree and I had several busy weekends with baby shower cakes, wedding cakes and birthdays.  I also started going to a cooking class, I think I mentioned that in an earlier post.  It's been lots of fun to bring friends to, to cook and drink and be silly, a good night out away from family life.  

I have done some painting classes that are also a great girls night out, bring your own wine and they supply the rest.  John and I have cooked out several times with friends and family and gone to several cook outs. I take Bailey to the pool with her cousins and her Aunt Candi.  She loves the pool!  

I was so close to enrolling in Le Cordon Bleu culinary school for baking and pastry but sadly classes filled up too fast.  I did my interview and testing, which proudly I scored almost perfect scores on all three sections, I thought for sure I would have failed the math section.  To my surprise they offered to hire me in as a tutor, didn't see that one coming.  I will aim to start in February if life permits me to.  In the mean time I am trying to research scholarships to get some of the costs cut down, it would sure make it easier!  So yeah if you know anybody that is in tune with scholarships and free college money let me know, I am in the market!  The whole Mommy's go back to school thing only applies to single mom's struggling to make ends meet, very strict salary restrictions... but I know their is a ton of free money out there for school I am just having trouble locating it.   

and then speaking of school, I had my ten year high school reunion last weekend.  Wow really??  Am I that old?  I don't feel that old, but half the people that I reconnect with are starting to look aged, which makes me wonder what I must look like through other people's eyes.  All mommied out and kinda tired.  yeah, I probably do look a little old.  Oh well, I can't complain, life has been pretty good to me lately.  It took me ten years to find a real passion... there are lots of things that interest me but I think I really enjoy this.  I just got finished this last weekend with doing mini cakes for Barbara's bridal shower.  I did 20 of them, as my own personal project and contribution to the shower planning.  I also created the cupcake stand that they are displayed on.  It was a fairly easy DIY project.  I bought a couple of styrofoam disks from Michaels, some vintage scrapbook paper, a cheap charger and a couple of cheap vases, and a can of glossy spray paint.  Covered the styrofoam in the scrapbook paper, spray painted the charger and lined it with scrapbook paper, and spray painted the vases.  Then assembled with hot glue.  Easy and cute, cost about $25 in supplies, the priciest part being the styrofoam.  

I put in a ton of time on these mini cakes!  OMG I couldn't believe how long these took me!  I did the flowers and bows ahead of time, they needed to dry.  I figured the dots and monograms would be pretty simple and that the hardest part would be covering them in fondant.  Luckily it was good fondant weather, a cold front had come in so it wasn't all hot and humid Texas summer weather like usual which can cause the fondant to tear or get air bubbles and make you want to throw your cake on the ground after several failed attempts.  No it was great weather, the fondant went on easy and smooth, no tears or re-dos.  It was the crumb coating and buttercreaming that was the real nightmare.  I did two flavors, pink champagne and red velvet.  The pink champagne was pretty cooperable, it was the red velvet that chose to hate me.  I don't have a mini cake pan, cupcake pans have a slope so that doesn't give it the nice straight edge, I had to use a sheet pan and then cut the cakes out with biscuit cutters.  Since they were cut out the sides were all crumbly which made it impossible to crumb coat.  I had to do everything in many cycles, with freezing the cakes in order for them to be stiff enough to crumb coat* and not fall completely apart (thankfully that didn't happen because I had just enough for 10 cakes in each batch and needed to make 20 total), freezing them again in order to buttercream them so they wouldn't look all lumpy, and then hot knifing** them to smooth out the surface... and then rolling out fondant and covering, and finally I could decorate and dust in gold luster dust for a sparkly satin look. It was indeed quite a process.  No real difficulties except with crumb coating of the red velvet, but definitely quite a process.  I was surprised that they ended up using twice the amount of icing and twice the amount of fondant than I originally thought they would need.  But after all was said and done, I still love the mini cake.  They make for a really cute display.  However I have a better idea now after the whole process of how much supplies they actually use and how time consuming they are even with a simple design.  

Saturday John said his goodbyes to working inside of a Best Buy store and is now officially District staff!  One of the perks to being a District Staff member is that he no longer works 10 hour days, he's back to 8 or 9 hours DAY time shifts Mon-Fri.  Sooo weird when you have been in the land of retail your whole life!  Bonus his first Sunday off happened to be on Father's Day.  Bailey and I got him a Dallas Cowboy's helmet for our ubber fan.  I feel that this is some what of a pointless gift because I don't know what he's really going to do with it, but he's been talking about having one for a long time so it made him incredibly happy and that's what is important.  Bailey colored in his card and helped me sign her name, and then walked over to him that morning handing him his sweet card. My Mother's Day card, however, is still unsigned and unrecorded sitting on a counter some where that slacker lol!!  Later that day we met the Carminatis, and Nanny and Poppy for dinner at Chuys.  I made an Italian Cream Cake for dessert and brought it with us to the restaurant.  I don't know if that's weird, but I have delivered several cakes to restaurants for our business and seeing as how it was a holiday I figured it would be cool, we also shared some with the waitress and a fellow cake enthusiast waiter.

John started his new job on Monday and is absolutely loving it!  I think it is exactly what he needed to rejuvenate himself, because it's all he can talk about.  I am so happy that he is coming home so amped up about his job... and I love that he is home normal hours to play with us!  It's like your first week of school how excited you get about your friends being in your new classes and your teachers and everything is a new start.  It's made our evenings way more enjoyable and we are both feeling rather blessed at this moment in our lives!

My birthday was on Wednesday and my sweet hubby was on his A game.  He brought home some beautiful red Painter's Roses, maybe a dozen or so stems.  I have never seen a Painter's rose before so for those of you unfamiliar with them like myself they are fantastically stripey and totally unique to anything I've ever seen before.  He also had a card from him and a card from Bailey which she signed and colored and brought to me :D  We went out to Kobe's Steak House meeting up with some friends and the Carminatis for some hibachi action.  Candi made me a custom crib skirt for Bailey's room and her very first toddler pillow!!!  So cute!  Now I need to get curtains and I'll photograph her finished room!  

I had so much fun on my birthday that I have decided that it should go on for a full week.  I asked John if he was cool with this and he agreed.  Ok so I might of asked him when he was all sleepy and full from hibachi, but he agreed so I am sticking with this idea.  The next day Candi and I snuck off for a girl's night.  My PIC (partner in crime) from High School, Sarah, has an older brother Craig.  Craig has been a lot of fun to hang out with for years, but it was only through Facebook that I realized he was in the same class as Candi and that they actually knew each other.  He hosts a cooking class every two weeks, so we thought it would be fun to take a class from him since we both know him.  We had a great time letting him cook us some yummy food and drinking all night without having to take care of children or do dishes and such.  We will be doing this again for sure, and hopefully bringing some friends with us for future classes!  I know a lot of Mommy's out there dying for a break from time to time!  And as a reward to John for being such a great hubby I fixed him the meal I learned for tonight's dinner so we all win. 

Bailey has been a little hooligan lately.  She searches for pens, crayons, markers, etc in drawers and then uses them to color on the walls and door ways.  ROTTEN!  I have to keep a close eye on her, she's a sneaky little ninja!  She destroys the house if I get on the phone or the computer, much like a puppy would do the minute you leave home.  I know it's to get my attention but I am not really sure if I should be putting her in time out for it or trying harder to keep her entertained.  She is also trying to get more and more independence, so I've been letting her feed herself scary things like yogurt and purees in addition to her regular finger foods with her very own big girl toddler forks and spoons.  She is usually covered in her meal when she is done, but it makes her so happy to do it herself.  She is such a happy girl all smiles and giggles and hugs and kisses about 90% of the time.  The other 10% is the occasional toddler outburst or pout but at least she's easy to distract and make happy again.

A few of our favorite shows to watch after B goes to bed for the night are True Blood, Dexter, and Big love on HBO and Showtime.  John and I get so excited when a new season launches for any of those three series, and it becomes a weekend ritual for us try and get B down for bed early so we can eat dinner together and watch what crazy plot twist happens next.  True Blood finally started back up this Sunday with it's season 3 premiere and we couldn't have been more excited about it.  Candi and I were supposed to get together earlier that week but something came up and she had to cancel so she had the idea of doing a True Blood party at my house and the kids could play in the back bedrooms while we viewed.  I found this as a great excuse to do some True Blood cupcakes and as I was looking online to get some inspiration for cupcake toppers I not only found cupcake ideas but also found a design that would make a cool graphic cake so then I was sucked in and fully committed to doing both.  Seems like too much dessert, nah who am I kidding?  It would make the kids very happy to have so much cake to munch on!  And then I was sneaky enough to send most of it home with the Carminati's so I wouldn't completely fall off my diet LOL I might have sabotaged Candi's though!  Now we had a theme going and I had to see it through to the end.

What dinner should be served at a True Blood party you ask??  Cajun of course, since it is set in Louisiana!  I remembered Bree talking about her amazing Jambalaya recipe, perfect!  It was soooo amazing, and fragrant and delicious!  This recipe made a JUMBO pot of Jambalaya and everyone gobbled it down so fast that there was really only one bowl left for lunch the following day, definitely a keeper!!  I found some Zapps Voodoo gumbo chips at the store for appetizers and some battered green beans that I served with spicy ranch.  Candi brought a blood red home made Sangria (sooo good!!  tasted like an alcoholic fruit punch!).  All of this for True Blood hahaha!!  It was lots of fun, the premiere was awesome, and the food rocked!  I would definitely do all of this again for next season!  If I had had the time I would have got some cheap party decor to dress the kitchen up as Merlotte's Bar and Grill and the naughty drink and dessert bar as Fangtasia, but I had a lot I was trying to squeeze in in one weekend with real clients and all.  

Summer has been so incredibly busy for Bree and I!  We were totally booked up through May and June, and our July is filling up fast with some big weddings and several tastings!  Sorry if I have a hard time keeping up with the blog this summer, I will do my best not to neglect it!  But it can be hard to juggle late night cakes with early morning momminess and taking care of the house and the hubby and squeezing in some work outs.  It's all so great though!  Loving the buzz!

Today was the last day of school for my niece and nephew.  Bailey and I went up to Bella's school to watch their talent show.  It was adorable, and some where very talented with the dancing WOW!  And some were a little brutal with the singing and the instrument playing, but in all fairness it is quite scary to get up in front of such a large auditorium of parents and students to perform.  I think I wouldn't have been able to do it, especially not at that age!  Bella and her little buddy Caleb, who is totally adorable, did a short poem about a brother and sister box.  I am unfamiliar with this story so I couldn't tell you what it is from, you'd have to ask her or Candi.  Bailey was great the whole time and was absolutely delighted to see Bella.  She just loves her so much!  

Afterwords Bailey stayed with her cousins and her Aunt while I headed off to do a cake with Bree for a friend's baby shower.  She will be having a boy and did her nursery in a monkey theme so we did the most adorable monkey cake to match.  My bf, Jen from Colorado, and her 6 mo. old son will be staying at our house for weekend to go to the shower.  I am so excited to see her and to love on her baby!!  John has the weekend off so he can play too!  

Bailey is 18 months old today!  I wouldn't trade life with my daughter for anything.  It has been such an amazing experience to raise this little girl.  She is my little ray of sunshine on even some of my most miserable days.  I was a little nervous about giving up my freedom to be a Mommy, but I can't even remember life without her.  It definitely wasn't as fulfilling!  Seeing John as a Daddy made me fall in love with him all over again.  She is my little side kick, with me every where I go no matter what I am doing, always trying to "help".  I just adore her!  I love hearing her little baby jibberish, and watching her little facial expressions as she is trying to tell me something very important.  I love how she sneaks up on us and RAWRS at us!  I love how she drags her little blanky around the house draped over her shoulder.  And I love finding her new hiding spots for her many treasures.  I love how she waits for me to fill up her sippy cup with her hands behind her back.  I love how she comes up behind me and hugs my leg.  I love her ut-oh face.  and I love how she picks things up with her toes LOL.   

I have been working out like a mad woman and it feels great!  I have never been successful working out at home, but being part of a gym makes all the difference.  When I am at home I always manage to put it off until it's too late and then I think tomorrow and it never happens.  But with the gym I am pushed to do this before John leaves for work, and once I get in my car and head that direction I am fully motivated.  It's a nice break to get a little "me" time.  To focus on my goals.  I have a long road ahead of me for weight loss, but I feel motivated and have made some adjustments to our life style now that I have a car.  I haven't yet braved taking Bailey into the gym's daycare because I have never left her with a stranger before.  I know I would be right there, but I still have anxiety towards all of that.  I do feel positive that she would probably enjoy it, I just have to work up the nerves to feel comfortable with it.  I know it's silly and over protective, but I'll get there sooner or later!  I am sure it will help break me in for when it's time to enroll her into a preschool, which we both agree we would like to do that as early as possible a few days out of the week.  

Our cake business has been blowing up lately!  We have had at least one or more cake orders for every weekend booked up passed July along with tastings.  Last weekend we did our first and last Jeep cake.  The bars gave us so many issues on that Jeep that it almost doesn't feel worth it LOL, although I think if we did have to do another one there would be easier ways to achieve the desired result.  We have a guitar cake next weekend that we are going to try to make play a song along with a grad cake.  and the pics I have posted are of my Wedding Paper Divas invite project.  

Last week we took Bailey to Benihanna's because a dear friend of mine, Downen, was celebrating her birthday and requested us to be there.  It's not like she had to twist my arm or anything I love both Benihanna's and my friend a whole lot!  Originally we tried to find a sitter however our anniversary was the following day so we opted to just take Bailey along because she is pretty behaved at restaurants as long as I bring tons of snacks and toys to keep her happy in the high chair.  Turns out she LOVES Benihannas too.  Well, she never really tried the food, but she totally loved the hibachi performance.  She clapped and giggle for the man in the funny hat, and the more she cheered him on the more he hammed up his performance for her.  Seriously this little girl was cracking up so loud that it had our whole table in stitches.  So even though we had her out way past her bed time, shhhh don't tell, I am still happy that we didn't leave her with a sitter for the night since she enjoyed herself so much.  

And as I stated previously the following night John and I celebrated two years of marriage which we left Bailey at home for.  We went to the Studio Movie Grill, for you Austinites it is much like the Alamo Drafthouse, both of those places have been our favorite date night spot because we both love movies, food and drinks.  We had planned on seeing Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell however it was opening weekend and was sold out upon arrival.  The only other option was How to Train Your Dragon in 3D.  I was totally excited to see this movie, but every time we have gone to see a movie since Bailey was born it always seems to be a G rated movie by default.  Lol oh well, date night isn't what it used to be!  This was my first movie to view in 3D which made it extra special.  And we both thought the movie rocked so even though it wasn't the first choice it still made for a good plan b and a nice night out.  

Currently I am working on a mudding truck cake for a 16 yr old's birthday and a display wedding cake to be featured in Wedding Paper Diva's blog.  Both are awesome.  My hairdresser contacted me asking to make a trade hair and highlights for her 16 year old's birthday cake... I get my hair done and I get to make a totally awesome cake??  Deal!  We have a rock crawling Jeep Cake coming up in 3 weeks so this will give me a little practice for that next cake too, even better.  I'll let ya know how this little guy comes out, it's my first vehicle cake to try so I am hoping that it rocks.  My fear is that it will come out cartoonish and be totally lame for a 16 year old so I will do my best to prevent that from happening.  The good thing is that I get to cover a lot of it in "mud" aka chocolate so for it being my first vehicle cake I have a lot of give on it.  The cake for the Wedding Paper Diva's blog I am really falling in love with.  I have one other element left to complete on it and then it will be ready to photograph.  This one I love because I got to pick out one of their invites that I took a liking to and come up with a cake that matched it but has my own twist on it... so it's more inspired by their design but it truly unique.   

And coming up John is on vacation starting tomorrow!!  I have made plans with my Dad to head down to Austin on Wednesday.  The plans are still a little fuzzy as to what is happening.  A.  we will be staying at the cabin on Lake Buchanon or B.  in Earl's rv by Lake Travis.  YAY!  Can't wait!  John has an interview Friday for a new District Accounting position that has opened up in our area for Best Buy so he might have to leave us Thursday night and then come back Friday... doh inconvenient time for an interview, but it'll be totally worth it if he gets that promo!  So keep him in your prayers!  Bailey also has her K9 teeth trying to cut so she is a little moody at times.  Man ever since she turned a year she has had a new tooth or teeth trying to break through every month.  I think she will have a full set in no time!   The end!

The second batch turned out to be a little easier. I learned to spoon the melted chocolate over the pops instead of dipping them, to prevent them from crumbling apart and ruining your white chocolate. Which is why I did blue easter bunnies, instead of white easter eggs covered in sprinkles like I had originally planned. They are blue and cute, and my cake pop project can finally come to a rest. Been planning on making these for over a week, but just finally got around to them. One of my bunnies didn't make it, so I got to sample it, and I found them to be pretty tasty. Like a cake truffle. The icing mixed into the cake makes it super moist and cakey. I think my niece and nephew will be pleased with their Easter treats.

Bree has made these before, but for me this is a first. They sound a little sugary for my taste, but are perfect treats for the kiddos. A cake ball is a mixture of cake and icing rolled into a ball and then dipped in chocolate. I decided these would be a fun thing to stick into the Easter baskets since Easter will be at my house this year. I started out making Easter chickens and they came out super cute. I then melted my white chocolate so I could do the rest as Easter eggs, but I learned something upon making these. When you roll your mixture of cake and icing into balls you stick them in the freezer to harden before you dip. After I made my chickens, the rest of my, um cakes, softened, so when I dipped them in the white chocolate for the start of my Easter eggs, they started to crumble. So either the chocolate needed to be even meltier, or I needed to refreeze, or a combo of the two. I decided to pop my remaining cakes back in the freezer to resume making my eggs tomorrow night. But for now enjoy my Easter chickens, and I will post the eggs within the next couple of days :)

I made some cupcakes for dessert, and borrowed one to play around with for a new design that I thought could be fun. A Vera inspired cupcake dress. I think it's cute, although Disney princess cakes and Barbie cakes may have stolen the show for the whole cake dress idea. But maybe since it's a cupcake and not a giant brightly colored buttercream ball gown, it could be put to new uses such as for bridal showers or rehearsal dinners. What do you think?

One of my besties since High School, Barbara, is getting married! She asked me to be in her wedding as a bridesmaid, which I am both honored and stoked to do. She also wants to use us in making cakes for her wedding. Her main dessert will be gelato but would also like to do some smaller cakes for her guests as either wedding favors or to be served along side. We talked over her options and she is torn between mini cakes (single serving cakes that are no bigger than a cupcake but designed to mimic an actual wedding cake) and cupcakes. As I searched photos online of these adorable little mini cakes, I got inspired to create a series of my own. Unfortunately I don't have the piping skill set yet and some of the other skills that seasoned cake decorators have (thank goodness Bree does though!!)... some day I hope to take some classes or maybe even pastry school, but until then I have my art skills as my own personal specialty. Fortunately for me they don't teach drawing or painting skills in pastry school, at least I haven't heard that they do..., so those are something I have that are uniquely mine. I created a series of Van Gogh inspired mini cakes and I am really proud of how they turned out. These little cakes are the size of a round cookie cutter, maybe 2.5 inches high and 2.5 inches in diameter, cute enough to eat and would definitely be a cool statement at any wedding that all the guests would be talking about!

Bailey's birthday party was so much fun! We had a great turn out considering it was on Thanksgiving! It was a little hectic pulling off Thanksgiving and a Birthday party in one day, but I think gifts and cake made Thanksgiving a lot more entertaining than just stuffing yourself until you pass out on the couch! It definitely made it feel more kid friendly and exciting. Bailey was so much fun with her giant cupcake smash cake. Candi was my photographer for the day and she got some fantastic shots that really captured the memory of the party. Bailey was so excited to see that giant cake put in front of her and then she looked around at all of us in disbelief that it was actually for her. She carefully poked a finger into the frosting and tasted it and then became more and more brave with the tasty sugar feast in front of her. Eventually she LOVED it so much that she hugged it LOL, and grabbed a chunk of cake to rub on her face. After a bit her eyes glazed over and she seemed like she was on autopilot scooping more and more cake into her mouth. She was a champ all morning and afternoon with all of the craziness. She was pleased to tear into the wrapping paper of the gifts and shred it to tiny pieces and played with her new walkers and books for the rest of the party. Then like all sugar highs she crashed hard into a long nap right after the Thanksgiving meal. John's best friend was thoughtful enough to open up a trust fund for her in her name so that when she turns 18 she will have some money in savings for college, which I thought was an awesome gift idea, especially coming from someone who does not have any kids yet. We will make it a point to add a little to it every holiday. All in all I couldn't have asked for it to go any better even though the cake design didn't quite make it! We had warm memories, great food, awesome photos, and lots of friends and family to share the holiday with! Who could ask for anything more? Happy Birthday Bailey!!!