Valentine's and Grammy's 70th Cake

So far I've done a few baking projects for us, but I've been lax in documenting them and I'm sure you're getting board with seeing the same projects repeated every year. Here are some of the baking I've done as well as my latest paying project.

My annual Valentine cookies just get simpler to do every year. Here is a pic of the way I sent them to school.


This is the cake I made for us for Valentine's Day. I almost thought I had another baking item go missing, then I remembered I lent my heart pan to a friend a few years ago, glad I didn't totally lose it. Mmmm; chocolate, cherries and cream cheese; my cake version of a cherry cheese cake, it was delicious.

This is the cake I made for the family for Easter. I made a white cake with lemon curd, a nice way to make Easter a little less cold and pretend Spring is really here. :oP

The cake that began as a large slab cake with a crossword puzzle theme for a huge bash that was booked in January ended up as an 8" square for a much smaller swuaree by April. I just did this one this past weekend for a fellow board member at my daughter's playschool. She was able to get a sample of my baking when I did all the catering goodies for their annual Christmas Concert. I had great visions for the original cake, but I think the end product turned out alright. The cake was a french vanilla (which was a new recipe) with fresh strawberries and whipped cream filling on two layers; making it a three layer cake. I wasn't thrilled by the smoothness of my buttercream icing when I tried to smooth it out with waxed paper and my fondant smoother, maybe it was too cold. I was really trying to stretch the icing to cover the cake so I only had to make extra for the decor.

Christmas Projects

The past few months have been a blur for me. I've been so busy with trying to find a job outside of teaching and have had some luck finally this month. I've only done one paid project so far this year (just this past weekend) and I haven't been doing as many "demos" either. I've had no luck trying to move my teaching onto the community side of things and am still trying to pull together students for a first course, so I can carry them through the four. I have only one student who seems serious for Course 4, the newest from Wilton, but with a store no longer paying me an hourly wage, whatever I make from my students is what I make minus 10% for the community league, which is alright. I get a free listing in the community league newspaper, but it's not driving marketing like I though it would.
Now that I've taken on contracts with some merchandising companies my schedule will be all over the place. I'm also waiting to hear back on a third interview for a full time tech rep position, which would entail a lot more commitment from many.
Here are some pics to get things up to date:

Stirling's Birthday - just a simple chocolate slab; we were starting to have problems with our camera then; so by the time we got one on hubby's work camera I had already cut into it and removed the candles.

These two are pics from our Christmas Open House; things you can use your cookie cutters for - cucumber "gingerbread" men, made great garnishes for many of my platters.


This was the Christmas cookie venture I did for the kids for school this year, I made these a couple years ago, went much smoother this time.

I made my gingerbread for the house from scratch this year, my Joy of Cooking cookbook has templates for it and everything. I had many Wilton bits put away from last Christmas (2010) that never got used, the kids got to decorate it with a little help from me, but not too much.
Stay tuned for 2012 baking...