Spring Library Demo

Spring is here! And that means it's time for another exciting demonstration at the Newberry Branch Library! I decided to do a more hands-on demo this time so I focused on spring cookies:

I think the Easter Eggs came out especially cool! They're almost a little psychedelic - but I prefer to call them kaleidoscope eggs!

Want to make some yourself!? They're easy! First, bake your favorite rolled cookie (gingerbread, shortbread, sugar, etc). After the cookies have completely cooled, you're ready to decorate them! Here's the recipe for the royal icing I use (from www.wilton.com):

1 lb. sifted confectioner's/powdered sugar
3 tablespoons Meringue Powder (available at craft stores or you can substitute powdered egg whites - see the package for instructions)
5-6 tablespoons lukewarm water.

Mix all ingredients in a mixer at low speed until incorporated. Then mix for 8-10 minutes on medium speed until the icing looses its shine and becomes think and marshmallow-like. This icing will dry out quickly so be sure to store it in an airtight container.

Color your icing with paste food colors (available at craft stores). Don't use the liquid colors you're used to seeing at the grocery store because they will change the consistency of your icing and make it really runny. Once you have the icing the color you want it, put it into a piping bag or zip-top bag and pipe a border around each cookie. For the eggs, I just put one border around the whole cookie. However, for the flower, I put a border around each petal. The border will prevent colors in neighboring sections from mixing so put a border wherever you want to separate colors.

The borders need to dry for a little bit so set the cookies aside while you thin down the rest of your icing. If you do all your cookie borders at one time, you can thin all the remaining icing. I thin my icing by adding 1/2 teaspoon water per 1 1/2 cups icing, but this is a sliding scale so you may need slightly more or less water to get the desired consistency. To test your icing, lift your spoon out of the icing and let it drip from the spoon back into the bowl. If the icing that dripped down blends back into the other icing in about 3 seconds, you have the perfect consistency. If you can distinctly see the icing that dripped for longer than 3 seconds, add more water. If the icing blends immediately, it's too thin so you need to add a little powdered sugar to thicken it again. I know this seems picky, but it will save you a lot of headache later when we move onto the cookies!

Ready for the cookies now? Let's go! Fill a piping bag or zip-top bag with the thinned icing. The idea here is to "flood" the cookie with icing so just squeeze the icing onto the cookie until you can no longer see the cookie underneath. To make the kaleidoscope effect, you can pipe swirls or stripes in different colors. Then, take a toothpick and gently scrape the end across the icing, dragging the colors with you.

For example, I made the white and purple egg by piping two horizontal purple stripes in the egg and filling the rest with white icing. Then I dragged my toothpick tip up and down vertically to create the kaleidoscope effect. On the blue and yellow egg, I piped a swirl in yellow icing and filled the rest with of the egg with blue icing. Then, I dragged my toothpick from the center of the egg to the outside, and back again.

The kaleidoscope eggs are super easy to make and are sure to impress! Good luck!

Escape to Savannah

Last weekend, Adam and I went to Savannah for James' and Elise's wedding! I was really looking forward to the trip because I'd never been there and because I really needed to escape from reality for a while! I have the habit of filling up every spare minute with "doing" - whether it be playing with sugar, cleaning the house, bathing Nani, crafting, baking, etc. - so I run myself ragged. I knew if I went to Savannah, I'd be forced to relax and slow down for a change!

Savannah was absolutely beautiful and the weather couldn't have been nicer! Ok, it could have been slightly warmer, but that's my only complaint! When we first arrived in Savannah around noon on Saturday, Adam and I delivered the wedding cake (Elise baked it and my mom & I decorated it) to the reception location. Then, we met up with James, Elise, Carrie, and Luis for lunch. After lunch, Luis, Carrie, Adam, and I walked around Savannah until it was time for us to go get ready for the wedding.




















The four of us stopped at the Riverstreet Sweets Candy Store and got an afternoon snack. Adam and I shared a dark chocolate-dipped stick of marshmallows - yummy but hard to eat!

And then it was time for the wedding! James and Elise stayed at the Kehoe House Bed & Breakfast and got married in the square right across the street. It was picture perfect! Here are a few of my photos during the ceremony...notice my amateur attempt at Photoshop.






























Here's a great shot at Elise's gorgeous gown as she said "hi" to Lorelei.
After the short, sweet ceremony, they took a stroll around the square to "share a moment as husband and wife," as the pastor put it.






















Afterwards, they took a bunch of family photos and then took off to take romantic portraits together. Again, Luis, Carrie, Adam and I strolled around downtown Savannah. We all met back up at the Old Pink House for the reception dinner.


The wedding cake was proudly displayed on a table of it's own:


It was chocolate cake with praline-flavored buttercream. I covered the cakes with fondant on Wednesday to seal in the freshness and moisture. I decorated the cakes, with Mom's help (excellent polka dots, don't you think???) and Dad's input, on Thursday evening. This allowed the fondant enough time to harden so I was sure the cakes would be fine during the 4 hour trip to Savannah. However, I hadn't planned on driving through at least an hour of construction and bumpy roads! Fortunately, the cakes made it without any damage!

Decorator's Secret: The bottom tier is actually a dummy (Styrofoam)! Elise wanted a large wedding cake but only had 25 people in attendance so we added the dummy to give the cake that extra boost!

A Rockin' Birthday Party!

Shortly after Christmas, Adam bought Guitar Hero and...not surprisingly...I was quickly addicted to it. I talked him into getting Rock Band 2 we'd have 4 instruments (drums, guitar, bass, and a microphone) a few weeks ago and I play it every chance I get - in between lab work and cakes, that is. Yesterday was my birthday so we decided to have a bunch of people over - just an excuse to play more Rock Band and make another cake! These are the invitations we sent out:


I decided to make a cake in the shape of a guitar. While carving the cake to that shape was relatively easy, covering it with fondant was a different story! I didn't realize it would be difficult to cover those sharp turns and curves at the top of the guitar until I actually tried! Luckily, I was able to cover my mistakes with decorations on the guitar.


The neck and head of the guitar was gluten-free chocolate cake and the rest of it was marble cake. The whole thing was covered with raspberry cream icing and then with fondant. The silver pieces were first made with grey fondant and then I painted over it with silver sugar dust dissolved in clear alcohol. The guitar strap was also made of fondant, and I hand-cut the Barbie and the Rockers logo (that took forever!). Remember Barbie and the Rockers from the 80s? Yea man, they were awesome. The musical staff was written on the cake board with pens that write in food coloring, and I made the notes and letters out of fondant. And last, but not least, the guitar strings...I just made these out of piped royal icing, but I wasn't really happy with them. First of all, they don't lay as straight as I'd like. And secondly, they just don't look as realistic as I'd like. If I were to make another guitar, I might try using fishing line or real guitar strings!

The party was a blast! We asked everyone to dress in "concert attire" so we got a wide range of outfits! I was a hippie rocker. I asked Adam to get me a T-shirt from Bakerella that says BakeLove so I was going to write underneath it "not war." Get it? Bake love, not war! (Mike's idea, I can't take credit.) So I sewed a few patches on my jeans, got some peace sign earings, found some awesome star-studded blue sunglasses, and wore a hippie headband. I actually forgot to put the words "not war" on my shirt, but whatever!

Here's a bunch of shots of the different bands that debuted at the party:

Me and Ben (sorry, Ben, you got cut out of this one)

Nicole, Shelby (nice outfits you two!), and Adam

Jiejin, Shelby, and Jack...I have a feeling it won't be long before JJ and Jack get Rock Band for the Wii!!!

Jeanette & Mike (awesome costumes!)

Lorelie and Nani! Lorelie had the cutest "Miss Behavin' " outfit on and Nani was sporting the awesome T-shirt Robin bought her that said "I love Ph.D.serts!"

And the other people I unfortunately didn't catch on camera: Elise, James, Ben (kind of), Matt, and Lourdes. You guys have escaped this time....but watch out for next time!!! Muahahahaha!

A Day in the Life

Every weekend, Adam and I devote one morning to cleaning the house. Nani likes to be a part of everything we do so she always "helps." She especially loves when we do the laundry and sweep the floors.

When we do the laundry, she likes to stand in the basket and/or burrow through all the clothes. Here is a photo Adam took a few weeks ago where she was in the middle of searching through some pairs of pants...probably looking for some socks. I am still working on my Photoshop skills. I know I'm horrible at it, but maybe if I keep practicing, I'll get better...eventually. Anyway, I found this cool effect this morning! If you can't see it in the picture, click on it. That should blow it up really big.


Here's a great example of how much she likes to help! She is standing in the basket on top of the clothes while I load them into the washing machine!!

Nani steals socks all the time. She doesn't chew holes in them, just likes to carry them away. Last night, I left two socks on the floor near my shoes. A little while after I put them there, I noticed that one of the socks had been replaced with her bone. Apparently, she felt like we needed to make a trade - a bone for a sock. I guess that's fair enough.

When I sweep the floors, Nani has to check all my little dirt piles to make sure there's not anything in there that she wants to salvage or eat. I normally don't let her root around in it, but as soon as I turn my back, she sneaks over again! Since she's so busy "helping" us clean, she misses her morning nap so she's usually very sleepy later that afternoon. All that work can really wear a girl out!

This Sunday, I took her outside and tied her to the fire hydrant (is that illegal?) while Adam and I washed our cars. She loves being outside and since we don't have a fenced-in backyard, she doesn't get to play out there as much as she'd like. With the combination of being outside and having a yummy bone, she was in heaven! Her face said it all so I grabbed the camera and took a few shots of her:


This picture absolutely cracked me up. Look at that goofy grin!

Baby Shower Cookies to TEXAS!

A friend of the family threw a baby shower for her daughter last weekend. She had seen pictures of some baby shower cookies I'd made and wanted me to send some for the shower. Nothing special about that, right??? Except that they live in TEXAS! Elise and I made sugar cookies and decorated them with pink Satin Ice fondant and a little bit of royal icing. I carefully packaged the cookies and shipped them to Texas! Apparently only 1 broke so they used that as a taste tester, and they still had plenty left over for the shower. Here is a photo they took of the cookies at the shower:



Kaylee Anne is going to be the baby's name - so pretty! I can't wait to see pictures of the little one!

Congratulations, Jiejin!

A good friend of mine and a fellow member of the Scarpace lab just completed her final defense of her dissertation last Monday. To celebrate this huge accomplishment, Dr. Tumer & Dr. Scarpace are throwing a party for her this weekend! I was thrilled and honored when Dr. Tumer called to ask if I'd make a small cake for JJ!

I've been hoping to have the chance to make a graduation cake for JJ because I really wanted to try to recreate her bound dissertation. For those who may not know, when you complete a dissertation (for a Ph.D.) or a thesis (for a masters), our department gets it printed and bound. The copy stays in the departmental library for anyone to read...although probably no one ever does! haha! The dissertation is bound with a black leatherette cover and imprinted with gold font.

Since we only needed the cake to serve about 10 people, I had to keep it small. I decided to make a large graduation cap out of cake and use stacked cardboard to make the dissertation. Recently in lab, we were talking about how some people decorate the tops of their mortar boards so they stand out in a crowd full of graduates. JJ is headed to Cleveland to, for the first time, be living in the same town as her husband so I wrote "Cleveland here I come" on the top of her cap. Here's the finished product:
If you're interested in learning how to make a cake like this, read on. To begin, prepare your cake board (mine was a piece of plywood my grandpa cut for me). I covered my cake board with white fondant that was marbelized with orange and blue fondant (Go Gators!).

Next, stack pieces of same-size cardboard and tape them together. This will create a firm "book" that the cake will sit on. You could easily do the book in real cake too - just be sure to properly dowel it so it can support the graduation cap cake on top. Cut a piece of black fondant just slightly (and I mean slightly) larger than the cardboard pieces and place it on your cake base wherever you want the book to lie.

Spread a small amount of royal icing over this black piece and set your cardboard stack on top. Next, roll a larger piece of black fondant. This piece should be large enough to cover the top and spine of the book. Again, use a small amount of royal icing to "glue" this piece onto the cardboard stack. When you work on the spine of the book, tuck the edge of the fondant underneath, rather than cutting it straight across. This will give the impression that you covered the "book" all with one piece of fondant. With a little bit of touch-up work, you can completely blend the two fondant pieces together so that there is no longer a seam.


Now you need to add the pages to your book. I added my pages using 3 separate pieces of fondant. To do this, roll a piece of white fondant and cut it to the right size to fit between your cover pieces. Apply a little bit of royal icing to the cardboard and put the white fondant in place. Once I had all of 3 sides covered with white fondant, I went back and added the "page" effect by pressing the edge of a ruler into the white fondant.


Now, let's move on to the graduation cap cake. I baked an 2-layer 8-inch cake- nothing special. Then I gently carved the cake to a flattened cone shape. At this point, be sure that the top is perfectly flat so the mortar board sits straight on top. After I carved the cake, I covered it with buttercream and then with black fondant.

Yikes! Excuse my purple/black fingernails (that's what you get when you dye fondant black) and my messy apron (good thing I was wearing it I guess)! Anyway, cover this cake with fondant as you would normally and trim away the excess at the bottom.

To accessorize and personalize this cake, I decorated the top of the mortar board, created a small fondant plaque that said "Congratulations, Jiejin!" and painted the spine of the dissertation with gold luster dust dissolved in a small amount of clear alcohol. I created the tassle by rolling very thin snakes of blue fondant, pinching one end to secure them all together, and attaching them to the edge of the mortar board. Simple as that!

Congratulations, Jiejin! Everyone is so proud of you and you will be sorely missed in lab!

An Angelic 50th Birthday Party

Elise and I were super excited, and somewhat nervous, about this cake! A friend wanted a cake for her Mom's 50th birthday party on Friday. Her mom really loves angels so she originally asked for a cake that looked like a sculpted angel, either sitting or lying down. We told her we couldn't do something like that because we're just not experienced in sculpting faces yet. While we enjoy a challenge, we didn't want to just dive into something that difficult and risk having a terribly ugly cake to give her! We came up with the idea of doing 2 upright angel wings with a halo hanging off one of the wings. Our friend loved the idea so we went for it! Here's the finished product:


Each wing was about afoot tall, a foot long, and 4 inches wide. They were made of marble cake with chocolate buttercream filling. We baked all the cakes on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, we carved the cakes and covered them with buttercream and marshmallow fondant. On Thursday night, we added all of the marshmallow fondant feathers and the gold dust.

To make the longer feathers, I just cut them out freehand with a pizza cutter. The petal veiner I used on the tulips worked perfectly for feathers so that was nice! The larger feathers were cut with an Easter Egg cookie cutter I have. The halo was made out of gum paste and painted with the gold sugar dust dissolved in clear alcohol (no, we didn't need a cocktail that night, this is normal practice).

We're happy with the way this cake came out, especially considering this is the tallest and thinest cake we've made so far! When you make something this shape, you're really fighting with gravity the whole time so it's all about handling the cakes gently and avoiding potholes in the road when you deliver it!

Next cake on the list: my birthday cake! Get ready, it's gonna be awesome!

How To Make Life-Sized Gum Paste Tulips

Gum paste flowers, when done correctly, can look just like the real thing. I have heard that Wilton gum paste wilts in humid environments so I used Nicholas Lodge's recipe for gum paste that holds up better in humidity. You can get his recipe here, but briefly:

To make 2 pounds of gum paste, beat 4 large egg whites in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment for 10 seconds on high speed. Reduce the speed to low and add all but 1 cup of a 2-pound bag of 10x powdered sugar. At this point, you'll have a soft consistency royal icing. Continue to beat on medium speed for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, measure out 12 level teaspoons of Tylose powder (available at Country Kitchen Sweet Art or Confectionery House). Make sure your mixture is at the soft peak stage and is shiny. If you're coloring the entire batch, you can add paste color now (ex: Wilton colors), but make it a shade darker than you want the final product. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add the Tylose powder. Then, turn the mixer to high for a few seconds to thicken the mixture. Scrape out the mixer contents onto a work surface that has been sprinkled with the reserved powdered sugar. Grease your hands and knead the extra powdered sugar into the dough until it is soft, but no longer sticky. Place the dough in a zip-top bag inside another zip-top bag and let it "mature" in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Before using the dough, allow it to come to room temperature for easier handling. This dough will keep in the refrigerator for 6 months or it can be frozen.

To create the gum paste flowers, I loosely used Nicholas Lodge's protocol. Here is a photo of a few of the tools you'll need, which include aluminum foil, plastic wrap or a practice board (Wilton), petal dust (I used Rose for the edges of the petals and Hunter Green for the leaves), 26 guage wire, soft foam (Wilton), a flower veining set, a Cel Board (available at Country Kitchen Sweet Art among other places), a tulip petal cutter, a ball and veining tool (I used Wilton's), a small knife, and a small rolling pin.

International Sugar Art sells the Parrot Tulip petal cutter, but I decided to make my own. To do so, I purchased thin aluminum flashing from my local hardware store. It comes in a roll that's is about a foot tall so I cut 1-inch wide strips from it. I used pliers to shape the petal and then double-sided tape to hold it in place.

The Cel Board is designed so that there are small grooves onto which you should roll your gum paste. Roll the gum paste until it is almost thin enough to see the slight outline of that groove. The thinner you roll the gum paste, the more realistic the flower will look. After you roll your gum paste over the grooves, you can cut out your petal shapes as it is or flip over the piece of gum paste so you can see the ridges. In this picture, I have flipped the gum paste over so the ridges are now facing up. This will help you to line up the petal correctly. When you cut out the petal, be sure that the ridge is centered and the tallest/thickest part of the ridge should be at the base of the petal. The ridge will not reach the length of the petal, but that's ok. Cut out 3 petals using this method and store them under the clear flap on the practice board or just under some plastic wrap to keep them from drying out.
Cut a 4-inch length of wire and dip the end into egg whites. The egg whites will act like a glue and hold the wire in place inside the petal. Place the petal on the edge of the cell board and slide the wire into the ridge. This takes a little practice until you learn how to guide the wire blindly up the petal. Insert the wire at least 1 to 1 1/2 inches into the petal, without letting the wire come out of the petal on either side. After the wire is inserted, work the gum paste at the base of the petal to make sure it is formed around the wire nicely.

Place the petal on the petal veiner with the ridge facing up. Using the soft foam, press the gum paste onto the veiner. You will only vein one side of the petal because a) that looks more realistic and b) if you tried to vein both sides, you would mess up the original veining.


Place the petal onto the soft foam with the ridge facing up. Using the ball tool, gently thin the edge of the petal as you would for making fondant/gum paste roses. Tulip petals are not usually very ruffled, so try not to add too many ruffles when you're thinning the edges.

For this next step, Nicholas Lodge recommends forming some aluminum foil around a large serving spoon to create the correct shape. I prefer forming it in the center of my cupped hand because you get a little more curve and shape in the petal. After shaping your aluminum foil by whichever method you choose, place the petal on it and allow it to dry completely. Once the petal is dry, brush the edges with Rose petal dust if you want to add a little more color.

Next, take a 12-inch long peice of 18-gauge wire and begin wrapping one end with green floral tape. Wrap the end about 5 times and then create a hook with pliers. Wrap that spot 5 more times and then continue down the wire so that the entire wire is covered with green floral tape.
Dip the thick end of the wrapped wire in egg whites and place a dime-sized ball of white gum paste on it. Shape this into a tear drop about 1 inch long with the wider part at the end of the wire so the wire is not visible. Using tweezers, squeeze the thick part of the teardrop into 3 sections to form the pistol of the tulip. Let dry overnight.

Each tulip has at least 6 stamen. You can buy fake stamen or be ambitious and make your own! To make the, take a 2-3 inch lengh of 26-guage wire and dip the end into egg whites. Place a small ball of yellow gum paste onto the end and form it into a thin snake on the end of the wire. Using tweezers, pinch the snake into 4 sections all the way down its length. Let dry overnight. Once they are dry, use green floral tape to attach all 6 stamen equally spaced around the white pistol. I also added 2 more 18-gauge wires to add stability and bulk to the stem.

In this photo, I'm showing you the plyers/wire cutters, 18-gauge wire, petal dust, and scissors I used. Along the top, you can see the stages of the flower assembly (left to right): the green floral-taped wire, the pistol on the wire with the stamen drying on the side, the stame attached to the pistol, the first 3 petals attached, the final tulip.


After you've dried and colored the 3 wired petals, use floral tape to attach them to the flower stem in a triangular shape. Then, roll out the gum paste over a flat surface and cut out 3 more petals. Put these petals under the practice board flap or plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. One at a time, press each petal into the petal veiner and thin the edges like before. Brush a little bit of egg whites on the inside of the petal and "glue" the petal onto the flower-in-progress so that this petal sits between 2 other petals. Do the same with the other 2 petals and let the flower dry overnight. The next day, brush the edges of the new petals with Rose petal dust and the bases of the petals (both inside and outside) with Hunter Green petal dust.

To make the tulip leaves, roll green gum paste over the longer ridge on the Cell Board. I just used a pizza cutter to free-hand cut the leaves, but you could also make/buy a cutter. Dip an 18-gauge wire into egg whites and insert it into the ridge like you did for the petals. To vein the leaves, you can create lines by pressing the end of a ruler against the gum paste multiple times. I found a corn husk veiner and that worked perfectly! I brushed up the center of each leaf with Hunter Green petal dust. Pose the leaf how you like it and allow it to dry over night.

I know the whole process sounds complicated, but once you get into the groove, you can make 20 flowers at once! It's time consuming, but very worth it when people tell you they can't believe they're sugar! Good luck!

I won!

I had a BLAST at the Let's Eat Cake Fundraiser last night! I am extremely competitive so I thrive in the stress of safely transporting and setting up everything for competitions. This was my first cake competition, but I was mentally prepared by watching lots of Food Network coverage of the Oklahoma Sugar Art Show competitions. That's the most prestigious wedding cake competition in the nation! One day, I'll be there...

Anyway, back to Let's Eat Cake! The bakers were allowed to set up their cakes approximately 3-4pm. Then the judging was to take place until 5pm and then we were allowed to enter and prepare for the public entrance at 6pm. My cake made the trip across town perfectly fine so I was thrilled! I managed to get the whole thing inside...and then I broke the bow off the front as I was putting the fabric around the base. Oh well! I did my best to "glue" it back on with some royal icing, but it just didn't want to stay put. I happened to have a Willow Tree piece that my cousin gave me at my bridal shower (thank you, Heather!). I brought it in case the bride and groom on top of my cake didn't make the trip. Since they were ok, I used the Willow Tree couple to stand in front of the bow and hold it in place. I also hid a tiny Tupperware under the orange fabric on the right-hand side of the bow ribbon. Apparently no one noticed it and the wooden couple didn't look TOO out of place. Phew! Here's what my table looked like when I left the room for the judging:


The plates on the table were left for the judges to taste. The cake I prepared was White Cake with Chocolate-Kissed Raspberry filling so I put XOXO on their plates in chocolate frosting and placed a raspberry over each O (get it, chocolate-kissed???). When we checked into the contest earlier that day, we drew our table assignments at random. God was smiling on me because I drew table 2! If you look behind my cake to the left, that is the entrance the public came through. Table 1 was actually on the other side of the door all by itself so I have a feeling a lot of people overlooked it. :( My table was the first one people saw and pretty much everyone tried my cake! I imagine, by the time people got to table 30, they were a little sick of cake... My table location couldn't have been more perfect! Oh, and a special thanks to Elise who gave me the white cake recipe and helped me pick out the pink, white, and peach fabric with which I decorated my table!

Since we drew tables at random, no one knew who were professionals and who were amateurs (except the judges). Here are the other entries into the competition. The first cake with the "R" on it is by Cyndi Richardson, who is another Wilton Instructor at Michael's. The second cake with the white roses was made by a woman who took Course 1 and Course 2 from me. It was exciting to see what she made, especially since she hasn't taken any of the fondant classes yet!































































































































































My awesome grandparents drove down from Rockledge, FL to be at the competition with me. We were able to grab a quick bite to eat before the competition and they even helped me tear it all down afterwards. Also, my other grandpa made the plywood cake board that supported the whole cake! Thank you so much guys!



Elise and I took a picture with Kerry Vincent, as seen on the Food Network. Rumor has it that she was VERY hard on the cakes when she was judging!

Paige Beck from WCJB TV 20 news (the local news) was there with her camera crew. The camera crew didn't get my cake at all, but they announced the winners on the 11pm news so it was exciting to hear my name on TV! I went to bed with a smile on my face, literally! haha!

Here I am receiving my first award for the Crowd's Favorite in the Amateur Division from Melissa, the event organizer, while Kerry Vincent announced it. I was really excited to get this award because that's what cake decorating is all about - pleasing the client! Accompanying this award was a gift pack from Michael's which included a large rolling pin (which I actually don't have yet), a fondant smoother, meringue powder, and luster dust.

Here, Melissa and I are posing with my second award which was for Best of Show in the amateur division. I was also very excited about this award! I tried to use as many different techniques on my cake as I could - gum paste flowers, gum paste modeling (the bride and groom topper), stringwork, piping, etc. - in an effort to get this award. This is the prize I coveted most of all! And I was hugely surprised that this honor came with a new stand mixer!!! Can you believe it!?!? I'm so thrilled! It's a white 5.5-quart Cuisinart and I think I've found another love in my life (sorry, Adam, Nani, and my KitchenAid Mixer). This one has a timer on the side and 12 (yes, 12) speed settings. Man, I can go to TOWN with my mixers now! Watch out cakes, here I come!

Here's a fun shot of all the winners...let's see if I can remember everyone...Left to right...
Heavenly Cakes by Neil won Best of Show for Professionals
me
Lisa Menz from Cakes by Lisa won Most Original Design for Professionals
Cyndi Richardson won Most Original Design for Amateurs (Yay, Cyndi!)
Debbie from Ms Debbie's Sugar Art won Tastiest Cake for Professionals (Great job, Gail! She took the classes from me too and she does all Debbie's baking.)
Whatsername won Tastiest Cake for Amateurs
Whatsername won Crowd's Favorite for Professionals


Cyndi and I showing off our winnings! Look, Cyndi's apron pattern matches her cake! Coincidence??? I think not! Haha!
And Lourdes made me pose with both of my plaques visible.



Last and CERTAINLY not least, here's an amazing photo of all the people who were there to support me last night. Thank you all SO much for your encouragement! It means a lot to me to have such awesome family and friends. You guys paid the steep entry fee AND gave up your evening to support me. Thank you so much, Nicole, Shelby, Grandma, Elise, Lourdes, Grandpa, and Lorelei!Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way - June, Cyndi, Chris, Pam, and Elaine! June and Cyndi were my Wilton instructors so I learned all the important basics from them. Chris and Pam helped me troubleshoot my tulip-making. And Elaine came to the rescue last week with last-minute instructions when I decided to attempt bridgeless stringwork for the first time!

And, of course, thank you to everyone who supported me from afar. For your sake, I won't name everyone but here's just a few: Mom and Dad, Robin, Mr. and Mrs. Judge, all Mom and Dad's friends and coworkers, Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell, and all my extended family. Your emails and phone calls of love and encouragement were really special to me. I am blessed to have all of you in my life! And, no, I didn't forget the most important person - Adam! Although he had to go out of town this week, I know he was there in spirit. I love you, Adam, and I hope I always make you proud!

Whoa, did that sound like an acceptance speech? Sorry about that - didn't mean to go all Golden Globe on you! I just wanted to make sure you all knew how much you are appreciated!