take the cake

This week, in between rolling out baguettes at the bakery,  I literally took cake with me everywhere I went. Some might say that my cakes "took the cake" as well, but that's not for me to say. We made seasonal cakes in class on Saturday and I used rolled fondant for the first time. The cake says it all.

Using the fondant wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and while I'll admit that it looks nice, I still think it tastes gross and prefer buttercream icing. But I didn't almost lose my mind smoothing this out like I did with the buttercream icing last week. Just look at how nice and smooth this is.

This cake was taken to Fort Wayne for Easter on Sunday. Guess what was also taken along as a surprise anniversary treat?

This cake. It was wrapped up tight in our fridge for a week and then packed in the car ever so carefully to make the two hour car ride. The surprise was a success, plus the cake still tasted good, so it was a win-win. Happy Anniversary, Aunt Linda and Uncle Jack! The Easter cake was delicious as well and some of my family even enjoyed the chewy fondant. The Easter cake was chocolate with vanilla buttercream and some white chocolate shavings in the middle.

Speaking of variety, there was not much of this in my Aunt Patty and Uncle Jim's refrigerator. If you thought stocking up on cream cheese was wild, wait until you see what I found in the refrigerator on Easter. 

You're looking at no less than 38 tubs of Cool Whip. This may be necessary if I was bringing one giant pumpkin pie for dessert and everyone would need their own tub. I did not, however, bring pumpkin pie for dessert. My Uncle Jim just really, really likes Cool Whip. And apparently they got a good deal for them at the store last week. Even better news - I got an awesome blog post out of it and now feel the need to start a competition of who can store the most of one item in their fridge at a time. Please call me if you have more than 38 of something in your refrigerator. Let's take pictures.

And now back to cake week. I had cupcake baking to do on Monday evening. I decided to make two varieties of cupcakes for my friend/co-worker's baby shower on Tuesday. She requested a fruit flavor, so I found a great recipe for a vanilla cupcake filled with strawberry jam and topped with strawberry buttercream icing. These were to die for and I managed to eat three of them in 24 hours. To put this in perspective, there were only 12 total. Right. I also made a chocolate chip cupcake with chocolate buttercream because I knew chocolate would be in demand at the shower. And I was correct. Both cupcakes were a hit and I enjoyed making them way more than the cakes.

Also, I thought about making fondant shaped babies for toppers, but figured sprinkles were more appetizing. Plus I had this impressive new cupcake holder to show off and the fondant babies would have stolen all of the attention away. Here it is stacked up and ready to take to work.

Thanks go out to my parents for the nifty cupcake holder. I guarantee it will see a lot of use in the future. Just not in the near future because I am tired of cakes for now. Let me rephrase that - I am tired of making cakes for now. But eating them really takes the cake.