Supplies

Today Tirzah brought me 7 pounds of almond paste and 3 bottles of mead. Ingredients for The Cake and the practice cakes. I was supposed to bake a cake tonight but I ended up being distracted by the need to go to Max's house to pick up my bounty. Since my wrists are bothering me tonight I'm trying not to feel too guilty.

I hooked up a touch screen today to replace my mouse at work. I'm hoping that it helps my wrists as well as driving the LAN guys nuts.

Yesterday I bought 3 half sheet pans so now I have 4 total. That way I can have 2 going in the oven while the other two cool and/or get filled.

7 - half sheets, 3 - rectangles and 3 - 9 inch cakes

Mom is about to leave the office she has been detailed to for the last 2(ish) years. She wants to do something nice for all the people that she feels provided assistance for her during that time. Since we just finished a cake decorating class it seems like a good idea to make cakes for each of the office. Total office count: 12 Total cake count: 13 (one of the offices is large enough that we figure it needs 2 half sheet cakes. The goal is to do these cakes the weekend of July 27-28 as her last day is July 31. The smallest office is 4 people and the biggest is so big she can't tell me how many people but they have 4 sub-offices. On Monday night Mom and I sat down to plan for this shin dig. We decided that 3 of the cakes should be 9 inches, 4 should be a rectangle (we saw in the Wilton classbook) and 6 should be half sheet cakes (I already have the pan). The next day she revised the list to 7 half sheet cakes and 3 rectangles.

Now comes the search for the rectangle pan. We asked Betty which pan it was and she said it was the long loaf pan. Of course Michael's didn't have it so I went on the Country Kitchen's website and they didn't either. Next step, the Wilton website. They had it (of course) but when I went to order it they said standard delivery could take as much as 14 business days! Since I need it in 10 days that's not going to work. Air delivery actually cost as much as the entire order, (cake pan, glucose and 1 cookie cutter). So that's not going to happen. I called ABC Sugarart and they had 2 of them which they are putting aside for me. I'm getting to like that place more and more. :)

Doh!

Sometimes I am such a moron. On Sunday Mom and I made candy for the cake. On Monday morning I left the candy in the truck thinking there was no way the truck would get hot enough to melt the candy. Sure enough, even though I left both windows cracked and the window shade up, at 5 pm the candy had melted. They just melted enough to destroy the shapes so I have to remelt and remold them. Luckily I had seperated the colors with sheets of wax paper so the colors did not mix.

Mom and I started our next cake class last night. We have 2 people from the May Wilton 1 class added to our little group. So if Monique and Jessica both show up next week we will have 7 total.

My parents are so cool

Not only did Mom volunteer to do not one but two Wilton Classes with me, not only did she spend her Saturday night and Sunday morning helping me make hard candy, my father got me wood to make cake boards out of and told me he would cut it for me. Everybody in our Wilton 1 class said that I had the coolest Mom. It's nice to know that no matter what I decide to do they will support me to their fullest ability.

We managed to make the candy with only two small burns to me. When we were working on the red we decided to try using a 2 cup measuring cup instead of the little pitcher we had used for the blue. Big mistake. For some reason when Mom was pouring the syrup into the measuring cup it started bubbling a lot and it spilled over the top of the cup. Mom had to go sit down because she got some steam in her eye which made her think that maybe some of the candy had splashed into her eye. Fortuantely she was okay. I watched the candy boil over onto the counter and when it slowed down I picked up the measuring cup to try to pour the molds. Some of the hot sugar got on my hand and burned me. The good news is that neither of the small burns blistered and the pain was gone in a couple of hours.

Everyone at Barony meeting enjoyed the candy and thought it looked cool. I gave out pieces of the test batch that we did Saturday night as they were flavored with peppermint instead of the Almond flavor for the cake.

Before I left for Barony meeting I painted some Marzipan disks that I had made so we could judge the colors. Tirzah, Neil and I picked for the base color a gold/copper combination that was about 2 parts gold sparkle to one part copper. The bezel is about 4 parts copper to one part golden sparkle.

Hard Candy Jewels

Mom and I are making candy. Mental note, next time we use almond oil get face masks. It can burn when you breath in the fumes! On the other hand the test jewels we made last night look great. When pouring candy into molds it works better if you pour the candy into a glass pitcher or measuring cup and then into the mold. Also after pouring two trays of the mold put the candy into a microwave at high for 30 seconds. This reheats the sugar and lets it pour a little better. I can get between 4 and 5 1/2 trays of candy out of one batch depending on if I remember to reheat the sugar.