Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Happy voting day...

...and if you haven't already, get out there and vote!

We had a nice family gathering on Saturday. What I couldn't mention last week was that one of the Husband's brothers was proposing to his girlfriend and we were responsible for bring the cake to celebrate.  Only a couple of family members knew what was happening,  so it was a surprise for most of them.

Anyway, we didn't find out until too late to special order a cake.  I didn't think there would be any problem finding a round decorated cake. We decided to decorate whatever cake we got with marzipan bees as the happy couple have an apiary and urban orchard in the foothills of L.A.  Saturday morning I made the bees and then went out to buy a cake.

1 Whole Foods, 2 Safeways, and 1 French bakery later, I ended up at Sugar Butter Flour, where I should have gone in the first place. I really wanted a classic round cake with white icing and flowers that had room for writing. All of Whole Foods' cakes were yummy looking, but no flowers and no room for writing. There were a couple of Safeway cakes that would have worked if the flowers weren't all bright orange (eww), and there were a couple that were badly iced—I could have done a better job! The French bakery only had one small chocolate cake.

Sugar Butter Flour had several regular cakes. Because the cake had to be alcohol-free, my choices were narrowed down to a couple. Their cake with strawberry mouse between the layers had room for writing and looked yummy. In addition, they do the writing for free if it's in chocolate. Score!

We put the bees on the cake once we got to J's parent's house. The cake turned out pretty well:

Engagement cake with marzipan bees

The bees were easy to make. I used egg-yellow gel food coloring for the bodies and black gel food coloring for the stripes. (The black food coloring was messy even after being mixed into the marzipan.) I added eyes and mouths with a toothpick dipped in black food coloring. The wings are sliced almonds and tended to be a bit delicate. Fortunately, I took extras so I could repair any broken ones.  I think they turned out pretty cite:

Marzipan Bees, close up

The newly engaged couple totally loved the cake!

I spent Sunday running errands, prepping stuff for dinner, doing laundry, and crafting. Sadly the running errands and prepping dinner tasks took up most of my day and I didn't get to crafting until about 2:30. At least I could do laundry while I quilted!  And the Fall Back time change completely affects my sleep cycle. I crash about 9pm and wake up at 4am. It takes me several weeks to get into a normal schedule again.

The quilt is progressing, but obviously I didn't get very far this weekend, much less finish. [Sigh] I might not finish this puppy this year, but at least I'm closer to finishing!
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1 comment:

Elf said...

Wow, nice work with the bees! I'll have to look into black gel coloring--hmmm, if I ever get around to baking again. I learn so many things here. :-)

WIP-it Wednesday...

...a little of this, a little of that.  No photos this week. Things look pretty much the same. WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Dreaming ...