Birthday cake!

So last Saturday was my parents' friend Mark's birthday. (He is also the Destroyer of Trifles.) Being the awesome and forgiving person I am, I baked him a birthday cake.

I taught myself how to do the criss-crossy shell thingeroo on the top when I decorated it. I had seen it in my baking book and I thought it looked neat. I always need to improve my piping skills. It was pretty difficult to make it in a countertop oven—it didn't bake very evenly. I had to switcheroo the two layers halfway through the process and the bottom one had risen higher than the wire rack, so it got a little torn. I also somehow managed to layer it weird, so it kinda... leans.

Oh well. It still tastes super duper delicious! It's a yellow cake and it is light and fluffy, but still very rich. (And of course, so does the frosting!)

I love cake. I wish I could eat cake every day all day.:-d

I also took a boatload of pictures of random things I love in Twin Mountain. :)

What I've been up to: aka, picture-spamming my way to forgiveness.

Ok, I said I made lots of things, and I know you want pictures, so here we go! Things I have created recently include:

A knit bunny. Mostly a prototype, I'm planning on making a larger one later. Not sure how well it will work out, but it's a cute (and easy) pattern from my knitting calendar. I'm hoping it will look a little less like an evil white ant with ears next time.

And as usual, cupcakes for my coworkers!

These were for a meeting to go over editorial standards. I wanted to butter up the writers so they'd be nicer to me. ;) They were my tastiest yet; I had coworkers coming to my desk the next day to see if there were leftovers.

These were for a group outing. I had a lot of fun making the sugared raspberries. The left is gluten-free chocolate with vanilla icing, middle is coconut-lemon meringue with lemon-curd filling, right is vanilla filled with wild berry jam-filled and topped with vanilla icing and a vanilla-sugared raspberry. I picked the berries for the jam, too. :) The berries on the cupcakes are from the supermarket, though.

My Mom's birthday cake. I know, I am an awesome daughter. ;) I didn't have any more pastry bags, so I ended up using my cookie press to do the frosting decorations. It's not really even close to my best, but my mom was happy, and that's what counts. That bonsai tree in the back is also for my mom. You can't see it too well, so another pic.

Also for my mom's birthday. A lil' fishin' dude. A long time ago, my mother and I were looking at bonsai trees. She saw a lil' fishin' dude similar to the one here, and said, "Oh! How cute! I want one!" (or something close, it was over a decade ago, gimme a break!) I said, "I could make that." And I did. Then that lil' dude was broken, and so I made another. I think that story was too long.

I also made this totally sweet flatware organizer out of duct tape and cardboard. I couldn't find any that actually fit in any of the drawers in my new kitchen, and doggone it, I can't have my chopsticks touching my spoons! They'll just fight and make a mess! Especially the Nesquick Bunny spoon. That guy is fiesty.

Ok, does making a dandelion wreath count? My parents' dog really liked it! And by liked, I mean, liked to chew on it. (I also just really like this picture.)

I made... a ... fort? Does that count?? Ok, now I'm stretching. I think this is where I stop and admit that I didn't really make all that much stuff. :(

Anyway, plans for the future involve a lot of knitting, embroidery, painting barbies, and making doll clothes. :D

picture spam!

Happy Earth day!! I've made a couple things since my last post, and I've been too lazy to post... sorry. :( A lot is going on. And I have lots of writing that I should be doing... :(

Anywho, Heather came to visit and I made her a mini cake:

(Note to self: next time, DON'T forget the baking powder! hehe)

I also made trifle for my mom:


This is my parents' friend, attempting to ruin my trifle:


And a very scribbly self-portrait:

(At the bottom, it says "Self-portrait #18 million." Probably accurate.)

Caaaaake.

I baked a cake. :3
It's a yellow cake, with white chocolate buttercream frosting and raspberry filling. I layered raspberry jam, raspberries, and frosting in the middle. The pink frosting is raspberry frosting. It is delicious! :D

It really bothers me that all of my cakes and cupcakes come out lopsided. I'm not sure if it's because the oven cooks unevenly, or if the oven is slightly tilted forward. I'm gonna have to invest in something to prop up my pans. Or I could wrap the pans in a wet towel. Y'know.

I'm going to be doing Script Frenzy, starting next... Wednesday? I should probably check that. I'm writing a "script" for a graphic novel about superheroes with useless powers with AJ. It is seriously hilarious. Perhaps I'll post excerpts.

I think I'm going to go work on my painting of Medea

I are wizard?

I don't know what sort of voodoo magic I used, but somehow I managed to get my word count up near 60,000 by the 28th of November. Impressive, right? What's more impressive is that I somehow managed to convince myself that I still had only about 30k words written, and I gave up. That's right, my friends, that last weekend when I should have been rejoicing, I gave up. I knew I couldn't handle writing 20k words in two days without going crazy. And then, on December 1st, I checked my real word count. Head? Meet desk. You're going to be friends for a while.
I don't really feel like I won, though, because my story still isn't finished. So I'm trying to get it done by the end of December. I'm pretty close, I just need to get my lazy tush around to doing it.
And, in my writing spree in that last week, I managed to scrounge up the time to bake a pretty cake for Thanksgiving. I've already eaten most of it, but you can still see two of the three pretty roses. My brother ate the yellow one. Pic will be posted when I get home. It's vanilla cake with raspberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting, and it is freaking delicious. I've got a slice in my lunch box right now, and it's killing me to have to resist eating it until afternoon snacktime. Yes, I know it's old, but I have a magical cake storage device that, despite looking cheap and lame, does a really good job of keeping my cakes fresh!