More of the sweet, less of the fit

* This post was meant to be published on Sunday, but I had a computer glitch, please pardon the delay*

Happy Father's day to all the great dads out there. I'm so grateful everyday for the wonderful father I was blessed with. I worked on finishing the cake for most of the day, but still managed to get to church and sushi dinner and a movie with my daddy to celebrate.

I'm so excited, after wanting one forever I finally bought myself a new cake turntable. I had a sweet 50% off coupon at Michael's, so I couldn't help myself. Turntables make icing cakes so much easier, it's ridiculous.

The cake turned out pretty well. Linda, the woman who ordered the cake, didn't want a fondant cover for the cake, which is what I'm used to. Working with all buttercream was a challenge for me. It's so difficult to get it completely smooth all the way around. As you can see here

, So frustrating

I opted to airbrush some color on the cake and added in some fondant clouds ( I couldn't resist getting some fondant in somewhere) as well as the top of the cake. The airbrush color helped to hide some of the imperfections in the buttercream. I swirled blue and white fondant for the sky on the top of the cake and cut the airplane out of gumpaste. I wasn't totally happy with the finished product, but I did what I could with what she wanted. That said, Linda loved the cake so that's all that matters.

Between working on the cake and going out with my dad my day definitely consisted of more "sweet" activities than "fit ones" , I didn't have a chance to squeeze in a workout. I was due for a rest day anyway, so I'll try not to feel guilty and move forward.

It's a beautiful day

Today is one of those absolutely perfect Colorado summer days. It's 75 degrees out and beautiful. I had a riding lesson this morning and it was a nice change to not be riding in the heat.

Before heading out for my ride I had my standard summer berry breakfast.

I also had 2 unpictured pieces of Spelt toast with peanut butter, because I feel like I need a little extra nourishment for riding. Marco, the horse I ride was in a stubborn mood today, so he made me work really hard. I'm considering my hour long lesson my work out for the day. After all, I've got other things to tend to.

On Thursday I got my second official cake order, yay! One of my parent's friends called to order a birthday cake for her husband. It's a simple, round almond cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream. Her husband was a pilot and still teaches flight lessons so she requested an aviation theme. We'll see how it turns out. Hopefully better than my last cake fiasco. So far so good :)

I put the cakes in the oven and whipped up a smoothie in a bowl before starting on the buttercream.

In my smoothie:

• Strawberries
  



• 2 T Organic cocoa powder
  



• 1 scoop Vega natural protein powder




• 1 Cup Silk unsweetend Almond milk
  



• 1 tsp. Xanthan gum




• tons of ice
  



• Mixed berries for topping
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Diving in head first

Vail, Colorado

Alright, here it is, my first post since coming back to Colorado from NYC. I have to say it's nice to be back. I love NYC and always will, but there's really no place like home and I'm glad to be staying with my dad for the summer.

My first week back was a busy one, starting with my cousin Kate's 3rd birthday. I went up to Vail for the weekend as a lot of my family was in town for this event. Kate's mom, my cousin Andrea (who also happens to be one of my very best friends) asked me if I would help her make the birthday cake. Kate is obsessed with The Little Mermaid, she's definitely a girl after my own heart. While Andrea said she wanted something pretty simple, I was still a little nervous about making the cake. I feel like people have very high expectations for me now that I've gone to culinary school. The thing they sometimes don't realize, however, is that a great deal of time and preparation goes into creating the gorgeous cakes you see in the bakery display cases. She wanted to make the cakes the afternoon before the party, which made me a little nervous, but it was her daughter's birthday so I went with it.

It. was. a. disaster.

I forgot about the perils of high altitude baking, and that, along with an oven door that didn't close properly, resulted in a giant cake flop. I don't have pictures for you, but let me paint you a picture. We dubbed it P.O.S. cake, otherwise known as 'pile o' sh*t" cake, because that is exactly what it looked like. Fortunately the addition of more flour, a slightly lower baking temp. and a locked oven door resulted in this :

Not my all time best work, but considering I started decoration at 10 o'clock that night and worked until 1 a.m., not so bad. Most important of all Kate loved her cake. So much so that I caught her hugging it. It was so adorable I really couldn't begrudge her smooshing the shell border I had meticulously piped the night before. Ahh, the things you do for family.

The birthday girl in all her glory:






Andrea, Kate (when she was just a peanut) and myself

I made cupcakes too, just in case someone wanted to take some cake home *ahem* that would be me

Blogging in my head

Wow, so far I kind of suck at this blogging thing. Let's see it's been over a year since my last post, I'd say that qualifies as a blogging fail, but I'm vowing to make up for it. The past year of my life has been a bit of a whirlwind, most of my time being spent in New York, either in culinary classes or at my internship at Colette's Cakes (more about this later). I had the best intentions to blog my daily activities, but somehow every day I came home so exhausted from my baking adventures I never actually got around to it. I blogged in my head everyday, it just never made it to my computer :)
After this year off I sort of felt a little silly, like it was an awkward time to start blogging again, but then I realized that it's sort of a "now or never" situation, if I don't start now, then when? There is no "best" time, so I've decided to dive in headfirst and re-enter the blog world. Even if no one ever reads my words, I will have a record of my life, and that in and of itself is valuable. After all, life is short :)