Happy Memorial Day

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to all my readers and blog followers.

I hope this day is spent with friends and family

and remembering those who are not with us.

Have a great day!



Stacy

Tuna sub recipe

My boys are on summer vacation!

The best time of the year.

Cookouts, camp fires, late nights, I love it all!

I have been really wanting to make Tuna fish subs like Subway lately.

I have tried many, many recipes to figure out how to get it just like Subway. Well today I think I may have figured it out and I wanted to share.

I had been using sugar in my recipe because I think the Subway tuna fish is a little sweet. Well I happened to have lemon juice on hand so I tried that instead of sugar and I think that is what it is! Here is the recipe I used:

6 cans tuna fish in water, drained

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/3 cup mayo

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Stir a lot to break up the tuna chunks and use an ice cream scoop to scoop out tuna onto sub bread. I added pickles to my bread and yum! It taste just like Subway!

Perfect summer time lunch or dinner.

Enjoy

Stacy



Making a Wedding Cake

The making of a wedding cake

When I was called to make a wedding cake I was beyond scared. I sorta figured I could pull it off because it is basically just a bigger version of a pretty cake. But still...I had never ever made a wedding cake before. After talking with the couple..I realized it was possible to do. They wanted three large cakes..all white with lots and lots of flowers. The flowers had to be white, dark brown and light brown with dark green leaves. They wanted a "camouflage" look to the flowers but still have a pretty flower cake look. Okay so here I go....

First I had to figure out how to make a flower. A rose, specifically. Many attempts at icing roses followed. Many unsuccessful attempts. I can not make a rose out of icing for anything! I turned to fondant. Specifically homemade marshmallow fondant. Here was what I created

Great now the roses were figured out. I spent days and days making roses. Thank goodness for the T.V. in my kitchen. Reality T.V. helps the cake decorator :) I made 80 roses.

And I made leaves..lots of leaves...

The day the cake was to be picked up I made lots and lots of cake

A. Lot. Of. Cake.

Next I covered them all with icing and fondant. The fondant made it look so pretty. I thought, maybe I'm done now?

But it they needed the flowers





This is the creative process of placing the millions of flowers.

This took alllll daaayyy to do. I was also taking care of my two little boys and doing laundry and cleaning the house too. The cake making was the fun part of the day. I am thankful to have two very good boys. They played outside most of the day.

So here is the finished cakes.

I love them. I think they turned out very nice. The bride to be loved them.

Here are some more pictures of all the cakes

That was an experience! It was very fun though and I loved making the cakes. A big "Thank You" to the couple who ordered the cake for believing in me the whole time. I hope I will have more wedding cake orders to come.

Thanks for checking out my cakes

Stacy

Cakes I have been making

I have been baking cakes!

Lots and lots of cakes

Here are some cakes I have made recently

Baby Shower elephant cake

The bottom layer of this cake is done in "camouflage print"

I used fondant and pieced it together

16th Birthday Penguin Cake

The penguins and igloo are made of fondant

Adult Birthday Cake

branches and flowers are made of gum paste

Graduation "wild" Cake

I have been busy! I am going to decorate for Memorial Day today so I will be making a patriotic decorations post very soon. Thanks for checking out my cakes and what I have been working on lately!

Stacy



Some of my favorite things post

Let's not bake today :)

Since I am not making any cakes until next week I thought I would just take a moment to show off my favorite things I use as a cake decorator. Some things are brands and some are just old junky stuff I've collected!

My Kitchen. My favorite place! This is where I make my cakes.

Those flowers are my mother's day gift ♥♥

My number one cake decorating tool. My 8 inch Wilton cake pan. This is usually the base to all my cakes. I love the size. It makes perfect round cakes. Every. Time.

Well this stuff helps make every cake perfect. It is cake release. Made by Wilton. I use this on every cake. I won't make a cake with out it. My cakes come out of the pan perfectly because of this stuff.

Looking around my kitchen some more. This is what I do when I am cake decorating.

Okay, back to work.

My well used and loved cutting board. I kneed my homemade fondant on this thing.

My kitchen T.V. this is very important for cake decorating. I have to be caught up on my entertainment news and reality shows. No, no, I'm really watching....uh...CNN or the Weather Channel. Yeah, that's it.

My giant icing spatula and broken rolling pin. Both very important. I love that rolling pin and refuse to buy a new one.

Oh, it's Happy, the dog. Yes she is a favorite thing! She "hangs out" in the kitchen a lot. She wants to be close to me. Or food.

Flour and sugar jars. I love them. That's all, I just love them.

My refrigerator wall and Stacy'Sweets apron. I love this part of the kitchen.

My mixer! I vinyled my mixer to show it my appreciation. I love my mixer. It is not even a KitchenAid mixer, it is just one I bought a few years ago. I am not even sure of the brand name.

I am almost to my favorite thing

My kitchen window. I love this window because of the shelf my husband made for me. I also love the light I made out of a mason jar. I covered the cord to the light with burlap.

Now my most favorite thing in my whole house. What helps me the most to bake cakes. My greatest accessory. My cake inspiration. My love.

My Boys.

Stacy



Open book cake

Wow have I been busy lately!

Sorry to have not posted in a while.

This week I made an "Open Book" cake. My open book is actually supposed to be an open bible but if you make this cake, obviously it can be any open book. I made this cake for my CCD kids. It is our very last CCD class of the year. I teach 7th and 8th grade CCD classes which is the catholic version of Sunday School. CCD is very important for the first communions and conformations. This type of cake would make a great first communion cake or conformation cake. I knew I wanted a cross on top and a rosary. I made those out of blue tinted fondant. I like the blue and white of the cake but I think it could use something more. Not sure what though. Since it is for 7th and 8th graders who, I am sure, will not be impressed, I figured it was cute enough.

Let's make this cake!

Step one is make a sheet cake with a 9x13 pan. I used a 9x13 baking dish. I wanted the edges rounded a bit and I knew that the baking dish has rounded edges.

Next I used a large bread knife to carve out a book shape. I consulted an open book to see what exactly I needed it to look like.

The middle dips down a little. It needs to be fuller on the tops and the middle needs to be carved out. By the time you put frosting on top and the fondant, it becomes fuller looking so you will want to carve quite a bit out of the middle

I forgot to take a picture of the cake after I carved out the middle. I took a picture while I was frosting it but you should be able to see the middle carved out.



See? Good. Next frost the entire thing so the fondant will stick to the cake.

Now roll out your fondant to cover the cake. I used white fondant. I thought it would look more like the bible being white but now that I see the cake, I am thinking a slight yellowish tint would be cute? Hmmm..

I have a slight wrinkle in the fondant in the corner there. I smoothed the wrinkle out as best I could. A great cake decorator said once (not exact quote but I am trying to piece it together here) All cakes are imperfect, it's all about how well you can hide the imperfections in the end.

Let's all remember that when making cakes!



I added a blue icing boarder to help hide that wrinkle. Oh well, the kids will like it! I also added the writing and the rosary on top of the cross. I made the cross and the rosary all out of fondant. I think the overall cake is very cute. It is also pretty easy to make.

There is the "Open Book" look I was going for!

Happy Baking!!

Stacy