9.23.2013

[completed] scented sachets, take two



Remember these scented sachets? Well, today I made more! This time, I made them for a care package, for my sister. I used brightly colored felt in fushia, two shades of green and royal blue, and stuffed each sachet with rose-scented potpourri.


ready to be sewn up
I made a total of six sachets, which took me about the length of one (1) Twilight movie. Each sachet has machine-stitched petals and is backed with a cotton print from my stash. One of the sachets was machine-stitched around the edges, but the rest I hand-stitched with either a whipstitch or a blanket stitch. I actually kind of enjoyed the hand-stitching part of the process, which is unusual for me.

pretty scraps
 These will be in a care package with some other goodies, and will hopefully will be well-used!

9.22.2013

[life] adam's 26th birthday

adam and his mean balloon

On Friday, Adam turned 26!

the cake

I made this chocolate coconut cake for him, which definitely stretched my baking abilities. I had to do things like temper eggs! Also, baking this cake took approximately all day because so many elements needed to chill at various steps and I needed to toast coconut and stir things for 10-15 minutes, etc etc. I was very afraid that the cake wouldn't be delicious after all that work! And I couldn't taste the completed product until Adam got home from work.

adam tasting the cake
Adam, of course, tasted it first and made a face. I believed him! But no, he was just teasing me, and the cake was delicious. Huzzah!

Adam reports that his birthday was good.

9.17.2013

[completed] pigs in mud cake

our finished creation!
While my dear mother-in-law was visiting last week, she suggested that we make a version of this pigs-in-a-mud-barrel cake. So we did!

She made the cakes, trimmed them down so they were flat, frosted them, and assembled the kit-kat barrel around the edges of the cakes.

my mother in law constructed the barrel
While she did all that, I made the pig figures out of delicious marzipan colored with red food dye. This was difficult - I kneaded the marzipan with the food dye and tried to get an even pink color but only achieved streaky red-and-white-and-pink piggies.


I made three piggy butts, one sitting pig figure, and one laying-in-the-mud pig. It took a few tries to get the shapes and cartoon-y realism that I wanted, but fortunately marzipan is a forgiving (albeit very sticky) medium. I used a toothpick to carve out the booty cracks, the smily-face snouts, bellybuttons and the folded ears. I looked at the inspiration photo a lot during this process.

positioning the piggies
Once the piggies met with my and my mother-in-law's approval, I carefully placed the pigs on the muddy cake. And then the cake was done!

proud cake-makers
Adam ended up taking the cake to work. He came back home without any cake! We should be famous around there now! The cake was apparently both hilarious and delicious, which is exactly what we wanted. Even the marzipan pigs were consumed and appreciated.

swimming pigs cake!
That was a fun little project. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to eat the cake or the marzipan (although I consumed a bunch of it while making the pigs), but I'm happy that it was well received at Adam's work!