Tar and Feathers

Yes it has been a long time since I have posted anything at all. My apologies, you may all take me out back and tar and feather me if you like. :)

Not to much has happened in the last few months. We went trick-or-treating with our very dear friends and the boys got me . . er, I mean got themselves a bunch of candy.

Zackarie was a very scary skelleton warrior.

And Johnathan was a fierce looking ninja.

Our friends' daughter went as a beautiful but scary (of course) devil queen. Our men didn't dress up and neither did I, altho Chryssy had some cool bright blue contacts that I wore, while she went dressed in a full Winnie the Pooh costume. She looked fantastic and the other parents and kids out thought so too. She even gave out some hugs to the smaller kids. Total cuteness. I am so dressing up next year.

As for cooking, I really havn't made anything fun and exciting. Dinner is about it for us lately, and even at that, Greg has been making most of that. Hopefully all that will start changing.

We have a family night with our friends every Thursday. We go over have dinner, dessert, and watch Heros. So for this week I think I will make chocolate-carmel cupcakes. Not to sure how I will construct them yet, I have a few ideas. I will post pics when I am done.

What-A-Cake!!!

The birthday went really well. The cake was done a little bit a head of time, so that made things so much better. Here are some pics of the finished tree:

I made modeling chocolate out of chocolate chips and corn syrup, then molded it around a wire and wood frame I made earlier. The wood grain of the tree was made just by scraping a tooth pick in various patterns, and to make the 'bark' of the tree a bit deeper and glossy, I mixed some brown food dye paste and water and painted it on, add a hand ties noose, and then ta-duh I have a chocolate tree!!
On the trunk of the tree I carved "Z (heart) MOM" awww . . . .

It turned out really well. I had to make a base so the tree could stand so I found a piece of metal vent at home depot, some plastic tubing, and some epoxy.

As for the rest of the cake, well I made chocolate cake, and half of the cake with filled with chocolate mint mouse and the other half was a tart cherry filling.

The cakes were baked on a cookie sheet so they were a lot thinner than normal layer cakes, but that allowed me to make 4 layers and thus making the cake extra moist.

The cake was topped with plain vanilla whipped cream frosting (tinted to be grey, but later seemed to turn a weird purple-grey color). Tombstones were made from marshmallow fondant and later painted with black dye paste diluted with water (which also turned the same strange grey-purple color, at least it matched).

Dirt was made from finely ground chocolate graham crackers, brown sugar, and coco powder.

Blood was made from strawberry pie filling tinted darker with a bit of black dye and red dye.

Lastly, the bone (except for the whole body) were formed from fondant.

It was a lot of work, but the end product was really nice, and tasted amazing.

A Birthday Cake Graveyard?? Oh, no . . .

So I know it has been quite some time since I have written, or even made anything. I have been busy with the boys and homework, my work, and just trying to figure out where dinner is coming from . . . and yes, WoW also.

Well, September is upon us and it's time for Zack's 8th birthday. He actual birthday was on Monday. I sang to him when he woke up and we took him out to a restaurant of him choice, he even got a piece of cake with a candle in it. Then he wanted to go to the park. It actually was a really nice day, the weather was perfect and the food was good. Hooray for Zack!!!

We are throwing him a party/BBQ this Saturday at a cool local park. I am pretty excited, not to mention that it should be a great day, but we are meeting our friends for the first time, so that is exciting as well.

I asked Zack what kind of cake he wanted and he, being the blood-loving child that he is, wanted a bloody, creepy, death cake. Those are his words not mine. I know most parents are think "oh, my what are they teaching that kid" well, he like scary movies and gore, but I figure that his super strong love for cooking and doing housework pretty much evens out the other stuff, right??

As for the cake. I am going for a grave yard look, complete with blood, scary tree, noose, headstones, and a shallow grave. It is still a work in progress, but here is the noose. I made 2 cause I wasn't sure what size would look best.

I am also making a tree out of wire and modeling chocolate. The headstones will be made of fondant as will a few bones and some leaves. I also am gonna use cherry or strawberry pie filling for my fake blood, probably tinted a bit darker to get a good bloody look.

Check back soon cause I will post more pics as soon as I get the other stuff done, and if anyone has any creepy ideas I would love to hear them.