How to decorate the perfect cake

I went to a cake decorating class at the Viking Cooking School in Buckhead (in Atlanta) last Sunday. Jonathan and Lisa, my brother and sister-in-law, gave it to me for Christmas. They're thoughtful gift-givers, and outdid themselves. I'm in the stage of life where making fun memories for the kids is on my mind, so I've taken to making their birthday cakes. It's funny how many moms with grown kids I've come across that say, "I made all of my children's birthday cakes, but after they left home I never made another one!" So...years down the road we'll see where I am with it, but for now I'm having fun.

It was a five hour class, which gave me plenty of time to practice new skills. There were eight of us in the class. One thing we learned was how to make buttercream icing. Up until now I've always gone to the cake store in Gainesville and bought it by the bucket. I think after seeing first hand what goes into buttercream icing, I may still do that! It's hard to make yourself add all that caloric goodness and then turn around and feed it to your kids...or yourself. At least when it comes out of the bucket you can tell yourself they made it with broccoli, lettuce, and apples. (Peeled apples, of course, that's why it's white.)

We practiced with lots of different decorating tips to get down techniques like rosettes, swiss dots (which are just plain old dots with a fancy name), shells, and writing. We mostly did that part on parchment paper. The class finale was icing and decorating our own cake. One thing I learned was that if you want to get as good as our instructor, all you have to do is practice for 15 years by working at several different high end restaurants and hotels, and study in Switzerland for three years. She could spatula a smooth finish on an entire cake faster than I could even give my icing a stir in the bowl. All of us amateurs worked a little too hard on a smooth finish and pretty much spread our icing into nonexistence in a lot of spots. But...it was really fun! Here are pictures from my cake decorating escapades. Please don't set your expectations too high!

My car, in snow! It snowed all day in Atlanta last Sunday.

It was pretty, but it had been too warm the day before to do much sticking, just a little in the grass. There were tiny, lame-looking snowmen in a few yards here and there.

Here's the inside of the store. They sell Viking stoves and all kinds of fun cooking stuff in there. There's a glassed in area to the left where we had our class.

Our instructor, Anne.

My cake, when I finally decided to quit frosting and re-frosting it.

Some of my classmates hard at work.

It isn't easy to decide what to put on a blank cake. I haven't had that problem with ones I've done for the kids so far- they were camo, Barbie, and a jet, and I just used a star tip on the entire cake, so no decisions to make!

I finally committed to a design. Who's ready to pay me for my cake decorating services? I'll let you know when I get back from my three years in Switzerland, you can pay me for one then.

Here are some practice icing doodles. The outside edge of my cake was supposed to look more like the ropey doodle thingies on the bottom right of the paper. But the cake is round instead of straight, and the icing had gotten kind of soft and runny, and it was snowing outside, and I had had too much coffee, and....I didn't know what I was doing. Okay, the last one is the real reason it didn't look perfect.

The final product, complete with swiss dots and a border around the bottom. Maybe not the most professional looking cake ever, but it was fun! Speaking of professional, if you have a minute to tool around on the internet and need a laugh check out www.cakewrecks.com. It's full of pictures of dismal cakes professionals have made, complete with sarcastic comments.

The kids and I had gone to my folks' house in McDonough Saturday afternoon and spent the night so they could keep the kids during my class on Sunday. Spoiled Elizabeth still won't take a bottle, but she's doing fairly well with a cup, so Mom wasn't stranded with a hungry baby while I was gone. We stayed through Tuesday morning, getting in good visits with lots of family. Amelia and Shannon spent a good bit of Sunday afternoon and Monday with my Nanny. They love running over to her house from my parents' house and staying with her by themselves. Nanny (who is 82) loves being the object of their attention, and I love it that they want to spend time with her. Jonathan and I spent a lot of time with Nanny and Grandaddy (he passed away four years ago- and is still greatly missed), so seeing my own kids getting to know her is special.

Tuesday morning we headed back to Cleveland and went straight to play group at the Hicks' house. I took a few pictures just for fun.

Here's how you can tell you're at play group at a home where only boys live.

The girls who are visiting wield guns and nunchucks.

Gladiator, or Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs? You decide!

At playgroup Tuesday it was decided that Shannon would go home with Elliott and A.J. after church on Wednesday for a sleepover. They talk about it everytime we get together, so Alison decided to make it happen. Shannon's first official BOY sleepover! (They were sure to emphasize that, probably so the girls present wouldn't get the idea that maybe it was a GIRL sleepover too.) Since we got rid of one kid, I decided to pick up another in his place, so Ruth came home with us after church. Thursday was a fun day of playing, or at least it was at our house. Alison is the one who had three very active (ninja/Power Ranger/get the bad guys) little boys at her house...perhaps not as peaceful! But well protected.

Amelia and Ruth are big enough now to play games without my help. Each of them won a game of Picture Word Bingo.

Cheese! Notice Ruth is in normal clothes...and Amelia is in a poodle skirt and apron. Typical. Saves me some laundry when she wears dress up clothes all day, so it's okay with me.

We traded kids back around Thursday night, and went to the Davidsons for dinner. Friday a group arrived at camp for a men's retreat, so after staying home ALL DAY (home, dreaded home), we went to the Dining Hall for dinner. I love it when we have groups here. Saturday we stayed outside almost all day long. It was beautiful! After the fake blizzard of just six days before, Saturday was in the low 70's, sunny, and just right for playing outdoors. If it's not going to snow for real so we can get out and play in it, then I say bring on more warm days!

And here's a random picture for your viewing pleasure:

I wanted to get at least one of how Elizabeth looks when she's going down for a nap. She snuggles up with her horse lovey (a soft mini blanket with a cute horsey shaped head), puts her fingers in her mouth, kicks the mattress with both feet a few times, then goes to sleep.

If you spend an hour at this house or in the car with the Himstedt kids you'll certainly be entertained. Last week Shannon had his Webkinz dog in he car, and I told him it was a Husky. He asks, "Why does it have "ski" in it's name?" "That's just the ending of the word 'husky," I explained. He followed that train of thought with, "What if they had dog ski shooting?" "SKEET shooting," I said. "What if dogs could shoot guns?," he kept on. A conversation with Shannon can be fun. Later in the week I was getting out bowls for breakfast. Amelia decided she wanted toast, and asked me, "Why did you get me a bowl out?" Shannon looks up from his coloring and says, "What's a boulout?" "I got her a BOWL OUT of the cabinet," I explained. Then I laughed.

Amelia is getting to be a fast enough reader now that she can read signs as we pass them on the highway. Last week in the car she said, "Mom, that sign said, 'No Passing.' So why did you do it anyway?" I asked her if she thought I wasn't supposed to pass the sign and she said yes. Then I laughed again.

We have some small plastic dinosaurs and dogs Mimi gave us, and the kids like to play with them. They're very imaginative. Avery had them out the other day, and without even looking I guessed what he meant when he said, "My airplane's stuck in the dog popcorn!" I went ahead and laughed again. That's not a phrase you hear everyday.

Yep, it's stuck alright.

Here's Shannon showing me his latest watercolor creation, 'Shannon In an Airplane Over Trees." That's a tree. Apparently.

The weather was beautiful yet again today, and I got to enjoy it on the back of a horse for a little while. I acquired a small Quarter Horse gelding a few weeks ago, and today was my first real ride on him. I think I'll take him on as a personal project, he was fun to ride. A lot of the camp horses I've collected aren't really that much fun for someone who knows how to ride, since having so many beginners riding them takes the sharp edge off their training. I like having one to look forward to riding and working with, so maybe he'll be it for awhile.

Warm weather means we're enjoying our playset at the house again. I took a few pictures to show you how the bears have enjoyed it as well. One day last fall it was completely clean, the next day it had marks on it.

Here's a tiny scratch.

Kids' playsets make great scratching posts!

This one's my favorite, a tooth mark in the baby swing. The whole swing shows creases in the plastic where he must have struggled to get his tooth free. I hope he learned his lesson.

Saturday it appeared to be bear free so we enjoyed playing for awhile.

At the end of next week we'll have James' folks here from Texas. We love visits from Mimi and Papa. James' brother Jason will be here for part of the week as well, and will bring his fiancee. They just got engaged this week. We're looking forward to it!

There's no way to bring the randomness of this blog post to a close that makes sense, so since it's bedtime...actually an hour past, with the time change of today, I'll just end it.

THE END.