I considered writing about knitting as that is one of the craftier things I do, but I don’t really do it that much. I go through fazes where I get excited about a knitting project, but generally lose interest before the project is done. I usually finish, mind you, but it can feel like pulling teeth by the end. It once took me an entire year to finish a blanket. Seriously. I started it in January and gave it as a Christmas present. That I barely finished in time. I was literally stitching the last squares together on Christmas eve.
Most of my projects in the last few years have centered on baking. I’ve learned to write my own bread formulas and have even had a little success entering my creations in the county fair (I have a ribbon and everything! It’s not blue, but I couldn’t be prouder!). The last year or so I’ve also been working on teaching myself to decorate cakes. Youtube is a fantastic resource for this, as it is for a great many things one might wish to learn. I suppose it would be easier to find a class, but they all seem to require you to be available at 2pm on a Tuesday. For some reason my employer doesn’t accept I want to learn buttercream flowers as a reason to call off. Weird.
This cake was made for a friend and co-worker on her birthday. My friend is something of a pink loving girly-girl, so it seemed like a good excuse to try my hand at the unicorn cake that’s been clogging up the Pinterist for the last few months. It was my first foray with fondant and my first time using multiple colors in a piping bag.
I recently splurged on a food coloring “system” that I found at Michael’s. It’s basically a set of 8 food dyes and a chart that allows you to mix them to create basically any color you want. I got tired of buying the gels individually when I wanted a particular color — now I can do whatever I need, no trip to the store required. This was my first time using it, and it was totally worth what I paid! I love when that happens. Note to self, however: don’t put yellow and blue next to each other in the piping bag. You end up with a ribbon of green where they meet — and not a cute green, either. As soon as I saw it I thought, well, DUH.
So fondant turns out to be pretty simple to use. It’s kind of like a stickier play-dough. Which was good, since my biggest fear was that the horn might end up looking like…well, something else entirely. I work with some good people, but there’s not a chance in hell any of them would let me live that down.
So it came out pretty good, I think, despite my terminal inability to make two things the same size (um, don’t look too closely at the eyes, OK?) or frost a cake smooth. My lack of frosting skills ended up making it look like the unicorn has a surprised expression rather than the happy / peaceful look I was going for. It’ll be better next time.
As an aside: this heavy, exaggerated excuse for a cake came nowhere near fitting in my usual cake carrier. I just happened to have a large cake box I had bought for something else and ended up not using hanging out in the room in which we put crap we don’t want to throw away. This saved me from a panicked run to the store at 9:30pm, my feet hurting and my skin covered in a thin, uncomfortable film of buttercream. The lesson for the kids at home? Sometimes it pays to be a packrat. Don’t let your parents and teachers tell you otherwise.
Thank you for letting me take this show into the kitchen for a night! Now it’s your turn. WAYWO?