Ice Cream Cake for Andy

Well, it was my friend, Andy's, birthday earlier this week, so in honor of that, I decided to make his favorite kind of cake: ice cream cake.

Let me preface this in saying I have never made an ice cream cake before...but overall it worked and I feel I could easily do it again. It's just time consuming.

I asked, very sneaky-like, what kind of cake he would want, what was his favorite ice cream, etc. Never at the same time, never really mentioning his birthday cake, etc. It took a lot of planning. :-)

Also, I had to think of size...I knew that since I was going to make an ice cream cake, I had to really think. If I made it too big, what would people do with the leftovers? You couldn't really take it home, and leaving it out for others to eat when they wanted was going to be out of the question. Also, a typical round cake was probably not going to work either. If you thought it was difficult cutting 30 slices of cake out of a round cake without it falling apart on you, try it with an ice cream cake. So, I didn't want to do that. That meant either a rectangle or square. A 9x9 square pan won out because I thought the 9x13 pan would be too big.

First, I made the cake. He chose chocolate, so I made the chocolate cake.




While the cake cooled, I prepped the ice cream. Using my handy dandy Cuisinart 2-Quart Ice Cream Maker, I put together a simple vanilla ice cream. It only took about 15-20 minutes.




But I didn't stop there. I discovered in my sleuthing that Andy preferred cookies 'n cream ice cream, so I needed to add cookies to the creamy ice cream. So, I chopped up America's favorite cookie: oreos!

I placed Saran wrap in the cake pan, followed by the finished ice cream (consistency of frozen yogurt...a little soupy) and topped off by the cake. Then I wrapped the cake up in the remaining Saran wrap and into the freezer for at least 2 hours. (I let it set overnight).

The next day, I took it into work (in the cake pan still to keep it super frozen) and left it in the freezer there again, for a couple of hours. Then, it came time to decorate! First, I needed to pull the cake out of the pan and removing the plastic wrap.

Next, I frosted the cake with icing...yum.

...and surrounded the cake with oreo halves...to emphasize the cookies 'n cream ice cream inside!

And then...decoration...in the shape of the Green Lantern symbol...Andy's favorite super hero...

February was definitely birthday month for me, with Robyn and Andy each getting a customized cake from me....don't really know how I'll top them next year...or how I'll top upcoming birthdays for other friends! Yipes...better get thinking!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Everyone likes conversation hearts, right? So, for Valentine's Day I decided to have a little bit of fun with the classic candy idea by making conversation cake hearts.

So I started with the making the hearts by baking the cake and then crumbling the cake once it was cooled. I mixed in some frosting and then started molding the cake balls.




Once I molded the soon to be hearts, I placed them on a cookie sheet to make sure I had enough.

Then I had to mold each of the hearts by hand...

After placing the hearts in the freezer, I colored the candy coating to make the specific colors from the original conversation hearts. I coated each heart individually and placed them back on the cookie sheet to re-freeze (and harden the candy).

Then to make them 'conversation hearts' they needed the conversation sayings on them...so I made the traditional happy and loving ones...

As well as hearts for those more against Valentine's Day...aka, more negative sayings :-)

They were a hit...because they were all gone at the end of the day. Hooray!!

Happy Birthday Robyn

Robyn's birthday requires a special cake, especially if this might be the last birthday I get to spend with her for a bit :-( so I had to pull out all of the stops.

So, with my darling former-roomie being a Stage Manager, I wanted to make a prompt book for her. For those who don't know what a prompt book is, it's basically the production bible that the Stage Manager keeps and puts together. It holds everything from the contact sheet, script, blocking notes, etc.

Since Robyn LOVES pink, I knew I needed a pink 'binder' for her book. I had to label it, so I picked a title that suited Robyn herself (no, its not a real play title).




Then...for the tabs (which would normally say 'Contact Sheet', etc) I decided to make it things from Robyn's life, which included:

• Family
• Maggie (her dog)
• St. Michael's (her college)
• Roomie (me!!)
• New London Barn (summer stock)
• HSC
• Mark (her boy)

...to name a few...

I had been pumping this cake up for days/weeks even, and I don't think she was disappointed...and neither was I.

Lord help me the next time I'm around for her birthday....ah!! I'll have to top this.

Damages

Monday's are tough, schedule-wise, in our household. I work at least from 8:30am to 5:30pm and David is at work and in class from 8:30am to 9:55pm. This isn't the best for a little puppy who needs to go to the bathroom.

On any normal Monday, I could probably get away from work at lunch to head home, let Bailey out, play with her for a little bit while eating lunch, before putting her back in her kennel and heading back to work.

Unfortunately, this past Monday was not a normal Monday. I had a new cast coming in that was going to be taking up most of my day, so I wasn't going to get away very easily. So I enlisted Robyn to come and let her out, etc.

Everything seemed to be going fine. Bailey was let out, went to the bathroom, played with Robyn before being put back in her kennel. Robyn told me everything was fine when she left, so all was good.

I got home around 7pm and I walked in to this...


At first I thought Robyn and Bailey played, but for some reason she didn't pick up the mess. Odd for Robyn, since she cleans all the time. I could hear Bailey in the bedroom, where her kennel was...but then she came out to greet me!

She had Houdini-d out of her kennel and destroyed the place! I went into the bedroom to see what else had occurred. This is what I found...

Needless to say, after a quick chat with Robyn, we think the bottom latch hadn't been completely closed...thus Bailey being able to sneak through.

Overall, everything could be cleaned up. A few pairs of my shoes seemed to get the brunt of the damage.

Bailey is going to doggy daycare on Monday's from now on! :-)

It's A Zebra

My coworker, Emily, found a cake on Pintrest that I needed to try to make. It looked fairly simple and difficult all at the same time, so I did some research and made it happen. Here's the making of the Zebra cake:

I made two batters. Yes, I could have made only one and split it, adding some cocoa powder to the vanilla cake, but I really wanted the colors and flavors to be there. Plus, it allowed me to make a whole second cake to keep at home. :-)



Then very slowly, and carefully, I began pouring the batter into each of the pans to create the layers, aka stripes.

This is the final product of one of the pans....looks like a target!

I proceeded to bake the two cakes, turning them 180 degrees in the oven about half way through baking...I would do this anyway, but I really have to do it because my kitchen is kind of slanted...no joke!

Then it was frosting time! I did both a whipped frosting and butter cream, for the color and flavor. Then, of course...it's a zebra, so it needs stripes. With a chocolate ganache that is also known as Duke's Frosting (from my dad's mom), I made the stripes (and frosted the second cake).

It needed a face...

...and a tail...of course.

I took the cake to work...everyone was asking who's birthday it was...or what the occasion was...which I replied "just 'cause"! The cake looked great on the inside and tasted delicious as well!

Overall, I thought it came out great and I'm already contemplating not only how to make it better but how to change the animal! ;-) Tiger or giraffe cake anyone?!

Something About Pink

It's after Christmas, so I can now post the pictures of Robyn's painting that I gave to her as a present. I am super proud of this painting, because I really wanted Robyn to love it as much I did when I finished!

Here's how I did it:



A pink base was needed, of course, and then the white bird. I topped her body with black paint as she is a robin bird and needs a colored top.

And then it was time to add the flower petals...

...with more details...

You can't have a flower without leaves...

...or the stamen...

I wanted to add more definition to the petals and the leaves, so I individually outlined them in black.

Then I wanted to give the petals one last...detail...to make them more 3-dimensional and some more pink to the background.

Some more pink design in the background and the white of the eye was added...

...and then got the eye finished up...as well as the final breast and wing/feather detail.

Again, I love how this painting ended up...and I'm happy that its now hanging above her bed at home. :-)

Jeff Dunham's Controlled Chaos

I bought tickets to see Jeff Dunham, my favorite ventriloquist. I was excited and not excited all at the same time. It was at the end of the Christmas season and work had been exhausting so I just wasn't really in the mood. But I went.

The arena was PACKED. Luckily I got tickets in the front center section. So, slowly, I made my way to our area.


Here is the stage from the seats. Not bad, right?

Here was the entire stage, so you can get the idea.

And then the show began! (Disclaimer: I don't own any form of Jeff Dunham's Controlled Chaos show or any of the dummies. I'm just a fan who was happy to be there.)

Jeff starts with his own stand up before bringing out the 'stars' of the show.

First up: Walter. I love Walter just because he is crotchety. I believe I will be this guy, just in female form, when I'm older. ;-)

Bubba J was next.

And of course, Achmed, the dead terrorist. :-)

Next, was my favorite, Peanut!! He is wild, zany, crazy...aka, me!

And the show can't be complete without Jose Jalapeno on a Stick!

We laughed a lot and had a great time. My abs and ribs were sore from the hysteria and while I had seen the Controlled Chaos show on TV, live was the way to go!