Thursday, October 19, 2006

My own birthday cake ...



I admit it. I love Fall the best. As an October-baby, I love anything pumpkin-y, apple-ish, golden, orange, crimson, spicy, crisp and cool. So I decided to make a pumpkin cake for my birthday. This one features alternating layers of caramel-spice and vanilla-caramel cakes, iced in buttercream and covered in pumpkin-colored fondant. Add a stem of brown fondant, a few leaves and twiny vines of avocado fondant, and a fall celebration cake is born. My favorite part was painting the finished pumpkin with an amazing mixture of vodka, terra cotta, gold and soft brown food colors, plus the always exciting golden luster dust. I swear, this cake looked like it was a lovingly hand-crafted ceramic cookie jar!

A little BlueBell Cinnamon ice cream seemed to be the perfect accompaniment.

And yes, it was finally cool and dry here today. Halleluljah.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday, sister!

Your cake is gorgeous. We had some of that cinnamon ice cream recently... it is pretty good. Very "this-would-taste-good-after-Mexican-food".

Is the gold dust what makes the cake look all shiny? Who knew you could paint with vodka? A paint with vodka kit would surely outsell those paint-by-number kits-- remember those?

Been a hard week here. We lost my father-in-law Wednesday. Much to write about when I de-hiatus.

Superholmie

Kevin said...

Thanks, supersis!

Yes, I loved those paint-by-number kits. I must have done a zillion of them as a kid. Vodka definitely would have made the process even more fun.

So sorry to hear of your loss. It's so hard to lose a parent, no matter how old one is.

Kevin said...

I forgot ... yes. The gold dust is what gives it that shiny porcelain-like sheen.

Anonymous said...

I thought about you last night-- they were having one of those architectural cake designing contests... to be perfectly honest your stuff looks so much better than what they did. Especially your fondant... some of their stuff looked like spackle.

Shelly

Kevin said...

You flatter me. But I have to agree -- I LOVE watching all those cake competitions on TV -- and half the time I do think that what I do is better than what I see there.

But you have to keep in mind -- as a "creative person", it is HUGE stress to be on-stage and forced to craft an amazing piece of art, while being watched by cameras, judges and the general public, in a 6 or 7 hour time period. Most of us creative types prefer to do our thing in private, and to take as many hours as it takes to get it finished. Heck. For that matter, most of us prefer to be hermits!

Still, I think you for your praise ;-)

Kevin said...

And if I could read German, I'd know how to go back and change the word "think" to the word "thank" in my last comment.