Holy cow! I've lived in my kitchen all weekend, minus a couple hour break for a birthday party on Sunday. Thank you Pam; I mean it!
I have been diligently making a two-tiered cake for my final class for Tuesday. I have my bottom tier left to cover in fondant and its all done to the stage it needs to be, yahoo! Question is do I have enough fondant left over, we will soon find out. Things I've learned making these:
1. Start with the bottom tier first that way you know how much to cut the next layer down (I wish I new this before I covered the top tier in buttercream icing yesterday)
2. Actually #1 is the only tip I can think of, ehhh whatever, lol! Mine brain is on overload. See look I can't even type properly!
So far I've used five pounds of cake flour, 3/4 of a litre of whipping cream, 1 1/2 large jars of jam, 2 lbs. icing sugar, a dozen eggs, and many little incidentals. Holy cow! Thank god fondant doesn't take but 20 minutes. How many hours of work; well it took me three hours from start to finish including baking times for 2 separately baked layers. It turned out flat on top even! I didn't have to trim much; other than to balance out the layers equally. Note to Kitchen Aid - Make a bowl with measurements engraved on the inside of the metal bowl. That way I can make sure I have divided my batter equally. My cake batter doesn't say it makes 5 -8 cups it says serves 10 to 12 people! I have a problem eyeballing things too when I'm only working with one pan. Tiered pans are expensive. I got lucky and used a 50% OFF coupon otherwise it would have run me more that $50. I made the mistake of using two different "8x8" pans for my gift cake and ended up making to completely different size cakes (one was at least a quarter of an inch off on each side). A thank you to glass pans and Dunkin Hines for telling me you can cook it at the same temperature as a shiny metal pan! Anyhow.
We are discussing a trip to Montreal in October. David has a milltrip he's attending for a week. It's my grandpa's 82nd birthday on the 4th of October and Brockville is only a short drive from Montreal. So we are trying to work that in there. Also there is the problem of who will watch the kids for a few days; Stirling will be in kindergarten then. I might just try to travel over the weekend, who knows. I have more than enough Airmiles to get there and to Jenn's wedding next August! Yahoo! If we were to take the kids the flight costs and fees alone exceed $3000.

I'm sure most of you know that I have busy working on my new blog that has finally caught itself up to the present day and can slow until I have to make a two tiered cake for next Tuesday! Ack! Mine will be Canada Day themed, I just haven't decided how realistic I want the leaves to look. I have a vision in my head, as they say, just waiting to get out. Future cake and edible related posts will be on my knew blog. I want to use it as a way to promote my talent and hopefully something will come of it.
Stirling's last day of preschool was Wednesday, they had a water party outside for the afternoon. He had great fun and continued to have his little water party when we got home. Unfortunately, I haven't put the kids pool up yet, I've had a sitter every week and don't want to overwhelm her with watching Madison on the play centre and around the pool. Stirling would be fine with both, but I still don't like the idea. Stirling starts swim lessons again for a couple weeks next month. This will be his first time in a class that I am not participating in. I wanted to enroll Madison and I in a parent and tot class as well, but the pool we have lessons at is not offering the class in her age group. Oh well, we can sit and watch instead, only being a half hour it shouldn't be too bad for Madison's patience.
My mom's husband has finally come home from the hospital after having 5cms of his kidney removed. He kept bleeding internally for a couple days, so they kept him longer than expected. They were giving him 2 pints of blood a couple of nights, and had to go back in for surgery to make sure everything was okay. After they went back in he began to improve. Thank god. His thyroid surgery went really well as well, now only time will tell how much energy he will get back, and whether or not his breathing will heal completely.