Cake Pops are COOL. So says Starbucks. So say we all!

I've been baking a lot this week.  *GASP*  Got me a cake order for a Saturday morning delivery, and I ended up with a bowl full of scraps, as usual, and nothing to do with them except toss them or eat them.

Eating them is not an option.  I have only recently rediscovered that I have a waist, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Tossing them is just wasteful...as opposed to waistful, which may not be a word, but, as I have already said, is not an option.

So, I had to get creative.  What do you do with a bowl full of fresh, tasty cake scraps?

Cake Lore Cake Pops!
A little white cake, a little vanilla butter cream,
some poured fondant and a gum paste flower

You make CAKE POPS!  This is my first try with cake pops...turned out pretty darn cute, and tasty too, if I say so my self.  (Okay, okay...so I ate one.  There may or may not have been four right before this picture was taken.  Gee whiz.)

I used my usual ingredients, Cake Lore butter cream and tried my hand at poured fondant.  A delectable edible...and hopefully a sellable edible too!

Ribbon, Bows and Bears, Minus the Bears

Are you a fan of Cake Wrecks?  If you're not, you should be.  I visit that website daily for the latest jaw-dropping, eye-rolling creation.

One thing I've learned from Cake Wrecks is that brown icing always looks like poo...always...especially if it's in a little swirl on top of a cupcake or something.

That is why I will NOT be showing you a picture of the first stage of my awesome royal icing and gumpaste teddy bears.  They are drying on the back porch, but until they get their white tummies and red bow ties, they look a little like brown icing tends to look.

And I am not ready to be on Cake Wrecks myself just yet, thank you very much.  The teddy bears are going to be ornaments on my Christmas Tree cake, along with long strands of gumpaste ribbon, and on top, I've decided to create a big, beautiful bow.

I have finally gotten the first stage of the cake topper done.  I have sixteen ribbon loops drying...

Golden gumpaste drying on a cookie sheet.

I'll be using 12 of these, in red and gold, to assemble a big, beautiful, loopy bow for the top of the tree.  A little floral tape, a lot of patience and it should look completely awesome and wonderfully festive. More soon!

Gumpaste Is Not Toothpaste

Have you been having one of those days?  One of those days when your to-do list is longer than your Christmas wish list, and everything feels out of balance?

That is no time to make a cake.

That is no time to try to craft something out of delicate, easily broken gumpaste.

That is in NO way time to craft something out of gumpaste with your two year old son standing on a chair next to you.

There are no pictures of the beginnings of a beautiful gumpaste bow to top my Christmas tree cake today.  No, no pictures, dear reader, because gumpaste, although a paste, is not a good substitute for toothpaste.  And somehow, my son, love of my life, thought it was important to learn that lesson first hand.

He ate it.

He ate it all.  And what he didn't eat, he licked, or spat on or chewed or otherwise mutilated.

The Gumpaste Eater

So, tomorrow I'll be at the store buying another pound of that million dollar stuff, but tonight, I've just got to ignore that defeating to-do list and laugh at the memory of my son looking up at me with yellow, blue and red gumpaste clinging to his chin and saying, "I love you, Mommy!"