One of those Weeks

Multitasking

What can I say except it has been one of those weeks so far. I have hardly baked anything this week except for the postal orders which I have received so far. I seem to be spending the week getting through the list of jobs I have to finish in the house and I must say it feels great to actually complete some of them. All I seem to do at the moment is multitasking – lots ans lots of multitasking. I’m really keen to get on with some more today but I thought I had better catch up with my emails and let my readers and followers know what I am doing.

Lots of Baking

I have been baking though from Cake in a Jars orders to a Birthday Cake so I have been extremely busy. Along with dealing with my children and general home life I feel like the unexpected trip away over the Easter weekend was a long time ago and now it is a dim and distant memory. 🙁

Re-decorating and De-cluttering

Apart from the general part of my life I decided to start re-decorating (which I am fitting around everything else). There is nothing quite like putting the pressure on is there?? However, if we ever plan on selling this house and moving on to pastures new then we need to “pull our finger out” as time is running on. So far, I have undercoated one wall and part stripped one of wallpaper in the living room so you can imagine how un-cosy it is? You would think that the husband and children would muck in and help but no they don’t so it is left to me – SUPERWOMAN!!

After reading what I have just written no wonder I went to bed at 7.30pm last night. I was absolutely exhausted so I am taking it a bit easier today although I keep looking at the corner of the room which I want to de-clutter today. I think I am going to have to just clean that area as the feeling of euphoria when I know it is clean is amazing. So you see the re-decorating involves de-cluttering too which is only a good thing isn’t it?

Back to the Baking

Enough about the other jobs, back to the baking which I have done and need to do this week.

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At the weekend, I had to bake and decorate a cake for my son’s birthday party – a gaming party. He wanted a certain style of cake so I went along with what he said – “chocolate sponge, centre filled with sweets, Minecraft decorated with a Sonic the Hedgehog on the top”. Nothing like stating your demands is there? So I set about and made the Sonic the Hedgehog out of sugarpaste on Thursday then baked the sponge on Friday.

All Hands on Deck (on the cake more like it)

The real fun started on Saturday morning when I let my son pick the sweets to fill the centre of the cake up with. He chose Mini Eggs – some of the leftover treats from Easter which I didn’t mind at all. Once it was all filled in I made the coloured fondant for the Minecraft design which my husband decided to freestyle onto the cake as I was cutting out the squares – lots and lots of squares? 🙁 Why did I agree to make a Minecraft Cake? Once the cake was decorated and I was happy with it – well almost we placed the Sonic the Hedgehog topper on the top very carefully and then I asked my son what else was included in the game. Looking online my husband designed a ruby stone of some description (my son gave it a different name) and my son made some spikes and a gold ring. These little extras were added to the top of the cake to mask a couple of flaws which I could see. All in all, the cake looked pretty good and it was a real hit with all my sons friends at the party. The best part was when my son was jumping around the kitchen with excitement 🙂

Changes I Would Make to This Style of Cake

After making this cake there are several things I would do differently to make it better than it was. The first change I would make is to :-

• add a layer of white fondant underneath the different coloured squares as I think it would make it easier to gain a flat level surface on the cake at the end. I could smooth the white fondant down as I would on a standard cake and once it was level add the squares.
• Stick the squares onto the fondant with water as the chocolate buttercream was visible between some of the squares on the cake at the end.(I tried to hide these bits with the extra pieces added at the end).
• Make the Sonic the Hedgehog cake topper much earlier so that it has longer to harden which would make it easier to move onto the top of the cake.

As you can see there are a few ideas which I would change so bring on the next Minecraft Cake that’s what I say 🙂

More Orders to Bake

Monday arrived, I received an order for a Cake in a Jar but as I never just bake one jar because there is always more sponge and I hate seeing it go to waste instead I made two and I managed to sell the other Jammy Dodger & White Chocolate Heaven Cake in Jar so both were posted on Monday. I hope they arrived okay?

Back to the Housework

Tuesday was spent working on household jobs and it looks like Wednesday is heading the same way as I have orders to bake on Thursday and Friday so this is my last day for prep work as next week (in between baking orders) I hope to get the living room painted and then I can move onto the next room. As you can see there is a lot happening right now in my kitchen, living room and many other areas of this house.