Castle Cake

My co-worker’s daughter is turning four years old this week and I volunteered to make her birthday cake for her.  What kind of cake?  A castle cake.  Because surely, if I can decorate a simple, two-layer cake, a castle cake can’t be all that hard!  (…and relatively speaking, it is not.)

The most important advice I will give to those of you out there who decide to tackle this cake is: Hollow out the castle pieces so that a wooden dowel can be driven through the piece.  This will help anchor it to the cake more soundly and will prevent leaning and other awful cake disasters.  (I happened upon this advice AFTER I’d decided not to hollow out the castle pieces.)  Ah, you live and you learn.  ;]

 

Valetine Cookies

Hey, if I can decorate a cake, surely I can decorate a cookie.

These were a huge hit with Jaden’s class for their Valentine’s Day Party.  I think I may have to take another stab at cookie decorating in the future.  Royal icing is much more finicky than butter cream, but I think we can come to some kind of understanding.

The First and Possibly Only

 

It finally snowed last night.  The kids have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of snow.  Last year we were not prepared when the blizzard hit and thus had to piece together suitable sledding materials and other things to play in the snow with.  This year we are prepared.  And so far we haven’t had enough snow to play in.  This snow, though respectable, is not enough to really do much with.  We can only hope that winter will give us another snow day, one filled with lots of road-choking snow.

 

 

Even the dogs were not that impressed.  Oh, they were interested for sure.  Denny ran about the yard like a Hoover trying to suck up as much snow as possible.  Lemon made it her job to collect as many snow balls that her fur could hold.  And she most certainly excelled at her job.  ;]