My First Adventure with the Fondant

For my son’s 3rd birthday, I decided to bake him some cupcakes and decorating those with fondant. Since I’m new to baking, doing a small scale fondant decorating was the smartest thing to do. I stuck with the instructions found in books and on YouTube.

So since I didn’t have the complete baking equipment and tools, I had to go out and buy some stuff. Got myself some food coloring, alphabet cookie cutters, ingredients for making fondant , rolling pin, cake board, and cupcake cups. Of course since I wanted to be sure I’d have good stuff to work with, I bought ready made fondant 🙂 Cheater huh? I wanted to have a reference of how my DIY fondant would fare with professionally, ready-made ones.

A mishap happened when I followed the wrong fondant recipe. It was wrong because I mistakenly wrote tablespoons instead of cups in my recipe book. So it was a couple of wrong mixtures until I found the correct recipe! I remembered downloading this “Decorating Cake for Dummies” book in my iPod and sure did it has a fondant recipe! So after two trials, my third one was a success. A half successful one because my final product still ended so sticky after putting about 5 boxes of confectioner sugar already. Sa

Being a novice in fondant decorating, I decided to just do the lettering 🙂 spelling out “Happy Birthday Russel”.

So after a couple of kneading and dusting sugar

Eating and Photos

While everyone is irritated to, making fun of, and simply doesn’t care about those people who would first take photos of the meal they’re about to eat, I am here doing the same thing, but with a different take.

Have a look at our dining table last Sunday:

Posted this last weekend to my Instagram account because I just found it funny for me to be able to miss taking a ‘before’ photo considering I am sometimes one of those people who’d instagram every meal they’re about to eat. Minsan lang po ako ganon 🙂 And maybe also because I was already so consumed with hunger that after cooking and preparing this meal I just went right on my plate and ate. Though I have to admit, it kinda felt better because I knew I wasnt boasting about what we had on our table (hope nobody got offended), but instead sharing to the net world how crazy and messy my family sometimes eat, hahaha!  And that I didnt have to worry about taking an ugly picture/photo because Im always bad at taking photos hehehe.

Asparagus Salad

My version of Asparagus Salad as inspired by the recipe from Fresh Food Fast with Emeril Lagasse

Mirror in My Room

I have this mirror in our room which my son fondly scribbled on with a permanent marker.  It has been like that for a couple of months already until one day I decided to wipe it off.

Cleaning it off was easy.  I just used my son’s baby oil, wiped it on the markings, and then scrub, scrub, scrub! 🙂

Before

Cleaning agent

After

Devil’s Food Cake

I have been itching to try baking for a couple of weeks now, and today I’ve gathered up the guts to actually put my hands into it.

Devil’s Food Cake

Two weeks ago I saw this bakery and confectionery store where one could buy almost all their baking needs.  It’s called “Carla’s Bakery & Confectionery Supply and it’s along Dr. A. Santos Ave. in Sucat, right across Santana Grove.  So the soonest I woke up, I prepped myself to get the ingredients and tools that I would need.

The recipe in mind was called “Easy Devil’s Food Cake,” which I read from Yummy.  Here’s the recipe’s link: http://www.yummy.ph/recipe/easy-devil-s-food-cake  The recipe was quite simple, but I was still nervous because I don’t really have any cooking or baking background.  I was as nervous as I did my first batch of chocolate chip cookies!

So I just did what the recipe instructed.  Preparing the ingredients was easy and fast, so did the mixing and putting the wet and dry ingredients together.  What gave me a bit of a hard time was the cooking or actual baking part.  I thought I had the oven pre-heating, but later found out that it did not.  I was worried that the oven won’t work because this is the first time that it will be used since it was bought more than 10 years ago.  I don’t know what happened to the oven but I just had it turned on again since I already have the batter done and ready for baking.  What was supposed to be 35-40 minutes baking lasted longer to about an hour.  After that was the cooling period, which was about 30 minutes.  It was when I prepared the icing.  When all is ready for the decorating part, I called my sister to decorate and finish the other smaller cake while I did the bigger one.

My baking mess 🙂

Labeling my bottles of dry ingredients. Instead of buying fancy containers at this time, I opted to recycle some of our used glass and plastic containers 🙂

Smaller baking pan. First one to come out of the oven.

Cooling phase.

6 and 4 inches round cakes during the cooling period.

My sister decorating the smaller cake with the whipped cream.

That’s my son happy with the almost-finish product of the my sister.

Finish product!

My finish product 🙂

Devil’s Food Cake as inspired by Yummy.ph’s Easy Devil’s Food Cake recipe

For a newbie like me, the verdict was that the cake wasn’t that moist as expected and that I wasn’t able to really ice the cake well.  I think the stiffness of my whipped cream/icing wasn’t that perfect yet.

Oh well, there’s still some room for improvement.  At least I didn’t burn the cake and over whipped the icing 🙂

Inspired to Cook!

With my obsession to Chef Michael Smith, I registered to his website and picked-up a few recipes to try hopefully in the near future.  Truly I am more inspired to cook for my family now.  I like his style so much that watching him cook was intimidating unlike watching other Chefs out there.

He’s got a nice site!  Very neat and inviting to the eyes.  A member can even have his/her own cookbook in the website!  How lovely is that, right?  You can also share your own recipes as well.  I think I’m gonna love this community so much!  Good luck to my cooking endeavors.

Sharing with you my cookbook page! 🙂   http://chefmichaelsmith.com/members/rosanie

Here’s a screengrab!  Sign-up too 🙂

Colorful Bedsheet

Are you a big fan of colors and design?  I am, though there are times when I would go for more neutral and subdue colors, and plain designs.  Something I re-pinned from Justina Blakeney in Pinterest is a colorful bedsheet inside a well-kept bedroom.

I remember that I used to see and appreciate this kind of print design on scarfs which we a bit popular back in the early 90’s like this one

It’s now that I see it kinda works fine for bedspreads like the one above.

 

Design Suggestion – Living Room

I’m currently staying with my parents due to some financial reasons.  Though they have a living room with good enough space, if I would have the resources to build my own home, this is how I would like my living room to look like 🙂  Relaxing, simple, well-lit with proper ventilation 🙂  I like the walls to be white so it can be paired with different shades of furniture or decor.

Picked-up this photo from Pinterest.  Follow me http://pinterest.com/sanieorange/

How would you like yours to look like?  Or your living room is just as what you wanted it to be?

The Other Side of Me

Apart from being a mother and a wife, I do would like to keep up with my passions and aspirations in life.  Jump into my take on fashion, styling, beauty and diet!!! 😀

Visit and follow my fashion and beauty blog: www.mariarosanie.wordpress.com

I Love Make-up

Visit and follow my make-up blog at  www.mygirlalooh.blogspot.com  Let’s talk about make-up there 🙂