Blue and Gold!

A couple of months ago, I was at a cub scout meeting and when the discussion turned to the Blue and Gold dinner, I eagerly volunteered to make the cakes. The cubmaster's wife has made them the past few years, but I figured with her hands full since her son was getting his Arrow of Light award, I'd give her a hand. So here it is - my first sheet cakes. Seeing as it was a cub scout cake, there wasn't a huge budget to work with, and at the time I still didn't have a good yellow cake recipe ( I do now!), I went with a box mix and made two marble half-sheet cakes. Lots of work, but it turned out pretty good and was easier than I thought.

One cake was decorated with the names of the boys in the Webelos II ranking that were receiving their Arrow of Light award that night. It's the highest award any cub scout can receive, and a HUGE deal for these boys. In the middle of the cake, I piped a picture of the Arrow of Light badge that each Webelos II scout was awarded that night.

 Now I couldn't forget about the other scouts - my son being one of them. So I put the names of all of the other scouts - from Tigers to Wolves to Bears to first year Webelos scouts.

 The cakes turned out pretty good, and were well-enjoyed by everyone at the Blue and Gold dinner.

Happy Birthday to the best mother in law ever!

Just when I thought I'd never get another cake order again, at the end of January I got an e-mail from my sister-in-law Jolyn about a birthday gathering she was having at her place for her mom. At the end of the invitation was a request for someone to make and bring a cake. So, of course, I jumped on it! I wasn't sure if I'd be able to - after all, I am merely a daughter-in-law. If one of my many sisters-in-law wanted to make the cake, I was sure that they would be given the task. The next day when I checked my e-mail there were two messages - one from Jolyn stating that it would be great if I could make the cake, and one from my sister-in-law Cathy saying that she would to it (I guess I forgot to reply to all). Well, what followed was a lot of good-natured joking about everyone wanting to make a cake for their mother, but all completely fine with me making it. Yay!
Next up was deciding the design and the cake flavor. Jolyn said that she loved the chocolate cake I made for Cecilia's birthday, and could I make either a buttercream or a raspberry filling. I told her I could do better than that - I'd make a raspberry buttercream. I decorated it with red royal icing roses that I had left over from my flowers and cake design class, since red is my mother-in-law's favorite color and of course with her birthday right before Valentines Day, it felt very appropriate.

Happy Birthday, Mom!