HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Bring it on Food Network Challenge!

As you have probably figured out, for those of you who have read my blog, I enjoy cooking. I especially enjoy baking, and my dad posed a challenge to me for our October birthdays celebration. His challenge was simple, make a cake and decorate it by using fondant.

Seemed easy enough, and by all accounts, it really was. I ended up making my own fondant since buying it was really expensive. I found a recipe for the fondant and for the butter cream that needed to be used to keep the fondant from sliding off the cake.

I've seen a number of Food Network cake challenges, so I felt like I knew the basics of what I was supposed to be doing. I just made a ten inch round cake and decided to decorate it like a jack-o-lantern since we would be eating it on Halloween.

I made the cake and the fondant on Thursday night and decorated it on Friday night. All in all, I think it turned out really well, being my first time using it. Everyone enjoyed the cake and my dad was pleased that I finally got around to using fondant.



I would have liked to have done a little more detail work on the pumpkin part of the cake; like adding a stem or indents to show the sections of the pumpkin. But due to time constraints and other extenuating circumstances, that wasn't in the cards. I am still pleased with the way it turned out, though I feel it could have been better.

I think I may end up using fondant again in the future because it really is easy to work with and it looks nice. Ari wants a "Chick crashing the King" cake from a scene in the movie Cars, so if I am going to pull that off, I think I am going to have to use fondant. It should be interesting.

Carvin'

Well, Halloween is over, and it sure was a doozy. We got the festivities going by carving our pumpkins on Wednesday. Mom, Marty, Ang, Michael and Piper were all over at our house for a fun-filled evening. Five pumpkins went under the knife that night and they all turned out really good.

We went to a pumpkin patch with my dad and Mary Lee down in Southern Indiana a couple weeks ago so the kids could pick out their own pumpkins. Ari liked the "bumpy" pumpkins, so we got a couple to display on our front porch. On Wednesday, when I cut the top off Emilie's it was rotten on the inside. Ari's was a little rotten, too, but after we got over the smell, the carving went off without a hitch.

All the kids liked their pumpkins and we lit them all up together before everyone left. We did them freehand this year after using patterns with Eva & Daniel last year. I would have used a pattern, but I couldn't find the one I wanted. I had a specific face in mind, but all my searches came up empty. Also, I noticed a lot of websites did not provide free patterns this year, you had to pay or join the site too see the patterns they had. Nevertheless, it was a fun evening of pumpkin carving, and I can only imagine it will be even more fun when the kids can carve their own.

Here is some visual proof of the pumpkins we carved this year. From left to right the pumpkins belong to Emilie, Ari, Michael, Angela, and Piper.


And with the lights out...