Showing posts with label arts and crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arts and crafts. Show all posts

The Great Cake Experiment: Fondanteded 

Monday, October 11, 2010 - Posted by Amanda Bast
Tonight was the riskiest part of the experiment: fondant. Let me start off by saying that fondant does not look edible, and it's really not that great tasting. It tastes like sugar in playdough form. I felt like I was breaking some sort of school rule when I sampled some.
It comes in a brick and you are supposed to knead it (but not too much, or it gets sticky) and then roll it with a rolling pin. I decided to skip the kneading (why? I have no idea. I was getting a little cocky before I even started) and when straight to rolling. This here is the hard blob-o-fondant:


It worked fine, other than it made rolling it out into an ab workout. This either means I don't need to exercise today, or I should really start if mere icing preparation causes me to feel the burn. Now came a challenge. Move the large, flat piece of icing onto the cake. Hmm ok, HOW? The distance is too great!


I did figure it out but experienced some sticking and tearing. And then it looked like a ghost:


At this point in time I looked at my mother and said, "Um...how...?" and then attempted to smooth out the icing. The top is no problem, but the sides caused some trouble. The icing decided to fold and buckle in some places and tear in others. Observe:



BOO TO FONDANT. I admit that I almost had a little, "I tried my best!" moment. I then told myself that it was ok, and I can't be perfect at anything and everything artistic (although I will try my darndest). I think the biggest problem was that I overworked it, and it was beginning to dry out and crack. I will fix this by kneading first before rolling, to heat things up a little. Then came the fun part: colouring the remaining fondant!


A little pink, a little green, a little white, some really cute cookie cutters and some syrup to glue them all together and......


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 TA DA!!!!! It actually turned out much much cuter than I thought it would, and I'm fairly happy considering it was my first go with the stuff. Some of the flowers were strategically placed in an effort to hide the flaws in the white fondant. This picture actually looks worse than the real thing:


 From another angle:


Bird's eye view:


Things I learned:
1. Kelly green colouring gel + a little bit of lemon yellow colouring gel = an ok lime green
2. Knead before rolling to avoid drying out
3. Even "big" mistakes can be covered up by extremely cute flowers
4. Cake boards covered in tinfoil look chintzy and will be replaced with a pretty glass cake plate for the real deal
5. Fondant sticks to itself using water or syrup. It also sticks to fingers that have water or syrup on them.
6. If you put the syrup away before you remember to stick the letters to the board, spit works just as well (EW EW I know that's gross, but no one is going to eat the letters anyway. Relax).
7. This was fun, and with practice I know it will be ridiculous amounts of fun
8. The Bean is way cuter than this cake.

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The Great Cake Experiment: Ganache'd 

Posted by Amanda Bast
Today is the day the poo pucks get decorated and hopefully turned into something that doesn't resemble a poo puck. I took pictures of what I did today:


Here are the poo pucks shaved down to make them flat and cut in half. You might notice that the insides of the poo pucks are GOOEY. I blame the faulty toothpick-in-centre-to-check-doneness method. Gluten free baking is also iffy most of the time. I blame that (because it couldn't possibly be due to my impatience).
I then brushed each layer with the syrup (the orange stuff). Then used this ganache:


 I spread ganache in between each layer and stacked those bad boys. I failed to take a picture of this step, but here is the cake with ganache on the outsides and top, just before "hot-knifing":

 The cake is has now been "hot-knifed" with a hot knife (ooooOOOoOooh, now it makes sense!):

 Cleaned up and put on a cake board, ready for fondant to be added later tonight!

Things I've learned:
1. Ganaching a cake is ridiculous amounts of fun. The cake starts off looking lumpy and gross, but the ganache fills in the cracks like putty, thus making the poo pucks look straight and perfect.
2. Anything smothered in chocolate and cream looks more appetizing.
3. Ganaching is messy but worth it. Going to be a lovely smooth surface for fondant!
4. The new countertops and backsplash look pretty with this cake!
5. Ganache is already a ridiculous word, yet saying it over and over only makes it more ridiculous

This is getting increasingly more and more fun. Am I delusional?

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loo roll and pva glue 

Friday, April 18, 2008 - Posted by Amanda Bast
My school email account is terrible in terms of junk mail. Some are giggle worthy, but most of the time they're pretty vulgar. I usually just delete and then purge my inbox (dear UofG, why do I have to purge my inbox? Isn't deleting enough? Why are there two steps in the delete process?) but something this time around made me hit the 'undelete' button. And I thought the undelete button was useless. Proved me wrong... Does anyone remember this show? Neil, I expected better from you.

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Signs of Spring 

Saturday, April 12, 2008 - Posted by Amanda Bast
The other evening, when I arrived at my place of residence, I was met by my mother at the door.
"There is something you need to look at in the backyard," she said.
"Well, what is it?" I wasn't in the mood for guessing games.
"You just have to see it yourself." She looked rather somber as we walked to the back window.
"What, is there a dead body in the backyard?" I asked, scoffing.
"Well..." she started as she flipped on the light. This is what I saw:

You may remember Professor Peppergrape. He was a good man.



In other news...I'm knitting a sock. A SOCK! I'm using merino wool that was half price. MERINO! HALF PRICE! I think I would like to marry this merino wool. Look how pretty it is:

I'm so excited about my little sock. I think this is what it feels like to have a child. Except children probably take more than forty hours to make. Or wait...maybe it doesn't take that long to make children but....well, lets not get into that now.

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milestone 

Thursday, January 31, 2008 - Posted by Amanda Bast
Remember the time I was scared to even think about using double pointed needles to knit in the round? Yes, I'm sure you do. It's something we all think about. Again, to refresh your memory, this is what knitting in the round with double pointed needles looks like:
See? Scary. There are eight points of possible injury when you knit like this. Since I like an arts and crafts challenge, I decided to try it anyway. At first, all the needles are like siblings, and they get in each others way and push and shove and are generally not very laid back about not being the centre of attention. It's frustrating. But after awhile, things start to happen, and things start to take shape. Then it becomes really enjoyable.

Then your knitting becomes like a security blanket and you take it everywhere, even though you know you won't have the opportunity to knit, but YOU NEVER KNOW, because if you didn't take it with you everywhere you go, then a stranger might get a hold of it and rip out all your stitches - your beautiful, even stitches - and you would have to start all over again, but it wouldn't be the same because you know that if you had your knitting with you, a stranger wouldn't have gotten a hold of it and ripped stitches out and then you would be half a mitten ahead of where you are now, so it is absolutely necessary that your knitting become like your child because hey, you wouldn't want a stranger ripping out your child's hair now, would you? I didn't think so.


Ahem.


Behold, the beauty of knitting in the round with double pointed needles:Now, when I look at them I can find all the flaws, but they're still pretty rad. There were many hours of Gilmore Girls put into those mitts, including three episodes late last night. I also learned my knitting late at night when overtired is a bad idea lesson once I got to the thumb (I was knitting inside-out and backwards (that takes talent, folks), but I fixed it, but then I dropped stitches on the VERY LAST ROW and had to sew up some gaps..it was eventful), but alas, they are done two weeks ahead of schedule.

p.s. the red knitting above is the start of my next pair!

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update 

Monday, December 3, 2007 - Posted by Amanda Bast
Yes, I update my progress after one day. I spent a little time with my hat today. I'm to the place where I was before I had to rip it all out. Observe:
here she be...(are we understanding the circular knitting...yes? yes!)

Same thing, only a little closer...to give you an estimate of size, those are one inch squares in the background.

Check out that tension! Whoowee! (It's like knitting a child...I'm proud, ok?)

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F-to-the-Rustration 

Sunday, December 2, 2007 - Posted by Amanda Bast
My blog is going to develop abandonment issues. I'm sorry little blogger, I do love you, but I've just been busy with school and other things. Mainly my knitting.

Here comes a knitting rant. Do read on, it will be informative and hopefully entertaining.

I had about 2 or 3 inches done of my hat when I came to a horrifying realization that it was twisted. Since I have been knitting in the round, twistage is a problem. It doesn't untwist. I would have gotten to the end of my hat, and it would have been a huge twisted mess. The only solution was to undo everything (I would guess at least 5 or 6 hours of work) and to start over.

That is Frustration with a capital F (or "fustration" if your last name is Funk). I'm not one to swear, but I think I may have let a few four-letters slip when I realized all my work was pointless. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was full of holes and the tension was off, but the hat was pretty close to perfect...my tension was dyno-mite, and there was not a gap in sight.

Dawn, my knitting guru, did the heartbreaking deed and unravled all my work. She re-cast on my stiches, and completed the first round of knitting. Then we realized it was twisted again. Being the expert knitter that she is, she started the thing on double pointed needles (this process scares me...here is a picture. See? It's scary) to insure there was no twistage, and then transferred it back on my circulars. Dang, yo, it was a lot of unnecessary work.

But that being said, the hat is looking fabulous already. Twist free, and pretty awesome. I've got about an inch done, and I like the brim on this one better than I did on the last one. It's tinier, and doesn't have as big of a roll. Quite nice. Hopefully I can finish it before the winter is over.

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artsy farts, lip chap and things that go moo 

Friday, November 23, 2007 - Posted by Amanda Bast
I was at the One of a Kind Craft Show today and it was FUN. Life goal #472: Operate a booth at that show. Maybe someday?

As a crafty (am I allowed to call myself artistic?) person, it's a dangerous thing to go to because there is inspiration overload. My head is currently buzzing with ideas. Exciting, yes, but also frustrating because I need to be studying, not daydreaming about pretty things to make. I basically know what my booth would look like if I were to have a booth. I don't have enough stuff made to have a booth, but I figure those are just minor details...

Anyway, on to other exciting things...

Sometimes people tell me things about their families that I don't believe (like the time Wally told me his grandma was a menno doctor in Mexico..), but then they have some solid proof to back up their stories. That happened today.

My sister-in-law Heather has an uncle that lives in Argentina. He works for Disney, and puts on huge stage productions. He's also on an "Idol" type show, and he's basically the Simon Cowell of Argentina. People recognize him wherever he goes. Watch this:
The youngins dance to that mix in the clubs. So hip. The Macfarlane family also knew this lady (the one on the car) but she apparantly was killed by a drunk driver. Cue music and creepy puppets. Those are seriously creepy. Sorry about that.

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