Making a Boob Cake

My dearest cousin is getting a breast reduction in a few days. She's been waiting years and the day has finally come. She asked me if I could make a boobie cake as she was having a party on Saturday (to which I couldn't attend because I had to work) to say good-bye to her most cumbersome breasts. I am not the best, construction-wise, at making cakes; everything I've done to this point has been pretty basic but I was up to the task of creating my first 3-D cake.


First thing I did was Google "boob cakes" (I Google everything. I can see why it is now considered an actual verb). Some naughty ones popped up, some classy ones, some cute ones. Even one of a naked woman pushing out a baby. I had a good chuckle over that one. Armed with ideas I consulted an old friend, Staci Lawton, on how to bake the "boobs". She had recently done a risque and amazing bachelor cake and is my go-to girl when I don't know how to do something. I bought a Wilton cake pan that is used to make doll cakes, and clown heads and other such things, but makes a perfect set of knockers.


The cake itself baked okay, no major catastrophes. It wasn't as chocolately as I would have liked, I'm still searching for that perfect chocolate cake recipe, but it suited its purpose. I filled the cake with vanilla pudding, whipped up some flesh coloured frosting and stacked those breast-eses on the cake.

You'll notice the left breast is a little lopsided. Just like real ones!


My cousin came to town shortly after I finished the basic construction and frosting of my masterpiece and after a fun evening of babysitting my 3 year old nephew Brady, we returned to my apartment to decorate the cake. I decided on a strapless white bra with pink polka dots because, after all, she would soon be able to wear all those cute little inexpensive bras (and I'll inherit her expensive, structural and functional bras, but that's another story).

As I was decorating, we were also making our way through a litre bottle of wine and my cousin was cleaning her dog-bitten finger. We broke out into song:

The Making a Boob Cake Song

Sung to the tune of "Kill the Wabbit" as sung by Elmer Fudd to the tune of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"


Making a boob cake, making a boooob cake, making a boob cake, making a boooob....
Cake.
Making a boob cake, making a boooob cake, cleaning a dog bite, drinking some wiiiine.


You probably had to be there.


The cake was a success, I didn't screw anything up and it made it all the way to the party in Windsor and was enjoyed by all.


I woke up with the worst wine headache of all time. My cousin and I pondered why, at the ages of 28 and 29, we have not learned to alternate water between drinks and pop a Tylenol before going to sleep (who am I kidding? Before passing out cold.)? I guess we'll never learn.

A Little Shamless Self-Promotion

It appears that people are reading my blog (yay!), however, I have no "followers" or "friends" or whatever you'd call it. It makes me feel lonely. I'm pretty technologically stupid, so I don't know how to get "friends" or "followers" or whatever you'd call it, so I am requesting the following things:


1. Advice on how to promote my blog and gather loyal followers (that sounds so creepy!)


2. Followers!


So if you're reading this, please be my friend!

Why You Should Always Ask for a Deposit

* This post was written at the end of August, and I forgot about it, so it never actually got posted until now. Whoopsie.


I have been trying to get this baking business off the ground for quite some time now, however halfheartedly. I printed up some "business cards" from Dollarama but couldn't figure out how to set the margins properly so they are all misaligned. I placed an add on Kijiji in June and never really followed up on it. Set up a Facebook group, but didn't spend too much time promoting it. You know, try to make things happen in the way that I do. So imagine my surprise when the Kijiji add actually worked.


This woman named Shelly called me on Wednesday and asked me if I could bake 3 dozen cupcakes and 5 dozen sugar cookies for Saturday. She apologized for it being last minute, but her original baker canceled on her. Of course I agreed to do it. My first big job!


I spent hours getting this all ready. Sugar cookies take a long time, what with all the rolling out and decorating with royal icing. Not to mention that it's August and neither Tynna nor I have air conditioning. I went over to Tynna's Thursday after work, and she helped me bake the cookies. Brady helped too. After three hours of sweaty baking, the cookies were done. I went home, baked the cupcakes and felt ahead of the game. Friday night, I spent another three hours decorating the cookies. I felt a little panicked, but they all turned out.


I had to work on Saturday, but Chris was ready for Shelly to come pick the baking up. Poor guy had to wait all day for her to arrive, even though she was supposed to be there around 3 or 4. About five o'clock, I called home. She hadn't come to get them yet. I called her, and she said her daughter was on the way. I get home at six. She hadn't come to get them yet. I called her, no answer.


Many messages were left, many minutes spent reserve-directorying her number, trying to get her address. She's unlisted. She had not paid me yet! For a few days I tried to get ahold of her, but she didn't call back or pick up the phone. I was heartbroken. I felt so taken advantage of. Shame on her. I kept thinking. How could someone do something so cruel? I'm a home-based business. I'm not a grocery store, I can't put all this baking on the reduced rack, I was stuck with it. I brought the cupcakes to a party that night, and they were gobbled up. I brought the cookies to work and the girls ate them. At least they didn't go to waste.


The moral of the story is this: While most people are generally good, there are still a lot of arseholes out there who will do things like this to people. As much as I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt, chances are she's just a jerk who decided to buy her cupcakes from the grocery store at a cheaper price. Fine and dandy, but it would have been nice if she had called me cancel so I didn't waste three days of my time.


I now know that I always have to ask for a deposit before I even crack an egg. I wish I didn't have to, it would be nice to trust people and believe that they'll pay up, but I learned the hard way that wont always happen.


All well, live and learn.

Apparently, I am an Italian Nonna

Bakin' Bread


Yesterday I got to leave work a few hours early and decided to take advantage of a spare afternoon. I've been wanting to try to make bread with my new Kitchenaid mixer (which, by the way, I have named Betty), because why have a heavy-duty piece of kitchen machinery and not try to knead bread with it?


I knew that bread needs to rise, I knew that yeast is what makes it rise. Two things I did not know were: Bread needs about THREE HOURS to rise and yeast smells terrible. Also, when planning to make loaves of bread, it is best to have the adequate number of bread tins that the recipe calls for.  I only have one, so the other loaf had to go in a square pan. I was worried that this would completely ruin the three hours I spent waiting for the bread to rise, but thankfully it didn't. The second loaf just looks kind of rustic.


Now, using a mixer takes a lot of the work out of making bread since the machine does the kneading for you. I've never really used a bread machine before, but I am going to assume that even while making the dough with a mixer, it is still more work than doing it in a bread machine. It is also a very messy job, and took me ages to clean up all the bits of dough that were clinging to practically every surface the bread touched.


A very important lesson that I learned while making bread is this: DO NOT TOUCH THE BREAD AFTER ITS SECOND RISE. Hey, I can't help it. I was curious. It had risen so much, I had to see what it felt like.


The bread promptly deflated. It's okay, it was the wonky one in the square pan and it still turned out. The one in the bread tin worked out well, too. They were delicious and my whole apartment smelled like a bakery.


Makin' Supper


As if making homemade bread wasn't ambitious enough, I also decided that last night was the night I was going to make risotto. There's not much story to this, it's just risotto and anyone can make it if they take the time to do it. I just felt like I should have been wearing a headscarf and apron and had some small children underfoot calling me Nonna.