My Grandfather's83rd Birthday, His Bible Cake and a Home Made Fondant Recipe

I have been making "fancy" cakes for about 2 years. I like to make my own buttercream and fondant and experiment with recipes. I have made my daughters' birthday cakes and a few for my brother and husband. I made two cakes for my uncle's birthday back in August and my aunt asked me if I would make my grandfather's cake. He just turned 83 January 25th. We had his birthday dinner at my mom's after church this past Sunday.

When I make a cake I use various recipes. For this cake I made two batches of a basic white cake but added some fresh shredded coconut and almond extract to the batter. I made two square cakes and then trimmed them to look like 1/2 of a book.  I then put them together. I then freeze the cakes overnight so they are easier to carve/ butter cream.

The cross is made from gum paste (which I have not yet mastered) so I purchased it white at our local cake supply store.

The butter cream recipe stays the same each time. 5 sticks of butter

The last step is to leave as plain butter cream or flavor it. I flavor it most of the time. This time I added a whole can of chocolate frosting (pre-made). I don't like coming up with my own chocolate to add to it, it always tastes funny. I make the butter cream from scratch but just add in extra chocolate frosting for the flavoring.

I put a smear of buttercream on the cake board to act as glue. Then I unwrapped both cakes and placed them in the center of the board. I put another layer of coconut on top of the cake and then covered the whole cake in the chocolate buttercream. A lot of it!

 I cut the edges of the "book" at a slant to mimic the pages being laid down with a slight angle. I also billowed the buttercream to show the crease in the center of the book and the pages lying out from the center binding.

It was then covered in a white buttercream that I hand made.

Mini marshmallows (454 grams)
2 Tablespoons water

1. Microwave those two ingredients for one minute. Take out and stir with a wooden spoon covered in Crisco.
2. Microwave again for 1 minute stir. This time all the marshmallows should be melted and the mixture should resemble marshmallow cream.
3. Add 5-6 cups of confectioner's sugar one cup at a time. After each cup use the spoon to stir it in. The confectioner's sugar makes the mixture hard to mix and eventually after all of it is put in, not sticky.
4. Simply roll out the mixture with Crisco covered rolling pin onto a confectioner's sugar covered board or counter top.
5. Let the decorating begin!

After I covered my cake with fondant, I used gel colors and mixed in a little water to make "paint".  I then used my fondant tools to smooth out the cake and create lines in the side to make pages.

 I used a thin mixture of ivory gel and water to create an "antique" look to the pages. I then used a thin tip of my tool to "write" the words of the Bible verse onto the left. I filled in the creases the tool made with blue gel mixed with water.

I then cut out leaves from fondant with a leaf punch, used my tools to create a veining effect and painted them with a mixture of green and brown gel and water. I then used a little water to "glue" them to the cake. I used a gold gel writer to write the gold lettering on the cake. I finished it off by "dusting" the entire cake with edible glitter. I accidentally smeared two spots because it wasn't fully dry. :( but I tried to cover it up as best as I could.  Here is the final product.

 My youngest decided to help Grandpa blow out his candles. We even relit one for her so she could blow it out.

Italian Mini Meatballs Recipe

My children LOVE spaghetti, husband too to tell the truth. I didn't want to just cook up some meat and make meat sauce so I decided to make some mini Italian meatballs.

Here is what I combined:

1 lb. of beef (our father-in-law purchased this local and had it butchered)
8 ritz crackers, crushed (random number put as many in as you want)
Italian seasoning
1 large egg

Mix all of the above together until thoroughly mixed. I used a small scoop to create the mini meatballs.

I then put them on a baking pan and baked them at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes.

The larger the meatballs the longer the time to bake. I broke one in 1/2 to make sure they were completely cooked.  *Yes that is my disgusting oven! I will be using my Shaklee Scour Off on this as soon as possible (hangs head in shame)

Then I put them in our spaghetti sauce.

We toasted hot dog buns with butter and garlic salt for our mini french bread loaves. The kids had bow tie pasta and my husband and I had angel hair pasta.

Enjoy! We sure did.

Measure Your Eco Footprint

Click HERE to go to Conservation.org and take the quiz to measure your Eco Footprint. It is a very eyeopening experience.


Don't forget about the January Shaklee special. Purchase $70 MN (member price) of ANY items until January 31st and get the Shaklee Cinch Sampler Kit (a $100 value) FREE!

Feeling Worn Down and How to Fix It + An Opportunity For YOU!

I was sitting here tonight after the crazy day I've had thinking about all the wonderful things Shaklee has done. Why? Because I tried to save my computer this morning with a can of air and now I can't breathe. I am the PTA president, the faculty senate president at school and a mentor to two teachers on top of my regular teaching job and being a wife and mother to two beautiful little girls. So... I am staring at my Vitalizer that came in my Gold Ambassador kit from Shaklee and thanking God I can start it tomorrow. I feel SO worn down that I need to boost my immune system and kick these crazy allergies.

With the Vitalizer package I have a 30 day supply of all the vitamins I will need and they come in a cute little preform pack so I don't even have to count them out. Tomorrow will be day one so wish me luck as I try to regain some health!

One thing I love about Shaklee is that they are an all natural company that is climate neutral. They were actually the first company in the world to be considered climate neutral! For someone who loves to come up with new ways to be "green" that makes me smile on the inside and out!

My oldest daughter is so funny. She was so excited when I told her Shaklee plants trees around the world for the items they sell. She said "Trees produce oxygen so we can breathe. I'm so glad someone plants them back."  I laughed at her and told her I understood (she was studying plants in school, can you tell?)

 

I am so proud to say that I am a distributor for such a great company. You know I started my Shaklee business because I wanted to get rid of all the chemicals in my home and make my home and life healthier for our children. I was thrilled to see that I could save time with my children and also bring extra income on top of our two full time jobs where we could save up for their college tuition's and go on some great camping, hiking, etc vacations during the summers off.

Shaklee has earned amazing awards for their environmental efforts!

I am so glad I took the Shaklee opportunity and can earn extra income at home while promoting a company who is doing such a wonderful job helping our Earth.

My allergies today were definitely caused my the dust from the computer the canned air pumped out. But watch below to see how allergies and respiratory issues can be caused by your cleaners. This is an Oprah video where she endorses Shaklee and says she even uses it in her own home.

Click the link below to learn more about how YOU can earn money at home, help make your home a healthy environment for yourself and your family and help the Earth at the same time!

 Also don't forget about our January special. Become a member and purchase $70 worth of any products and get the Cinch Sampler Kit (a $100 value) FREE!

A Snow Day, the Death of a Dell, Diy Continued, a Little Girl's Closet and Crayon?

The title says it all! I've had one of those days. If you haven't noticed the Dell died.  It actually kicked the bucket last night but I was in denial until this morning. The hard drive is currently at our local computer repair shop so they can rip some important files off of it but the rest of it is toast. Adobe wanted to update last night so my husband let it reboot except it didn't. The fan came on but it just wouldn't start. We left it alone all night and came back in the morning to try again (after our snow day was called, YEAH!) and it was still dead. So my brother took out our hard drive and my husband and brother took it to the shop.

Thank God we had our $1,000 emergency fund (we are following Dave Ramsey) so we took some of it out and purchased a new CPU. We got a Emachines for $339 after tax at Best Buy. I didn't think that was too bad.

Then my brother wanted some furniture I was getting rid of so he decided to work on some DIY projects for me. When we redid the kitchen we never finished fixing the soffit since I changed the layout of the cabinets. It was missing drywall in a few spots. My brother started in the corner and worked his way around.  Out of the 3 spots, one is ready to sand and prime, one is still 2x4's, and one is still being debated.

Yes the top picture has a cobweb. We are keeping it real.

I forgot to take a picture of this drywalled and mudded. I'll have to do that when we finish the 2nd box later this week. Sorry.

Next came Emma's closet which lets just say is a disaster upon itself. Here is her closet makeover (still currently in progress)  These are the BEFORE pictures. Dear Lord you can't even open the door!

I took everything out and made a huge pile. The cat just stared at me. I think she is mocking me.

That's not all of it either. I took pity on you and didn't show you what was still on the top of the closet or on the shelves. You might see part of those later.

I moved in her dresser/ changing table from when she was a baby. It fit perfectly! Here is what went inside of that.

Shoes inside the cabinet.

Top shelf: sneakers
Middle shelf: dress shoes
Bottom shelf: sandals and etc.

I brought the two important things into the closet clean/organize situation. My water in my reusable 24 oz. cup and my Basic H2 all purpose cleaner. Those drawers were just gross!

Any money found in the closet redo was put into Emma's Save envelope from her Financial Peace Jr. kit.

Here is her top drawer. It holds t-shirts.  It is now labeled.

The middle drawer holds long sleeve shirts. It is also labeled :o)

The next drawer has shorts and jeans. It is also labeled.

The bottom drawer has long pants.

Now that the dresser was finished I had to tackle the mound of dresses, sweaters, jumpers and skirts on the bed.

I had to tear out two shelves that the builder put in in order to hang her long clothes. She still has one shelf at the bottom for her doll babies and her horses and stable went underneath the shelf on the floor.

 Emma still has some things to go through on top of the dresser but we put her craft kits and extra toys neatly in their boxes and stacked on top of the closet until we can decide what to do. We are 95% finished with the closet.

So while I was working in the closet I left Chris to watch the girls. I come back out to find THIS on the kitchen table!

Yes that is CRAYON on my kitchen table. So... I grabbed my Shaklee Basic H2 (degreaser formula) and sprayed.

The flash went off so bright it looks like the crayon is already gone. I promise you I am no magician it was still there. I used my microfiber cloth and just rubbed it away.

Okay so NOW it is gone. Too bad it couldn't take care of those scratches...ewwww.

So that was my Tuesday. Nuts right?



Don't forget the January Shaklee special. Purchase $70 member price worth of any product on the site and get the Cinch Sampler Kit for FREE! That's over a $100 value! We got it and love it! I even ordered the shake in chocolate now to try that.