Fondant or Fondon't?

This is a completely random post about fondant. OK, that's not entirely accurate. It's not completely random. I make cakes and/or cupcakes mostly for people's birthdays or my kid's school events (when they ask me to). For my co-workers, I will generally make them anything they want...within reason. Based on what is asked of me, I do a ton of Google searches just to narrow down my own abilities in my mind of what I can or will do. I have made cakes, cupcakes, brownies and cheesecakes, to name a few.

This year for her birthday, one of my co-workers has asked me to make her a "drag queen" cake. More specifically, a RuPaul themed cake. So, I was looking for inspiration and, of course, I read several blog entries by bakers/decorators. I love looking at galleries of pictures of cakes people have decorated. However, I have noticed that the one's I like the best are all topped with fondant.

For those of you who may not know what fondant is, it is the really smooth-looking, almost wax-like cake cover. It is completely edible and can be molded into many shapes. I have made fondant before using marshmallows and I have eaten many a piece of cake made with the stuff.

I. DON'T. LIKE. IT.

I'm starting to feel like my cake decorating abilities are limited by my refusal to use fondant as a medium. I feel as though a cake should be both pretty and taste good (both inside and out). I have never really liked the taste of commercial fondant and marshmallow fondant is WAY too sweet. It is, after all, made of marshmallow and powdered sugar!

The debate is pretty irrelevant to the drag queen cake because I will almost definitely use regular butter cream frosting, but do I continue with this trend, or do I branch out into the better-looking but worse-tasting world of fondant?

Get Swaggy With It!

Hello all!

This is not my typical post. I promise I'll get back to regular posting soon, but I wanted to share that I have been chosen to advertise for Swagbucks on my blog.

If you don't already know about Swagbucks, it is a site that you register for and then you participate in internet activities, i.e., surveys, games and shopping. Also, you can get points or "bucks" by doing searches. You can trade your bucks in for gift cards for places such as Target, Walmart and Amazon. In fact, you can also trade them in for PayPal dollars!

So...without further ado...

For all of you fans of Swagbucks, this Monday will be a terrorizing treat: an all-day Swag Code Haunt where you can get multiple codes that add up to 70 reward points that you can use to get free stuff on Swagbucks.com. The fun begins at 4am PDT on their blog and you should download this image - it's got a bunch of hidden images that will serve as clues to help you get codes all day long. New to Swagbucks? Enter CODEHAUNT during sign up to start with 100 Swag Bucks! Happy Haunting...

So that makes NOW a GREAT time to sign up for Swagbucks if you're not already a member!!

**Disclaimer** I do not receive any payment or compensation from swagbucks.com for suggesting their site

The Spooktacular Chase

I have had SO much housework to do since last weekend! Add that to the usual running around and you get me...not blogging. I really need some cleaning fairies to magically appear at my house and stay. I can definitely promise them that they'll never be bored!

This past Saturday, I ran my first race since the half. It was The Spooktacular Chase 5K. I ran it with a couple of co-workers. I won't say that I'm terribly proud of my time. It was actually worse than my very first 5K, but it was a lot of fun and the swag was good, especially the shirt! I'm happy that I now have a long sleeved, technical shirt.

We had been practicing for the race for several weeks leading up to the actual event, using a map provided on the website. Interestingly, once we finally got to running it on Saturday, the course was different from the map! I don't mean different in a good way, either. They moved one turn a street down and, instead of having a gradual incline, it was a steep hill of death!! Let me tell you, that will shave some time off of a PR!!

I finished in 43:12 and ranked 33 of 37 in my age group. Like I said, not the best time and certainly not the best place. Not too shabby considering I hadn't run prior to this for 3 weeks. The reasons behind that are for another time on another day, though.

Source

After the race, we wandered around the goodie tables and picked up freebies, then we headed over to Chick-fil-A for some breakfast. After that, I actually had to go to work for 8 hours. It's a good thing the race was down the street!!

The Ugly Pie

I've been MIA for a little while. Life has been super busy...OK, it still is, but I have a moment and I'm taking it! Remember those apples we picked up in Ellijay? Well, I finally got around to cutting them up and baking them into a pie. Homemade with homemade crust. 

First, let me tell you that making pie crust is not so bad. Rolling it out and expecting it to lift and move and be pretty? Well, let's just say that it's not the most attractive pie, but the crust was really good and the filling, while it could have been sweeter, wasn't all that bad. Shane liked it, which was the important thing since it was his pie.

Definitely not the most attractive pie ever, but it wasn't bad for a first attempt!

So, there you have it. One ugly, homemade pie.

Slim Pickins

Today was another exciting adventure. FYI: I don't usually have an exciting life, nor do I usually have so many activities planned! The adventure today was the APPLE ORCHARD!!!

There was hourly entertainment on the main stage

We are lucky enough to live in a state which produces all kinds of crops. We are, of course, famous for peanuts. Georgia also has plenty of cotton fields and we also grow apples!!! The apple orchards are about a two hour drive in a little city called Ellijay. There are a lot of orchards up there, really close together. We decided on Hillcrest Orchards. Every year, they have an "Apple Picking Jubilee," which is a sort-of festival. You pay an admission fee and you get to do things like hayrides and watch shows and pig races. They even had a demonstration with a bee keeper! Also, every weekend in October, you can purchase a bag in either a half or whole peck size and go out to the orchards to pick apples to fill up your bag.

The only real problem was that apparently there were a LOT of people picking apples recently. The trees were almost bare of fruit. There were several trees that had tiny "baby" apples on them, but nothing you could really expect to eat. Plus, if you've ever eaten a tiny apple, they are really sour!! There was even a sign as you walked in to let everyone know that there were few apples actually left on the trees and if you purchase a bag, try to limit the apples picked and fill up the bag inside the store (which housed bins and bins of large, perfect apples). So, that's what we did. We let the kids pick an apple a piece (mostly for the photo op) and then we took our half-peck sized bag into the store to fill it up.

Picking an apple from the tree

Here is our bounty! The two apples in the front were straight from the tree,
there are two apple-sippers and then the Cherry Apple Cider...yum!

Naturally, a day at an apple orchard would not be complete without apple products! I had to have a homemade apple fritter and once inside the store, I filled up the bag the rest of the way and purchased some Cherry Apple Cider and two "apple sippers" for the kids. (They're like little sippy-type cups).

I got mostly Granny Smith apples because Shane expects me to bake an apple pie with them. I suppose that will be my next adventure. I have never baked a pie from scratch in my life!!

I think it was a great day. The kids had a lot of fun, I spent some time with friends and came home with real "country" goodies!

Down On the Farm

Every year, the school my kids go to has a field trip to a pumpkin patch. It has been the same for the past four years and probably even before that. Always the same ole thing. This year, they decided to change things up a bit and we went to a farm instead. A really-real, working, actual farm, complete with animals and corn!

We started our adventure in the "baby animal barn." There, we saw baby cows drinking milk from bottles, baby chicks, hens laying eggs, sheep, goats and pigs. SO CUTE!! Everything was interactive, so we could touch them all and feed some of them.

Isn't she the sweetest little baby cow??!!

Next up was the hay ride! What farm is complete without a hay ride? We loaded up onto the back of a tractor and went through the dairy farm. Then, we went out to a pasture full of milk cows. The cows came right up to the tractor and everyone got to feed the cows all of the hay that had been placed on the bed of the trailer we were riding on! The cows loved it and the kids thought it was great (ok, the parents did, too)!

Here come the cows!

They came right up to us!!

The next part of the day was super exciting for me. We went through the corn maze! I have never actually been through one in 30+ years of existence. The maze was in the shape of the US with the words, "God Bless America" and "Vote 2012" on it. We also had a map with an aerial shot of the maze and 12 numbers. Throughout the maze, there were numbered stations with hole punches. The object was to get all 12 punches AND get out of the maze. We didn't manage to get all of the punches the first time that we found the exit, so we went back through a second time from the beginning. We did finally get all 12 punches that time!

The entrance to the corn maze

The day was great and there was much fun for us all. Before we left, the kids got to pick a small pumpkin from a wagon and there was a playground for them to enjoy.

Tomorrow's adventure? An apple orchard with pick-your-own apples!