Moolie's "is it really that hard?" journal

[moolie]

So we swapped our Friday and Saturday dinners because my DD15 had her birthday party sleepover on Friday night and we made pizza for all the ravenous teenage girls. I also made 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes:

 

[Wannabefree]

Those are too pretty to eat! But still.....

 

[moolie]

Easiest way to ice cupcakes is to stuff the icing in a bag with a big star tip on it, and swirl away

 

[Wannabefree]

Oh I will from now on. The neighbor got me one of those cool icing guns when I did her kids birthday cake It makes it SO much easier, I hate the bags :/ Cleanup is easy with the gun too. Wilton makes it, if you do cakes and such very often I think we got this one for about $8 and no more disposable bags!

 

[moolie]

...and no more disposable bags!

Lol, I'm so oldschool I've had the two non-disposable icing bags I own for years, since my kids were little and I took one of those Wilton classes at Michaels with a friend so we could learn to decorate our kids' birthday cakes. The one I used on Friday is stained bright fuscia from all the pink and purple icing I've made for my girls over the years

I have seen some of the newer icing gadgets though, they look pretty darn handy--it's good to know they are easy to clean too if my icing bags ever wear out, but they've lasted this long and I've only got so many birthdays to go before my girls are off to college!

Here's the cake and cupcakes I made for my other daughter's 16th birthday last month--the cake was for our family dinner, the cupcakes were for her Youth Band practice at church on her actual birthday (she hates missing band practice so asked if we could have her family dinner the next evening!)

The easy way to ice a cake evenly

 

[Denim Deb]

Love the cupcakes! How'd you make the flowers?

 

[moolie]

Thanks Deb!

The flowers are made of Royal icing , which dries very hard because it is egg-white based. I learned how to make them during the Wilton classes I took with my friend and still have the book that came with the course.

Every few years I make a batch: roses , daffodils , pansies , apple blossoms , violets , leaves etc. and keep them in jars by flower type.

I'm actually completely out of flowers now since that batch of cupcakes, I had used up the last of my roses and leaves on a previous birthday cake, so I need to sit down and make a bunch of everything again.

 

[pinkfox]

i wish i could get work soley of a cake decorator, i LOVE making the icing flowers, piping, even the base icing! it was my aboslute FAVORITE part of home Ecenomics!

 

[Denim Deb]

I used to make fairly good roses, but it's been years. Maybe one day....

 

[moolie]

So the meal plan said Curry Pork Chops for last night, but we bbq'd instead, so tonight instead of Tuna Casserole we have having Tuna Curry with Rice and frozen Asian Mix veggies.

Curry Tuna

2 cans tuna, broken up in medium saucepan
garlic
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp (or more to taste) curry powder
1/2 cup mango chutney
red pepper flakes to taste

Stir ingredients together over medium heat, cook till heated through, serve over rice.