The Journey

I've always been a baker. My best friend Sue and I decided at a young age that we would open a bakery someday.

I was 9 when my Aunt Grace taught me how to make pie crusts and also when I had my first cake blunder.

While my parents were out with my Aunt Grace and Uncle John who were visiting from Florida, I decided that I would make a cake for my Uncle John's birthday... as a surprise. The recipe called for a 1/2 cup of instant coffee. I wasn't sure if that meant to make the coffee, or put the dry coffee grounds into the cake. I called my neighbor Bev and she had never heard of adding coffee to a cake, so I had to decide on my own. I've always been very literal, so in went the grounds. Everyone was surprised ... but not in the way I had intended. The cake was awful.

Although I have not yet opened a bakery, I have always enjoyed it and it has always been a hobby. If you stop by my house at any given time, there is a 75% chance there will be fresh baked goods for you to try. Occasionally, I still screw up and the results are quickly tossed, but for the most part, everyone enjoys my treats.

But, when it came time to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday this year, I actually considered buying her a cake ... something cool, a la Cake Boss or Ace of Cakes. I did some research and quickly realized that I was not equipped financially (love ya Mom, but not that much) to purchase a professionally decorated cake. Good Lord they are expensive. Perhaps I should have opened the bakery instead of going to college. Whatever, can't go back now, but suffice it to say that I decided then that I needed to learn to do this myself and I had about 6 months to figure it all out.

You all know I'm a perfectionist, so I hesitate to show some of my earliest attempts, but the point is to document the story, so I'm going to tell you that it did not start out well. I got a recipe in June 2009 from my friend Tommy to make fondant and I went to town. Sooo not as easy as it looks. It's messy and the consistency is difficult to pin down immediately, and it dries out if you leave it too long. The list of difficulties goes on and on. I used some regular cookie cutters, a basic wooden French rolling pin, liquid food coloring and my counter top with no mat. I clearly did not have the proper tools to get this done.

So shopping it is! I purchased a fondant rolling mat, a fondant rolling pin, some fondant cutters, gel food coloring and a zillion other little tools that I actually have learned to use over the past year. I tried again and actually managed to successfully cover the cake in fondant. But...it was so ugly. I had no idea how to actually decorate the cake. My friend Kelly, a nurse, came over and took this one to the hospital so it would get eaten, but I was far from ready to show off my skills.

At this point, I need to regroup, quit baking and focus on the design aspect. I had already decided that the theme of my mother's party would be red, orange and pink gerbera daisies....so I went shopping again and bought everything I could possibly need to make flowers. They do not sell skills at Michael's, AC Moore or Hobby Lobby...in case you were wondering.

I still didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to make, so I just started experimenting without getting too complicated. What I ended up with just wasn't even cute. I had all of these tools, but no vision.

So I went to the web and did a Google Image search for ideas.

And then....