Well i haven't had allot of time to blog or anything top blog about.... oh well. we have had two birthdays, so two more cakes. I really do need to find somebody who knows how to use fondant properly! i am not so good at getting it to look as smooth as it is supposed to be.

This is the inside of the cake. It is two chocolate cake layers. The filling is a heady combination of chocolate custard filling raspberrys and thin disk like layers of chocolate.

The out side is fondant.

cake and migraines

It was Andrews 21st birthday yesterday, yey. A few months ago Cristine (his mum) and I decided we would make him and awesome birthday cake, we through allot of ideas around and i think we were going to do Dr Who or star wars. Unfortunately her surgery meant that we wouldn't be able to the cake together, no need to add more strain then necessary. I decided that the cakes we thought of were too hard by myself so I'd go for some thing simpler and smaller. I'm only learning how to do cakes and i am limited.so.....

Two small 10cm cakes and two medium cakes

The inside was checker board so each layer needed to be constructed like this. I don't have a photo of what the inside ended up looking like but Andrew does :)

Dirty iced the whole thing with buttercream (contains neither cream or butter, go figure)

added fondant in white and multicolor to mimic Lego bricks

The end result has many flaws, but you know what? for my second time using fondant I believe I did good :)

On a different note, I have been getting migraines for years. I don't know when i first got them but i remember having them for allot of my life. Recently they have been getting worse, around one or two time a week. I also have been getting a sore back after sitting for more then an hour. Andrew in his wisdom told me multiple times to go see a chiropractor, so now I have. Here are my x-rays.

(head and neck)
The blue line is were the bones are supposed to be in a normal person. The faint red circle is were my bones are touching (no they are not supposed to be that friendly) and growing new bone to try and support the weight of my big head. hence the added strain on my spine produces migraines.

(back/lower spine)
what can i say? you should see a perfectly straight line...oops

The good news is that it can and will be fixed, the down side is the cost! I should have become a chiropractor! or brought a cheaper car....

I thought I would share the progress of my darling little treadle machine. I am restoring it on a tight budget so it's unfortunately not going to be totally true to the original state. I hope to make it look good anyway.

This is the damage it had. It had looked like some one had shoved it in the back shed for years. There were allot of stains and water damage to the lid.

This is what it looks like naked :o soooo brown!!!

To make it all match n the top I have stripped back the first layer. The wood underneath looks really good so I intend to find a nice deep stain then varnish the lot. I also need a new belt for it, at the moment I don't really know were I'll find one, any ideas?

My first cheesecake was not exactly as Donna Hay had instructed. The top cracked while baking and the mouse well it simply ran away, but most of it did get eaten so it's promising at least.

Happy birthday Micky

These cupcakes were requested for a 17th birthady. I recived only good reviews, so I call them a sucsess.

I had four different designs but it seams I only took photos of three. You get the general idea

mac•a•roon

Yesterday I had my second attempt at the delightfull french treat of macaroons. I was given a beautifal little book " Secrets of Macarons" by Jose Marechal. I was particulay interested in learning to make these propery beacause thay are a gluten free treat. Many deserts can be adapted to becomeing gluten and lactose free but they often lose something in translation and taste slightly odd.

The book has 25 pages of informatin and techniques before you even get to start you little creations. On my first attempt a few weeks ago I decided to skip the first and go directly to the recipe. What I made were brown blots of chewy biscuit that had the unfortunate resemblance to a small animals bowel movement. The nextra effort in making an Italian meringue defiantly makes a difference to the crust. The almond meal created a problem as well, the only sort i could get was far to coarse and needed to be sifted mutable times to remove impurities, resulting in a bowl full of almond bits i have no clue what to do with.

I do believe my Macarons to be a success, unfortunately having never tasted a "real" macaroon I have nothing to compre it with. I may have to entice somebody out to coffee so I can have a the chance to sample and compare.

Today i have officially graduated and have a Cert IV in Disability work. The event took around two hours, I'm not sure if it was worth the $80! I felt like a kid playing dress ups in the heavy black robes and stall. It was satisfying to finally have a formal close, we finished in October last year and the actual receiving of the piece of paper has seamed a long time coming.

The only thee from our class who attended

The guy that handed us our papers did comment that I had a unusual name... then he said congratulations .

Dads awesome photography skills ;)

This however has not turned out to be the path I had hoped it would become and once again like so many other I am left with the question "so, what now?"