Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Cupcake frenzy
These were made for Admin Professionals Day. I had a request from one of my co-workers to make these for their administrative assistant. I gladly obliged. I had a bunch of cupcakes to make during this week. The chocolate buttercream on chocolate cupcakes were for the admin.
They were very well received by the staff and I had people come by throughout the day and give me compliments. Interesting since I've brought in my chocolate cake made the same way and people have been pretty quiet on the matter. I did use the opportunity to try out my new icing tip for cupcakes. It's the biggest star ti I could find and it makes some really great looking cupcakes.
During the same week, I was asked to make cupcakes for someone's birthday, by them. That's always weird to me. I sort of feel bad when someone orders their own cake or cupcakes and pays for them. Happens all the time though.
These were gluten free cupcakes where I didn't even have to buy the mix. The birthday girl provided them for me, though I offered to make it from scratch. They wanted girly, so I recommended pink. Below is the result.
Looks girly enough to me. I dyed the cupcakes pink as well, so you couldn't get away from the color. I also found these really cool clam shell cupcake carriers at the cake supply place. They are awesome for storing and transporting cupcakes.
Another pink one
I have gotten more traction out of this cake design than any other. People are creatures of habit and some just keep ordering this one in different guises. This one is again white cake with white buttercream icing covered with pink marshmallow fondant. The letters used the edible silver candies and there is edible glitter sprinkled on top by request.
Monday, March 26, 2012
A non-baked item post
All my posts so far have been of things I've made. I had a couple of things that I wanted to share that are baking related, but are not things that I've baked. First, the best item I've found in quite some time. It's called a beater blade. They make them for most major mixer models and this thing is awesome. I stumbled across it one day and decided I had to try it. This thing is cool because it has rubber fins on the sides of the beater attachment so it scrapes the bowl as it mixes. It works amazingly well. The only part of the bowl that you may have to scrape down is the part above wherever the beater blade comes into contact with the bowl. When you have to make a lot of icing, cookies or whatever, this thing is a major time saver. I have no affiliation with the company, nor am I sure who they even are, but I can't recommend this thing highly enough.
Next, I had a pouring shield for my mixer, which never worked quite as well as I would have liked. It kept in maybe 25-50% more of the stuff that tended to fly out of the bowl when you mixed, but it still allowed a lot to fly out. The inevitable mushroom cloud from when you make icing was still terrible. That, and the stupid little plastic clips that connect the two halves of the pouring shield break really easy. I did like being able to pour things in slowly down the little ramp, but it still made a bit of a mess.
Note: I took a quick picture without cleaning up the mixer. Note the massive layer of powdered sugar on it?
When I was making the wedding cake, I knew I would be making a LOT of icing and I didn't want to make a huge mess of the kitchen from the powdered sugar cloud, and I didn't want to inhale that much sugar either. (I could get all graphic and describe what it does to your nose after you breathe near a mixer while making about 10 batches of icing, but I won't. I think you can figure it out.)
After I make icing, bread, or whatever, I usually put a nifty bowl cover on the bowl to keep it from drying out. These are made by the company, and they work moderately well. They slip off rather easily because the lip just doesn't go down the sides quite far enough. They do stay on most of the time though. They have a little well in the middle so that you can put the bowl cover on, and still put it on the mixer's stand since the drive mechanism sticks down a bit below the bowl's sides.
When I was going to be making a whole bunch of icing, I needed a better solution than that terrible pouring shield, so I got an idea. I took a utility knife to one of my two bowl covers. I didn't know if it would work, but I needed to try. I cut off about half an inch from the middle well of one of the bowl covers, opening it up. I figured that if I cut up just high enough that the beater blade mounting post would just clear the bowl cover and I could leave the bowl cover on while I mixed, limiting the mess. I had to put the bowl cover on, then attach the beater blade to the post afterwards since the blade will obviously not fit through the hole from the top.
This was a HUGE success. After trying different means of mixing everything in the bowl by pouring some sugar in and mixing before adding the rest, I realized I could just dump it all in and go in one shot. The little bit of powder that came up through the center hole was negligible and I just let it run until it looks like everything mixed. I did have to scrape the top of the bowl sides since it is obviously going to throw powdered sugar everywhere in the enclosed space, but one scrape of that little area and the icing is done. Subsequently, on the baby shower cake, I had to make a icing and a whole bunch of fondant too. It worked equally as well for fondant with the bread hook. (I don't usually knead the fondant by hand if I can help it.) I may need to buy another set of bowl covers so I can have two again, but this was well worth scrapping out one bowl cover for a mixing shield that actually works. Granted, adding ingredients now means popping off the cover and adding it, but that is a trade off that I gladly make to keep the mess to a minimum. If there are not a lot of powdered ingredients in a recipe, I can still use the pouring shield, but for ones that tend to throw dust out everywhere, my new mixing shield is the only way to go.
Next, I had a pouring shield for my mixer, which never worked quite as well as I would have liked. It kept in maybe 25-50% more of the stuff that tended to fly out of the bowl when you mixed, but it still allowed a lot to fly out. The inevitable mushroom cloud from when you make icing was still terrible. That, and the stupid little plastic clips that connect the two halves of the pouring shield break really easy. I did like being able to pour things in slowly down the little ramp, but it still made a bit of a mess.
Note: I took a quick picture without cleaning up the mixer. Note the massive layer of powdered sugar on it?
When I was making the wedding cake, I knew I would be making a LOT of icing and I didn't want to make a huge mess of the kitchen from the powdered sugar cloud, and I didn't want to inhale that much sugar either. (I could get all graphic and describe what it does to your nose after you breathe near a mixer while making about 10 batches of icing, but I won't. I think you can figure it out.)
After I make icing, bread, or whatever, I usually put a nifty bowl cover on the bowl to keep it from drying out. These are made by the company, and they work moderately well. They slip off rather easily because the lip just doesn't go down the sides quite far enough. They do stay on most of the time though. They have a little well in the middle so that you can put the bowl cover on, and still put it on the mixer's stand since the drive mechanism sticks down a bit below the bowl's sides.
When I was going to be making a whole bunch of icing, I needed a better solution than that terrible pouring shield, so I got an idea. I took a utility knife to one of my two bowl covers. I didn't know if it would work, but I needed to try. I cut off about half an inch from the middle well of one of the bowl covers, opening it up. I figured that if I cut up just high enough that the beater blade mounting post would just clear the bowl cover and I could leave the bowl cover on while I mixed, limiting the mess. I had to put the bowl cover on, then attach the beater blade to the post afterwards since the blade will obviously not fit through the hole from the top.
This was a HUGE success. After trying different means of mixing everything in the bowl by pouring some sugar in and mixing before adding the rest, I realized I could just dump it all in and go in one shot. The little bit of powder that came up through the center hole was negligible and I just let it run until it looks like everything mixed. I did have to scrape the top of the bowl sides since it is obviously going to throw powdered sugar everywhere in the enclosed space, but one scrape of that little area and the icing is done. Subsequently, on the baby shower cake, I had to make a icing and a whole bunch of fondant too. It worked equally as well for fondant with the bread hook. (I don't usually knead the fondant by hand if I can help it.) I may need to buy another set of bowl covers so I can have two again, but this was well worth scrapping out one bowl cover for a mixing shield that actually works. Granted, adding ingredients now means popping off the cover and adding it, but that is a trade off that I gladly make to keep the mess to a minimum. If there are not a lot of powdered ingredients in a recipe, I can still use the pouring shield, but for ones that tend to throw dust out everywhere, my new mixing shield is the only way to go.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
1st Baby Shower
This one was interesting. My friend and neighbor called to ask if I could do a baby shower cake not long after I was asked if I could do the wedding cake. Luckily, they weren't on the same weekend. The mom to be had some ideas about what she wanted for her cake. She wanted three tiers, one with sports, one with the baby's name, and one with musical instruments. Since we had a few weeks, there were some other requests that came up as they had time to look at some other cakes for ideas. They liked the idea of having baby feet on the top instead of little booties, like some other people do. Also, they liked a cake they saw that had blocks in the middle of the cake. However, they figured that spelling the baby's name would look cool since the name is only four letters. They gave me lots of pictures for inspiration.
The cake itself is white and chocolate marble. There was butter cream icing under the fondant. There were two additional blocks left over since I used an 8 inch square for the blocks, so I left the two spare blocks (without detail decoration), in the event they needed more cake. The bottom tier is a 10 inch round, and the top tier is 8 inch. To hold each tier up, I put plastic drinking straws through the layer below. The trick was balancing the top tier over the blocks so it would be stable.
Note that the top tier is not centered over the bottom one. There was one thing that I did not account for when picking the sizes for my layers. I made the bottom 10 inch, when it would have been better for me to make it 12 inch instead. The reason is that I used the 8 inch square for the middle and cut it into four quadrants. That made each block 4" square. Now, originally I planned to use three blocks on the cake. Unless I positioned them just right, that wouldn't have worked out too well unless I cut off the back of the blocks and just made it look like they were whole. I already had them mostly decorated, so that wasn't going to happen. Consider for a moment if you have a 4" square and you want to put two inside a 10" circle. It's easy if you put the flat sides together, but if you turn them you have a problem. If you look at the positioning of the two blocks, they overlap each other a bit to get them to fit on the cake. Not exactly what I had planned, but it worked in the end. It did make offsetting the top necessary though. It makes it look a little more whimsical though, so I didn't really mind, and nobody at the party was complaining about it.
If you look around the cake views, you can see all of the items added. For sports, there was a basketball, soccer ball, goal posts, and a football. For music, there were musical notes, a guitar, and a drum. I realized as I was writing this that I forgot to put on drumsticks, which I meant to add. Too late now.
Above is a top view so you can see the feet. The little wrinkles in the feet don't really show up in that view though. You can see them in some of the other pictures.
I'm told that every bit of the cake was consumed, except for the blocks. The parents to be wanted to take them back to their military base to everyone could see them. I'm guessing they'll get eaten there.
The cake itself is white and chocolate marble. There was butter cream icing under the fondant. There were two additional blocks left over since I used an 8 inch square for the blocks, so I left the two spare blocks (without detail decoration), in the event they needed more cake. The bottom tier is a 10 inch round, and the top tier is 8 inch. To hold each tier up, I put plastic drinking straws through the layer below. The trick was balancing the top tier over the blocks so it would be stable.
Note that the top tier is not centered over the bottom one. There was one thing that I did not account for when picking the sizes for my layers. I made the bottom 10 inch, when it would have been better for me to make it 12 inch instead. The reason is that I used the 8 inch square for the middle and cut it into four quadrants. That made each block 4" square. Now, originally I planned to use three blocks on the cake. Unless I positioned them just right, that wouldn't have worked out too well unless I cut off the back of the blocks and just made it look like they were whole. I already had them mostly decorated, so that wasn't going to happen. Consider for a moment if you have a 4" square and you want to put two inside a 10" circle. It's easy if you put the flat sides together, but if you turn them you have a problem. If you look at the positioning of the two blocks, they overlap each other a bit to get them to fit on the cake. Not exactly what I had planned, but it worked in the end. It did make offsetting the top necessary though. It makes it look a little more whimsical though, so I didn't really mind, and nobody at the party was complaining about it.
If you look around the cake views, you can see all of the items added. For sports, there was a basketball, soccer ball, goal posts, and a football. For music, there were musical notes, a guitar, and a drum. I realized as I was writing this that I forgot to put on drumsticks, which I meant to add. Too late now.
Above is a top view so you can see the feet. The little wrinkles in the feet don't really show up in that view though. You can see them in some of the other pictures.
I'm told that every bit of the cake was consumed, except for the blocks. The parents to be wanted to take them back to their military base to everyone could see them. I'm guessing they'll get eaten there.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
1st Wedding Cake
I've done a groom's cake, but not a wedding cake so far. I finally had a couple in the office ask if I would do their wedding cake. She sent me some pictures to get an idea of what she wanted and to price it. I gave her the price and she later came back and said that she wanted me to do it. Over the couple of weeks after that, we talked more about it and the design changed a bit over time. It got a little more complicated, but it was balanced out by not having to do detail work on every tier. They weren't sure if they were going to have to feed 150 or 200. It ended up being 200, which I had planned for. She didn't want any fondant, so it was only going to be cake and butter cream icing. She also wanted a more box-like look to the cake, so each tier needed to be three layers of cake. I also offered to make the icing on the cake a slightly off-white color so that the white decorations would stand out. You can't really see it in the picture, but the base coat of the icing was an ivory color and the accents were a stark white. Even up close, the difference was subtle.
My wife and I started this one early in the week. She did a majority of the baking for me, because there was so much to do, there was no way I would have finished the cake in time for the Saturday wedding. We baked four 12 inch square cakes, three 10 inch squares, and three 8 inch squares. The top tier was made out of a 12 inch square cut into 6 inch pieces. Because the layers were going to be so heavy, I used two layers of plastic cake board under each layer. The bottom tier sat on a piece of plywood which was covered with aluminum foil, then cake board foil. To support the tiers, I used PVC pipe which I washed, sterilized and washed again. I wanted to make sure that this thing wouldn't fall.
I didn't start decorating until Friday night. I covered all of the tiers with crumb coat, then by the time I finished the last one, the first one was ready for the final coating. That actually took most of the evening, because I had to constantly mix icing throughout the evening. I went to bed around 1:00 am with all of the cakes covered, but no detail work. With a lot of work left to do, and the stress of wanting to make sure I get it right, it wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had.
I got up at 6:00 am and started working once I had my tea to wake me up. I put the detail work on the second and top tiers. This design is a smaller version of the design on the lace of her dress. I filled in some of the space with a few more curls and dots, but the design was essentially the same. It didn't take too long to put the design on the two tiers. I decided to put the monogram on the third tier once I got to the reception hall. That way, if there was any shifting of the icing on the way there, I could fix it and then put on the monogram. The letters only take a minute to put on, so that wouldn't be a big deal. The piping between the layers to cover up the cake board would obviously wait until the cake got to its destination.
I refrigerated the top tier because it was such a strange shape. Since it was as tall as it was wide, I was worried about that one falling over. Chilling the icing gives it a little more stability for the trip. Since that one was likely to have stability issues, I wanted to make sure it survived transport.
I loaded everything up in the car and headed out at about 12:30 pm on Saturday. I had planned to be at the reception hall at 2:30 pm, but figured I would give myself a little more time than I had originally planned. It always seems to take longer than you plan, so I gave myself another hour. I called the reception center and made sure that I could get in. The drive from my house was almost an hour. I put down a comforter on the back of the car to soften any bumps and vibrations and set off.
I got to the reception center around 1:30 pm and started work. the bride had mentioned that the center had a shield to put up if the sun was coming in through the windows. The sun wasn't really a problem, but the room was really hot when I arrived. They hadn't turned it down yet for the event. I was there for about an hour before the guy who knew how to operate the A/C showed up and cooled it down for me. I was sweating, literally, up to that point. The bride gave me the silver cake stand to put the cake on. The thing was gorgeous. I didn't want to touch it and put finger prints on it and ruin the effect of that perfect shiny finish. I opened up all of the cake boxed and everything had survived the trip! One hurdle down. There is always a pucker factor when transporting, because one serious bump and you could lose a lot of icing. There were a couple of spots on the second tier where the design formed a few breaks in the lines, but those are easily fixed.
I stacked the layers and made sure that everything was straight. I then used a wet spatula to glaze over the icing on the smooth tiers. This gives it a perfectly smooth finish and a slightly hard crust on the outside once it dries. I then piped the icing between the layers to cover up the gaps and cake boards. I put on the monogram of their initials and then started looking the cake over. The combination of the trip and the heat of the room had taken a toll on the icing. There were definitely points of stress on the cake where you could see the icing had softened. The second tier from the bottom showed the most weakness. I shored up a few spots with extra icing I had and smoothed it out at much as I could between the lines of the design. It wasn't perfect, but I tried to make it as clean as possible before everyone started showing up and I had to leave. I sat around and fiddled with it as long as I could, because I was really worried about the toll that the heat had taken on it. The top tier had a glazed look, but all of the icing seemed to be intact, so i didn't touch it. Finally, at around 3:30, I left the reception hall and hoped for the best, but feared that things would not remain as I left them based on what I saw.
I had to wait until Monday to find someone who had gone to the wedding and get a status. I asked if anything had gone wrong with the cake. They said that there was a corner of the top tier that came off. The icing took a small part of the cake with it. He said that they simply turned the cake and put that part in the back. Of course, that means that the letters would be on the side or the back as well. He said it tasted great though. So, now I'm waiting until the couple gets back from their honeymoon to see how catastrophic it may have been to the event. Luckily, the bride is pretty laid back, so it may not be too bad. I'm fairly sure that the cake would have been fine after the trip if the room had been cool, but with the combination of the trip and the heat, something bad was bound to happen. I may put an update on this post once I talk to the couple again and see what their reaction was.
This cake was very stressful. Knowing it is for a wedding and wanting it to be perfect provides a little more pressure than usually. Then there was the sheer size of the cake. It would have been really rewarding if the delivery and ceremony went off without a hitch. It's unfortunate that this first foray into wedding cakes had to have an incident.
Update: I talked with the bride and she said that they didn't really even pay attention to the smal part of the cake that came off. In fact, since the people working the reception hall turned the cake, they really didn't notice. The fact that the monogram was turned to the side wasn't a big deal either. She said that the only bit they tried were the bites that they fed to each other and that they were probably going to tear into the top of the cake that was kept in the next week so that they can actually have some of it and enjoy it instead of a year from now when it's not going to be nearly as good.
My wife and I started this one early in the week. She did a majority of the baking for me, because there was so much to do, there was no way I would have finished the cake in time for the Saturday wedding. We baked four 12 inch square cakes, three 10 inch squares, and three 8 inch squares. The top tier was made out of a 12 inch square cut into 6 inch pieces. Because the layers were going to be so heavy, I used two layers of plastic cake board under each layer. The bottom tier sat on a piece of plywood which was covered with aluminum foil, then cake board foil. To support the tiers, I used PVC pipe which I washed, sterilized and washed again. I wanted to make sure that this thing wouldn't fall.
I didn't start decorating until Friday night. I covered all of the tiers with crumb coat, then by the time I finished the last one, the first one was ready for the final coating. That actually took most of the evening, because I had to constantly mix icing throughout the evening. I went to bed around 1:00 am with all of the cakes covered, but no detail work. With a lot of work left to do, and the stress of wanting to make sure I get it right, it wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had.
I got up at 6:00 am and started working once I had my tea to wake me up. I put the detail work on the second and top tiers. This design is a smaller version of the design on the lace of her dress. I filled in some of the space with a few more curls and dots, but the design was essentially the same. It didn't take too long to put the design on the two tiers. I decided to put the monogram on the third tier once I got to the reception hall. That way, if there was any shifting of the icing on the way there, I could fix it and then put on the monogram. The letters only take a minute to put on, so that wouldn't be a big deal. The piping between the layers to cover up the cake board would obviously wait until the cake got to its destination.
I refrigerated the top tier because it was such a strange shape. Since it was as tall as it was wide, I was worried about that one falling over. Chilling the icing gives it a little more stability for the trip. Since that one was likely to have stability issues, I wanted to make sure it survived transport.
I loaded everything up in the car and headed out at about 12:30 pm on Saturday. I had planned to be at the reception hall at 2:30 pm, but figured I would give myself a little more time than I had originally planned. It always seems to take longer than you plan, so I gave myself another hour. I called the reception center and made sure that I could get in. The drive from my house was almost an hour. I put down a comforter on the back of the car to soften any bumps and vibrations and set off.
I got to the reception center around 1:30 pm and started work. the bride had mentioned that the center had a shield to put up if the sun was coming in through the windows. The sun wasn't really a problem, but the room was really hot when I arrived. They hadn't turned it down yet for the event. I was there for about an hour before the guy who knew how to operate the A/C showed up and cooled it down for me. I was sweating, literally, up to that point. The bride gave me the silver cake stand to put the cake on. The thing was gorgeous. I didn't want to touch it and put finger prints on it and ruin the effect of that perfect shiny finish. I opened up all of the cake boxed and everything had survived the trip! One hurdle down. There is always a pucker factor when transporting, because one serious bump and you could lose a lot of icing. There were a couple of spots on the second tier where the design formed a few breaks in the lines, but those are easily fixed.
I stacked the layers and made sure that everything was straight. I then used a wet spatula to glaze over the icing on the smooth tiers. This gives it a perfectly smooth finish and a slightly hard crust on the outside once it dries. I then piped the icing between the layers to cover up the gaps and cake boards. I put on the monogram of their initials and then started looking the cake over. The combination of the trip and the heat of the room had taken a toll on the icing. There were definitely points of stress on the cake where you could see the icing had softened. The second tier from the bottom showed the most weakness. I shored up a few spots with extra icing I had and smoothed it out at much as I could between the lines of the design. It wasn't perfect, but I tried to make it as clean as possible before everyone started showing up and I had to leave. I sat around and fiddled with it as long as I could, because I was really worried about the toll that the heat had taken on it. The top tier had a glazed look, but all of the icing seemed to be intact, so i didn't touch it. Finally, at around 3:30, I left the reception hall and hoped for the best, but feared that things would not remain as I left them based on what I saw.
I had to wait until Monday to find someone who had gone to the wedding and get a status. I asked if anything had gone wrong with the cake. They said that there was a corner of the top tier that came off. The icing took a small part of the cake with it. He said that they simply turned the cake and put that part in the back. Of course, that means that the letters would be on the side or the back as well. He said it tasted great though. So, now I'm waiting until the couple gets back from their honeymoon to see how catastrophic it may have been to the event. Luckily, the bride is pretty laid back, so it may not be too bad. I'm fairly sure that the cake would have been fine after the trip if the room had been cool, but with the combination of the trip and the heat, something bad was bound to happen. I may put an update on this post once I talk to the couple again and see what their reaction was.
This cake was very stressful. Knowing it is for a wedding and wanting it to be perfect provides a little more pressure than usually. Then there was the sheer size of the cake. It would have been really rewarding if the delivery and ceremony went off without a hitch. It's unfortunate that this first foray into wedding cakes had to have an incident.
Update: I talked with the bride and she said that they didn't really even pay attention to the smal part of the cake that came off. In fact, since the people working the reception hall turned the cake, they really didn't notice. The fact that the monogram was turned to the side wasn't a big deal either. She said that the only bit they tried were the bites that they fed to each other and that they were probably going to tear into the top of the cake that was kept in the next week so that they can actually have some of it and enjoy it instead of a year from now when it's not going to be nearly as good.
Football
I'll be the first to tell you that I'm not a football fan. I'll watch an occasional game, but I just don't really have any interest in professional sports. However, my neighbor loves the Houston Texans. She wanted a Texans cake for her birthday. There were several ideas kicked around like a football with the logo on it and maybe one or two more. In the end, I decided on simply doing the team logo.
The cake was white with a white butter cream layer and a fondant covering. The colors of the logo are fondant as well. There is an odd optical illusion in the picture where it looks like the blue hangs off the side of the cake. In person, it didn't, but whatever angle I took the picture at, it looked like this. Weird. I finally gave up and kept the picture. I ended up not charging her for the cake since she ordered it for herself and she's ordered several cakes for me.
The cake was a huge hit with the family. They had several of the extended families get together as a combined birthday party. There were three cakes at the party and mine went first. She said that the other cakes were barely touched even later in the party.
The cake was white with a white butter cream layer and a fondant covering. The colors of the logo are fondant as well. There is an odd optical illusion in the picture where it looks like the blue hangs off the side of the cake. In person, it didn't, but whatever angle I took the picture at, it looked like this. Weird. I finally gave up and kept the picture. I ended up not charging her for the cake since she ordered it for herself and she's ordered several cakes for me.
The cake was a huge hit with the family. They had several of the extended families get together as a combined birthday party. There were three cakes at the party and mine went first. She said that the other cakes were barely touched even later in the party.
For a Golfer
A co-worker who has ordered from me several times in the past wanted a cake to feed a small crown for a surprise party. The person it was for was in his seventies, served in three different branches of the military. He was in to golf, so they wanted a golf themes cake.
The cake was chocolate with chocolate butter cream icing. The writing and grass were regular butter cream icing. I used a hair/grass icing tip for the grass. It's a cool tip, because it covers a small area pretty quickly and you end us with this fuzzy look. Not pictured is a hole flag that I made for them to stick in once they got to their final destination. The flag was made from a bamboo skewer and a small piece of paper with a 1 on it.
I'm told that the birthday boy loved the cake and the surprise party. The cake lasted until the second day, since there was more than enough to go around. I'm told that some people had it with their coffee the next morning.
The cake was chocolate with chocolate butter cream icing. The writing and grass were regular butter cream icing. I used a hair/grass icing tip for the grass. It's a cool tip, because it covers a small area pretty quickly and you end us with this fuzzy look. Not pictured is a hole flag that I made for them to stick in once they got to their final destination. The flag was made from a bamboo skewer and a small piece of paper with a 1 on it.
I'm told that the birthday boy loved the cake and the surprise party. The cake lasted until the second day, since there was more than enough to go around. I'm told that some people had it with their coffee the next morning.
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