laughing at self in the kitchen

Not quite a Cake Wreck but a little off track:

I have a cake order requested in Auburn University's school colors. Nicely orange flavored and colored cake was easy! But, did you know, it's not really possible to food dye (even light cocoa) chocolate cake batter blue? All you get is a VERY disgusting shade of greeny-brown! (Looked way too much like something you'd find inside a baby's diaper....)

Oh yeah, there would be no problem dyeing a white cake, and while there is "white chocolate", it doesn't really taste chocolatey (as white chocolate may include cocoa butter but no cocoa solids/liquor).

Since the client wanted some chocolate cake though, I'll rebake a better hued chocolate, and just frost between alternating chocolate and orange layers with blue buttercream to get the desired color scheme. Then on to fancy decorating with a buttercream transfer of the school's tiger eyes logo on the cake top.

I also have another party cake to do for this weekend as well. It's a bit more fun, and more my quirky style, an "adult" themed cake of a girl's derriere and stockinged thighs. This one will be flavored yet another cocoa variation, being a Red Velvet cake with light peppermint frosting under sculpted fondant.

Book #81

Turner, Joan Frances. DUST. Ace: 2010.

Narrated by a sympathetic and believable adolescent protagonist in a near future post-apocalyptic world, Jessie simply happens to be (un)dead. Instead of being yet another typical mindless zombie/violent gorefest, or being played for light thrills and humor, Dust offers something a little bit different in this disturbingly realistic novel.

I like sentient revenants. :)

Not a perfect novel (there is some uneven writing, with some characters better developed than others), but this is an original and interesting premise and a mostly engrossing (yes, pun on gross) read.

One of the better books I've read this year!