Month three, or is it four? Self-refection with SWOT Analysis

I managed to get myself back on track, slightly, during March with my self-refection efforts. Then I wound up sick for the first two weeks of April--cold and flu stuff, but still, it's sucked. I'm rarely sick enough to warrant my taking time off work, but I had to take a day off from both my jobs. Yuck. Anyway, my being sick derailed my efforts to complete my review of March's efforts to consider my life.

For March I opted to use SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis. I realize this is a method for businesses to make decisions, but I thought the different way of looking at my problem might be useful.

Strengths:
Strengths, Experiences, What makes you unique

• Creative*--I'm a writer, reasonably artistic, a half-decent eye for what looks 'good.'
• Reliable--I almost never miss a day (the last week excepted), never show up late.
• Independent worker--I don't need constant reminders, or a hovering supervisor to get my work done.
• Researcher and librarian--10+ year experience in academic research, with involvement in various stages and various roles of the research.
• Small group fitness instructor--2 years experience in teaching aerial circus skills, speaking in front of small groups, class management.
• Baker and cook--need baked goods?
• Seamstress

After some discussion, Andrew told me that: "You are very good at doing whatever it is you need to do for the job in front of you."

I'm not quite sure how to sum that up, maybe: Gets Shit Done?

*I always say I'm creative, but what does this mean, really? How much of a strength is this? Why do I always think of myself as creative? I'm beginning to wonder.

Weaknesses:
Areas for improvement, resources needed, education required

• Initiative--This may seem kinda of weird. I'm really good at doing tasks assigned to me and completing them on time. What I'm not so great at is, when I'm told something general needs to be done about this huge thing, figuring out what I should do about it, or where I should start. Being presented with an overarching or generic problem with no specific requests on how to fix it stresses me out.
• Timid/Conflict Adverse--I almost always prefer to handle things via email if I can. Please don't get in my face.
• Jealous--I constantly struggle with feelings of jealousy, especially when I see someone have an awesome opportunity open up to themselves, to which I have no share (but wish I could).
• Insecure/Lack of Confidence--Seriously, my head is a mess.
• No business sense--Hence why my self-published novels have sold very little.
• No specific goals--I tend to think in generalizations...

Here's a thing I learned from doing SWOT: I've always been a dreamer. I've spent a lot of car and bus trips daydreaming. I used to spend a lot of boring nights as a child and teenager wishing something random and amazing would happen to me, at my house in the countryside.

Dreaming doesn't translate into success. At least not directly.

I have dreamed of being a writer for about at long as I can remember. I have three full novels sitting on Amazon Kindle doing only slightly less than nothing. I have failed to do anything about this. I haven't learned how to market myself. I haven't learned how to make a better cover for my novels to make them more attractive. I haven't learned how to use a Kindle marketing campaign. I haven't even stood on street corners handing out flyers for my books.

(I have, in fact, spent years sending my first to novels [Cimwai's Bay and The Cure] to agents and publishers, to mostly no avail.)

If I choose to take the artist's route for the rest of my life, I have to learn how to do this. Yes, I love to write, it makes me feel good when I've completed a (in my opinion) particularly delectable scene. HOWEVER. I would also like to make a small sum from my efforts.

I have to take initiative to make my dreams come true.

Ciao,

Andrea

P.S. I'll finish the last 2 points of my SWOT Analysis next time...this post got long.

Photography by Alexa Baker--because she is awesome and makes me look awesome.

Belated Halloween

Nothing terribly exciting/out of the ordinary happened this week. In consequence of this, you my 3 loyal readers, getting another cake post--mostly. I had leftover buttercream icing (handily already died orange) and fondant from the cake I made 3 weeks ago and I had a Halloween party to go to this past weekend (yes, that would make it November, but everyone dressed up anyway). I decided I would put together a pumpkin cake--both in flavour and in appearance. I made the cake last weekend using Fine Cooking's brown butter pumpkin spice cake (so delicious) and baked it in one of my Pyrex bowls so it would be circular. When I was finished I feared the cake would be a bit too small for a large-ish party so I baked an extra single chocolate layer as well.

The cake before I added the stem. I was really happy with the bumps and ridges I added to make it look more pumpkin-like.

I began the decoration process on Friday (I baked the cakes last weekend and put them in the freezer). I stacked the cake, 'glued' it to the plate then slathered it with buttercream. The buttercream came out of the freezer in excellent shape. I've tried to preserve buttercream before, but I didn't give it enough time to return to room temperature. If you try to re-whip buttercream that's been frozen/refrigerated and don't let it warm up enough it can turn into a curdled looking mixture. You can fix this by heating it up (the microwave will work fine) and give it a good whirl with a mixer, but the first time this happened to me I didn't know this and ended up throwing the batch out. Once the buttercream was applied I smooshed ridges into it with the sides of my hands then added the fondant. I wanted more lines on the pumpkin so I took the dull side of a knife and indented the cake further.

Stem added. I was even more happy with the cake when I added the stem.

I sculpted the stem with leftover fondant then stuck it onto the top of the cake. Just a little water and some pressure was all that was required.

The cake after I added the shading. It was dark by this time so I wasn't able to get as good a picture as the earlier ones.

We were out for pretty much all of Saturday (market, groceries, lunch, aerial practice and a bunch of other stops on the way), so I ended up spending the last hour or so after dinner and before the party applying details to the cake. I thinned brown colouring out with a splash of gin, then used a paint brush to apply it to the cake. From there I used a makeup sponge to smooth out the lines.

Jack-o-lantern face added.

I was really rushing at this point. It was probably 20 minutes before we planned to leave for the party when I cut the face out from the Jack-o-lantern. Perhaps I should have just left it, but oh well. It looked all right, and I figured that most people aren't all that great at carving real pumpkins anyway. In hindsight, I should have made a pattern out of paper to trace onto the cake to get it even--I'll remember that for the next time I do something like this.

Andrew, looking manly in his Scotsman get up.

Andrew in his costume for the party--it was medieval themed.

Me, in my 'saucy medieval gal' get up.

I didn't make this costume. I agonized over the issue of whether or not to make the costume myself for sometime, but eventually I had to acknowledge the fact that I hadn't finished a sewing project that was more extensive than hemming pants in years. I bought the outfit off of Etsy. Eventually I'll turn it into a steampunk costume once I've got the right accessories.

Ciao,

Andrea

Wedding cake, the fourth

I made another wedding cake this weekend (wedding date: October 14th). This one was a bit odd in a couple of ways. For starters, I made the cake in one place then transported it to another to do the decorating. Second, I only had part of a day to complete the work (i.e. I started icing at 8:30 am Friday, and had to be finished by 4:00 pm for the wedding). Also different (although not the least bit odd), I used my very own stand mixer to make the cake. We've been saving up Canadian Tire money for months and we finally had enough for me to cover the entire cost of a Cuisinart Stand Mixer. It's beautiful, and fast and it's my new baby (although I'll still kneed my bread by hand).

I baked the cake two weeks ago—bottom layer of chocolate, middle layer of vanilla, and two layers (another middle, and a small) of chocolate-vanilla zebra-stripped—then slipped them into our new cube freezer. Last week I made the leaves and set them out to dry in an egg carton to achieve the curled-up look. Then on Friday I set to finishing the decorations. I should point out that the lovely Andrew assisted me a here. Being busy the couple of days leading up to the wedding he was kind enough to level out the cakes for me and apply the first (crumb) layer of icing. Then Friday morning I slathered on two more layers of buttercream plus the fondant. I had all three layers suited up by about 11:30.

I find that the application of buttercream and fondant almost always take the longest. This might be because I've yet to do a really complex cake design, but it only took me another hour and a half to complete the cake. I'd changed my mind several times over how I wanted to decorate it. At first I'd thought I might go for some type of medieval theme, but quickly recognized that I simply didn't have the time for that. Then I settled on the fall theme, but wasn't sure how I should accomplish the motif. I scoured through cake pictures, toyed with the idea of drawing with a paint brush and food colouring, to finally settling on this piping/brushing technique. Naturally I'd never tried it before. Whatever. It worked. I was reasonably happy with the result, and the couple seemed pleased too.

Full-length shot of the cake.

Close-up on the side, showing the piping/scrolling work.

Top down shot, catching the leaves on top.

Mmmm...cake. I'm thinking of doing one for the Hallowe'en party I'm going to.

Ciao,

Andrea

Cake-central at the Milne appartment

I worked on my second wedding cake this weekend--primarily the baking part. I'm a little nervous about this cake since this one's not for family and I'm getting paid for it--therefore it really needs to look good. I made a test cake back in December? January? for the bride to taste and see if she liked the flavour. I'd been asked to make a coconut cake, which I just happened to have a recipe for. The cake was given bride-approval. On Friday night I baked the top two layers of the cake (10 inches and 12 inches respectively), then on Saturday morning I finished off the bottom two (14 inches and 16 inches), plus an additional small layer (8 inches) since I had enough ingredients left to do one more half batch.

One of the biggest challenges this time around is that I only have my tiny apartment kitchen to work in. Back in October, I had my parent's giant kitchen, their huge (and much newer stove), plus my mom's industrial strength mixer. My oven is inconsistent at best (and so burning the cake was a concern), and I only have my trusty old hand-mixer to whip together the batter. To my great relief everything worked smoothly. I had to mix up 6 single batches of the cake batter as my equipment couldn't handle more than one at a time, and by carefully monitoring my oven and rotating pans I was able to avoid a charcoal catastrophe. The whole process took around five hours. Now all the cake layers are wrapped in plastic and taking up almost all of the space in my freezer until this Friday when I'll complete the cake.

All the ingredients I required for baking the cake.

The largest cake pan filled with batter.

My trusty mixer, plowing through a batch of batter--this was toward the end of the process where I'm adding in the egg whites.

The freezer filled with 5 layers of coconut cake. I'm sure I could figure out how many square inches of cake that is, but I don't remember all the mathmatical formulas to make the calculation.

Then on Sunday, in an effort to make my life easier come Decoration Day (possibly also judgment day?), I piped out around 3 dozen icing flowers. I used royal icing for this so there won't be any chance of the flowers going droopy on the Wedding Day, and coloured them a dark purple (with a little white to liven them up). I opted to make 'sweet pea' blossoms as they seemed relatively easy, and used instructions from an old (1970s) Wilton book my mom gave me at Christmas. It took less time than I would have expected to pipe the flowers taking me only around an hour (while watching Jane Eyre on YouTube).

Me piping a flower using my flower nail. By this time my icing was getting a touch soft from the heat of my hand, but everything still worked all right.

The spoils of my hour.

Finally, a few things I learned this time around:

1) Alberta Bulk Barns do not rent their large cake pans (even though they do in Ontario). I am now the proud owner of a set of four circular Wilton cake pans.

2) Cake Release is SO worth it. Each cake layer just slid out with next to no effort besides loosening the cake a little on the sides.

3) It's probably not a good idea to look at Cake Wrecks when you're a little nervous about the icing flowers you piped, either on Sunday when amazing cakes are featured, nor the rest of the time when the cakes are terrible.

Ciao,

Andrea

Wedding cake, phase 3: the final decorations

Around 1:00 pm yesterday afternoon Andrew and I headed over to his grandmother's house where the cake was being kept. Once again, things didn't go exactly as I planned. I learned something yesterday (that would have been helpful to have known earlier): there's a huge difference in the colouring abilities of Wilton gel products. The ones in the small tubes are not effective in colouring fondant--these are also what I tried to use on Wednesday. We attempted to transform the white fondant I'd purchased into vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges for leaves, but were only coming up with pastel pinks, and peaches--no good.

The cake, uncovered. I really wasn't happy with the base fondant colour, but now I know what to use in the future.

When Andrew had gone through the entire tube of orange we agreed we needed something else, so off he went to the Bulk Barn (thankfully only a couple of blocks away). He came back with more tube colourings, and also with the type of Wilton colouring that comes in little jars. I'm not sure what the difference is, I didn't look at the labels, but apparently I should have been using the jar colouring all along. We got the nice dark colours we wanted without using all of the gel.

Once we'd sorted the colour problem out we were on our way. I started cutting out leaves with various sizes of cookie cutters and drew little veins into them with a nut-pick. Then I placed them into an empty egg carton so they would curl like real leaves. Once I'd prepared a small selection of shaped leaves, I took the assortment of orange leaves Andrew had prepared and arranged them on the cake. As I stuck them to the cake, Andrew continued onto the yellow and red fondant, and after I thought I had enough of the other colours we marbled the leftovers together.

Leaves drying so they will rest curled on the cake,

Andrew, cutting out leaves.

The cake, with its first layer of orange leaves.

Two colours of leaves applied.

The cake, more-or-less completed, just a few finishing touches to go.

The second thing that didn't work out like I would have liked was how I arranged the leaves. Initially I thought I would create a spiral of leaves around the entire cake, but as I laid the decorations out I ended up covering half the cake and the other was bare. The cover side looked great, while the other half did not--surprised? Probably not, so then we had to roll out what was left of the coloured fondant and cut out as many new leaves as we could.

All colours of leaves applied.

A close up of the top.

Overall, I'm happy with the way the cake turned out. The bronze under-colour seems to photograph better than it looks in real life, but that's also part of why I decided to cover the entire cake. Ideally, I would like to take another cake decorating course, one for wedding cakes from NAIT so I can learn more advanced fondant techniques--we'll see if I ever get the time. Maybe next summer?

Ciao,

Andrea

Wedding cake, phase 2: covering

My parent’s internet was working yesterday (hurray for country living), therefore I couldn’t blog about my square baking experience. I thought since I still had three more types of squares to make, I would wait to write about them until I was all done. Today I worked on applying coverings to the cake; both icing and fondant. It took me all day starting around 9:00 am and I worked (more-or-less) straight through until 4:30 pm. I decided based on my previous cake making that one regular recipe of Swiss Meringue would be sufficient to cover all of the cake layers. The nice thing this time was that I had a proper stand mixer that was able to handle all 3 pounds of butter required at one time.

The first step of the icing, warming the egg whites and sugar on a double broiler.

The icing, all whipped up and ready to be spread.

By 10:00 am--possibly earlier, I can’t remember--I was applying the first layer of icing to the smallest layer of cake, which didn’t required support. Andrew was kind enough to spend much of the first part of his morning sawing doweling pieces and sanding off the rough bits so I could insert them into the cake. This was one bit of the construction I wasn’t too sure about, but I’d seen it done in an instructional video I’d watched to make sure the lower levels of the cake could uphold the top ones. I really don’t want the cake to collapse on itself.

Andrew measuring out the distances for the support doweling.

The icing process went along pretty smoothly, by which I mean I was able to speed along in the application, then spread the icing out so it was even and...smooth. It turned out I was just about spot on with the amount of icing required as I have only a small tub of it left, and I can use that to apply the ribbon or other decorations if necessary. The fondant was a bit of a pain...not really the rolling and setting part, but the colouring part.

Me applying the last layer of icing to the base layer of the cake.

What's left of the buttercream icing after four layers of cake.

In my mind I was going to create a nice, beige colour for the base. However, no matter how much brown colouring I added, the fondant didn’t get anywhere near brown, it just became a light pink--definitely not what I was looking for. Then when I rolled the first layer out I realized that I wouldn’t be able to cover the entire cake with the 3L of fondant I’d prepared. So, off came the first layer, and out came the remaining litre of fondant. I ended up with a pale peach colour that seemed passable, then when I decided to add my bronze sparkles to the fondant it became even more passable.

Me, adding the fondant, see how fast I move? My hand is blurry.

The base layer, sitting on the cake plate, covered in fondant.

Now all I’ve got to do is add ribbon, more sparkles and leaves. I’m sure this will take longer than I think, but not nearly as long as the first part of the icing.

Ciao,

Andrea

Wedding cake, phase 1: baking

Welcome to Andrea's Wide World of Baking! Today I bring you the process of baking enough chocolate cake to serve 100 people.

Err...or something like that. Yes, I'm coming up to the judgment day to see if I can really bake and decorate a wedding cake. I can tell you that the baking part went peachy-keen--really. After a good sleep last night, I woke up this morning around 8:20, had a quick bite of breakfast, and started on the first batch of batter. I made 6 times the recipe I used for the previous chocolate cake, in three rounds of mixing. I used something like 20 eggs, 3 lbs of butter, more than 4 kg of brown sugar, and approximately 1.5 kg of flour. Pan dimensions are 14", 12", 10", and 8" wide.

The main ingredients going into the cake.

Me trying to mix up the last of the first batch of cake batter, and trying not to over flow the bowl.

The batter. Mmm, chocolate.

The first cake pan, ready to go in the oven.

Two of the cake layers baking.

The mess after I'd finished mixing the batter.

The biggest layer (14") just out of the oven.

At this point in the afternoon (as I write it is 2:30 pm) all of the cake layers are out of the oven, and are cooling. They're a little crumbly on the outside, but that's why you lay down a quick 'crumb' layer of icing first, to seal the cake. Unfortunately, one of the cake layers (the second largest one--12") is still stuck in the pan and I'm not quite sure how I should proceed to get it out. I'm sure I'll work something out, I just hope I don't break it as I do.

Ciao,

Andrea

Tomorrow: baking enough square for 100 people.

Cake decorating: the second to last post...I promise*

Last weekend (Sept 18th) Andrew and I held a "Let's eat cake party," with the purpose of letting me practice the cake I planned to make for my brother-in-law's wedding reception in October. It had a secondary purpose, which was to use up the fondant I had leftover from the cake decorating course I took a couple of weeks ago.

The Cake:

After poking around on a couple of recipe Websites, I found a chocolate cake recipe that I thought: a) looked delicious; and b) would be solid enough to hold up a second layer of cake (the only directions I've been given on the cake is that it should be chocolate). I used this chocolate cake recipe from Epicurious. I baked it the weekend before and slipped it into the freezer so that I wouldn't have to worry about the construction of the cake during the week leading up to the party. The general consensus on the cake was that it was delicious, and I have to agree. This probably had something to do with the amounts of butter, sugar, and eggs that went into it, but hey, it's cake, it's not supposed to be healthy. And from my baker/decorator view point, the cake came out relatively flat (not that it didn't rise, but that it didn't have a huge rounded top like the banana one I made as the smaller, second layer), was easy to slice, and wasn't too crumbly to make icing difficult.

The Icing:

What I mean by icing is the buttercream icing layer that went on the cake before the fondant. Buttercream icing is a lot like you might imagine, full of creamed butter. I had never made this type of icing before, since when I took the cake decorating courses it was always pre-made for us. I located a recipe on the Epicurious site for Swiss Meringue, which was what we were instructed to use at the cake decorating courses. The icing has three ingredients: egg whites, sugar and butter. First you heat the egg whites and the sugar in a double boiler until they reach a certain temperature, then you beat the mixture until they reach a soft, foamy, not-quite-soft-peaks consistency, then you add the butter. I only have a hand mixer, so I was a little worried about whether or not it would be able to manage creaming 1.5 pounds of butter, but it worked without a hitch (I also took the butter out of the fridge in the morning before I went to work, so it was very soft). Finally, I tried adding a little amaretto for flavour, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. It was richly decadent nonetheless.

First layer of icing (of three...) to go on the cake. Each layer sets in the fridge in between icing.

The buttercream icing. Despite halving the recipe I still had leftover.

Me icing the cake. Probably the third layer by the looks of things.

The banana cake layer all iced and ready for fondant.

The Fondant:

As mentioned above, the fondant was the leftover from my decorating course a few weeks ago, therefore the colours on this cake are a little wacked-out. When I do the actual cake I intend to do a light brown-beige colour for the background, then red, orange, and yellow for the leaves. Yes--the cake will be decorated with leaves rather than stars. I would have done leaves this weekend, except that for some reason Bulk Barn had tons of Hallowe'en cookie cutters, and no autumn sets. Since last weekend I've managed to procure a set of fall-themed cookie cutters from Michaels that has three different sizes of oak and maple leaves. I'm also planning to hand-imprint the leaves with veins to make them look more realistic, and maybe curl the edges on some of them so they aren't all lying perfectly flat, as real leaves wouldn't.

The chocolate layer iced, and trimmed with fondant. I managed to get it on with almost no difficulties.

Me applying the fondant to the banana layer. This one went on perfectly. No tears anywhere.

The boarder applied to hide a small gap between the cakes. The green fondant rolled out and ready to make stars.

First colour added, working on cutting out stars for the second set of trimmings.

Almost there, just purple left. I found at this stage I could move quickly through the decorating.

The finished product.

Ciao,

Andrea

*at least until the next big cake baking/project comes around...

My own cake wreck

After a very successful experimentation with rolled fondant for my own birthday cake, I figured that putting together Andrew's birthday cake would be a sinch. I wasn't even going to do fondant, but try making chocolate leaves (something I saw in a Find Cooking magazine). Alas, this is the third birthday cake for Andrew in a row I've ruined. Our first year out here (when I say out here, I mean in Alberta) I made a butterscotch chiffon cake, which is a Milne family recipe. That was before I got into making cakes, so there's no picture. The second year I made a maple walnut cake out of a Canadian Living magazine (pictured below). The year after was the year the Canadian Space Agency was looking for astronauts (Andrew just missed making the cut for interviews) so I made a space shuttle cake (i.e. a cake in the shape of a shuttle). It tasted okay, but I didn't have black food colouring, so I had to trim the cake with blue--it didn't quite look the way I had wanted it too (no picture). Last year I made a red velvet cake. Again, the cake was excessively delicious...all that red food dye...but the decorating...oh boy. I wanted to go with another space theme, so I tried to use marshmellows to make stars (initially thinking I could use toothpicks to make them look like they were shooting out from the cake), but the icing colour went out of wack. It ended up neon. I was sorely disappointed (definitely no picture).

The last good cake I made for Andrew, a maple walnut cake (including candied walnuts on the top).

To Andrew, my lovely husband, I sorely apologize. For the third year in a row I botched your birthday cake. I swear, upon pain up death, I will get it right next year.

What happened this year? Well, the first problem was that I felt rushed. Between training for the marathon, completing house cleaning chores, trying to get some writing in, and playing a double header of soccer on Tuesday night, I had to squeeze icing and decorating the cake into the leftover time. Second, the chocolate leaves didn't work. I'm not sure if it was due to low quality of chocolate (cheep melting chocolate from Michaels) or that fake leaves aren't suited as a mold. Either way, I had difficulty spreading the chocolate evenly, then when it set it cracked as I tried to remove the leaves. Third, the raspberry filling I used to separate the cake layers wouldn't thicken sufficiently so that it squirted out when I added the top half. Finally, and most disastrously, the icing wouldn't thicken. I used an icing recipe from Fine Cooking, where you melt chocolate with butter, and cream, then let it thicken and cool before applying it to the cake. As I prepared the icing on Wednesday I read the recipe and noted that it used plain sugar for sweetening rather than icing sugar. This is the conversation I had with myself: White sugar, granulated sugar, is that right? Better check it again. Yup, okay, granulated sugar. I should probably use icing sugar to help it thicken better. Hm, but I've made this type of icing before, I should just follow the recipe it will be fine. Trust the recipe, the people at Fine Cooking know what they're doing. This is what happened:

Doesn't that look delightful? It's like the cake has been slimed.

Despite an entire day in the fridge it never thickened sufficiently.

Sure, it looked terrible, but at least it tasted good.

To John and Cindy, if either if you are reading this blog post: THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN TO YOUR CAKE. I promise. I'm scheduled to take a couple of cake decorating courses at the end of this month. One on regular cake decorating, how to make icing, basic piping techniques, etc. The second is on rolled fondant. Also, I will make sure to start on your cake as soon as I get home in October. I'll bake the cake right away and put it into the freezer until needed. Then I will set aside lots of time for making decorations, etc. It will be beautiful. In the meantime, here are some pictures of cakes that did work out.

I had no piping bags at this point and had to used a plastic bag for the writing. It's pink, 'cause it was for Mandy's birthday.

Honestly, this cake was a bit of a mess, but I spent hours making icing flowers. The roses turned out well.

A chocolate, pepermint cheesecake. Yum.

Birthday cake for my mom a couple of years ago, clearly more successful than the one I made for Andrew...

Finally, my birthday cake.

Ciao,

Andrea