Kakes and K's

2010-05-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I walked the Willow Glen 5K with my mom and sister. The walk/run benefited the Willow Glen Elementary School. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to spend some time exercising with the family.

This past weekend was awesome! Myself, along with some old and new friends participated in Relay for Life! Together I team fund raised over $1,500! The walking started at 11am Saturday and ended at 10am on Sunday. It was a good experience and we are already making some plans for next year! Thanks to everyone for donating to the American Cancer Society. If you would like to make a donation to ACS the link is www.cancer.org/

I am signed up for the Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras 10K this Saturday! I'm already regretting the 10K, I would much rather do a 5K but I need to push myself. I also signed up for a 5 mile run in Big Sur the day before my 25th birthday! I can't wait! What a great way to celebrate!

I haven't been baking...I miss it! But I was asked to create a cake for Brian's 30th birthday! I already have so many ideas. I will post pictures next week!

I found these great little things on Amazon and purchased one in every color they offer! At Michaels you can buy candy melts in many colors and create all kinds of things on wax paper, after the dry you can peel them off and add decoration to cakes or whatever. I've tried to master the melting and piping of the candy and I gave up. These little tube are full have the same stuff as the candy melts but it's ready to pipe. You stick them in the microwave and your ready to create! I love when smart people invent little things to make my life easier. Buy them!! I promise you will never go back to the candy melts!

On a side note, I have been meat-free for a month now! The smell of BBQ does trigger some meaty thoughts but I think it's just the smell. I can't think of anything on the grill that I'd actually want to eat. Do they make BBQ scented air freshener ?

It's been a while

2010-05-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

I want to apologize for taking soo long between posts! I guess I got distracted but I have been thinking about posting something all week!

Here's what I've been up to:

I finished Course 1 of the decorating class at Michaels!

I finally got to make roses!!!

It turned out much better than I expected =)
The roses really aren't that hard, and I'm not just saying that either. Watch someone do it a few times and practice and you will absolutely be able to do it!

A little something about my decorating style...I don't lick frosting off my hands because that's not okay and I don't wear an apron and I often don't plan ahead and have paper towels or anything ready to wipe frosting off. You can tell if I've made a cake by looking at my jeans. You would see this for example:

I can't be the only one who does this, right?!?
I found this really great website, Cupcakes for Cures. They are located in Asheville, NC. and are supporting the American Cancer Society. The aprons are $25 and it's such a good cause. I plan on ordering one myself very soon! I listed the link below:
Cupcakes for Cures!

I haven't done much running because of my feet but I am getting better and wearing shoes again! I absolutely love my shoes! I went to Running Revolution in Campbell. They had me run on the treadmill and try many different shoes before I found the perfect shoe and I couldn't be happier. Since then I've run around a little and walked a 5K with my mom and sister. No new blisters! Yay!

Okay, now back to cakes. I made a huge error with my most recent cake. It was rough but I hung in there and got through it. I made a mistake and I wanted to own up to it so here it goes...

I didn't spray the cake pans! I know, I know, non-stick is not a guarantee but I guess I just didn't think about it. Lesson learned the hard way

The second one even looks like it has a sad face. I was sad. I considered making cake balls but I had already done the roses so I decided to try and save it.

I filled it with vanilla pudding, sort of and I did my best to piece it all together. I used a lot of frosting in the crumb coat and even more trying to level it out but the end result was pretty awesome considering the initial set back.

Not so bad, right! My sister did the rose on the bottom left, which looks more like a chrysanthemum. It turned out much better than expected. I'm glad I didn't give up on it!

I was told to not show this picture of the cake and no one would ever know, but like I said before I want to own up to my mistakes. The cake looks great from above but if you get down and look at it from the side...

So what if it's not straight! I did my best and it was great!

Happy Mother's Day!

Cupcakes for Cures

Pinkalicious

2010-04-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

How cute is this!?!

Pinkalicious eats so many pink cupcakes that she wakes up the next morning with pink skin and hair. The color just won't wash off, and the doctor diagnoses her with Pinkititis and tells her to eat green food to get better.

no K's but a few cupKakes

2010-04-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

K's

This has been a rough week for me...physically. I am still healing after my shoe problem from the 10K last week and endured a harsh blow on Wednesday when my toe nail fell off. I'm register for a 5K on May 8th and I think I will be fine by then! And I plan to find the perfect shoe before then!

I wanted to share my new favorite website! Active.com

It allows you to search in any area for different sport and recreation activities. I love it! I used it to create a list of runs I plan to participate in this year..a run a month, or more!

Here it is:

Sat May 8th Willow Glen 5K

Sat May 29th Mushroom Mardi Gras, Morgan Hill

Sat June 12th Fun Run, Gilroy

Sun July 25th Wharf to Wharf, Santa Cruz ...if I can get the day off work

Sat Aug 14th Dammit Run, Los Gatos

Sat Aug 21st Trail Run, Mt. Madonna

Sat Sept 11th, Urban Dare

This one involves teams of 2 to solve puzzles and complete a list of tasks and running from place to place in SF! Not specifically a run but it sounds like fun!

Sat Sept 25th Big Sur Trail 5 mile

Sat Oct 30th Warrior Dash

North of Sac, 5K with obstacles, mud and fire! For participating you get a shirt, a medal, an awesome warrior helmet and a free beer!

Let me know if you might be interested in joining me for any of these!

Kakes

This past week we did cupcakes in my decorating class. Cupcakes are my thing but I wasn't happy with my work. I like the little details and adding sprinkles to make faces, flowers, etc. Here are the pictures of what I did, feel free to laugh! I did!

Cherries

Elephant

Flowers

Turtle

Octopus

Clown...? Haha!

To make myself feel better about my skills I decide to make Jimmy a cake and it turned out really well!

This week we're doing more flowers and completing the roses (I can't wait!).

I think I knew about this book before but I just saw it again and wanted to share it

I also want to share a few fun links to cute cupcakey stuff

Johnny Cupcakes

Bakerella

Cupcakes Take The Cake

Have a great week everyone!

Playing catch up on the K's

2010-04-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

With all the cake around the house I decided to start moving more and running again.
Here's a little bit about what I have done so far:

-My first organized walk/run was Campbell's OktoberFest, 5K. I walked this with Jimmy, Brenna and my mom. It was a lot of fun and my mom even bought us all a beer at the Festival!

-Then came the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot in downtown San Jose, also a 5K. This is the first one that I ran and it was rough! But it was a good learning experience and I'm glad I did it. Jimmy, my cousin Lacy and my Aunt Marty walked the 5K and my Uncle Tom ran the 10K!

-My next run was the Campbell Valentine's Fun Run, 5K. I talked Brenna into doing this one with me. It was her first 5K run and she was not happy, but hopefully she had a good time, maybe?

-Big Sur Mud Run. I feel like that says it all. It was the worst 5 miles of my life. We endured screaming soldiers, mud pits, 5 and 6 foot walls, balance beams and horrible sandy hills. NEVER AGAIN! All I got out of it was a t-shirt, ruined shoes and a bloody knee. I'm glad I finished but I did not feel the same sense of accomplishment, I just felt sore and tired.

-One week later I found myself running again! My friend Kate and I ran Cupertino's Big Bunny Fun Run, 5K. She is a great running partner. We have the same pace and she pushes me to keep going. Since it was only a week after the Mud Run, I didn't have new shoes yet and wore some Reebok shoes I had which turned out to be a bad idea for my high arches which were not supported. Ouch. We did it and I shaved 4 minutes off my last 5K run!

-Kate talked me into a 10K after that. Yesterday we did the Mermaid Run in Mountain View. My first 10K and honestly the longest I have willing ran in my life. It was fun and I liked the trail except for the bugs flying around, GROSS! Since our last run I had bought some new shoes. I walked around in them but hadn't ran in them. "Rookie mistake" is what Jesse called it. My shoes were too small. My toes pounded into the front of my shoe every step of the way and the heels rubbed against the back the entire time. This is how I found out that blisters can form under your toe nail :( It hurts. And I have to buy new shoes, again. This time I'm going to a serious shoe store. Seriously. Aside from the pain, it was a great run and I feel like I could have done so much better if I had better shoes. 10K's are not as scary as they seem.

I signed myself up for another 5K next month in Willow Glen (http://willowglen5k.org/). Please join me! I need a buddy!

After that I hope to run Wharf to Wharf in July and the Warrior Dash in October.

If you know of anything in June, August, or September let me know!

Playing catch up on the Kakes

2010-04-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Someone said to me, "You should create a blog", and I'm sure they were kidding but in all honesty, I was already thinking about it anyway!

I've always enjoying decorating cakes and cupcakes...

(I made these for Valentines Day)

I got help from Brenna for these cupcakes made for a friend's baby shower. We took the idea from "Hello, Cupcake!" Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can MakeIt's a great book with super cute ideas. I recommend it and the newest book, "What's new, Cupcake?"What's New, Cupcake?: Ingeniously Simple Designs for Every Occasion

For my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary last year, my parents, aunt and uncle planned a trip for them to visit Safari West (http://www.safariwest.com/), in Santa Rosa, so I created a safari themed cake, not to scale, but it was pretty cute!

It's tedious work but I love it and it helps me unwind at the end of a long day at the office. Last month I was asked to create the cake for baby Andrew's 1st birthday!

It was amazing and I think he liked it...

This month I did some Easter Baking and made some super easy, but cute, cupcakes and that anyone can do. For these types of smaller more tedious cupcakes I like to put in an old movie or have my favorite play list going on my ipod.

Most recently I signed up for a cake decorating class at Michaels. I've had two class sessions so far and I made this the last class.

This week were doing cupcakes, my favorite!