Public Address | Cafe | Busytown: One, two, three, go!

Sacha

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:37:43 +1300

Ooops, that's right, twas marzipan not fondant.

Amy Gale

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:38:58 +1300

I think "good" in gumpaste/fondant is pretty much a measure of mechanical/aesthetic properties. It's always going to taste like sugar and gelatin and gums (and possibly shortening) because, well, that's what it is.

There is a phrase that often seems to come up: "technically edible". As in, you won't be…

Sacha

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:34:57 +1300

Great penguins, Jolisa. A dear friend who was a pastry chef made a fondant frog for the best cake I have ever eaten – and I believe it was just almonds and icing sugar ground together (plus green colouring in that case). None of that icky fake taste that usually…

One Woman

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:47:20 +1300

Well, it was my first time working with fondant and gumpaste and I used the store bought stuff. I don't know what *good* fondant/gumpaste is suppose to taste like, but I took a nibble of what I had when I was working on it and it was truly disgusting. I…

Jolisa

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:37:46 +1300

Kim, your penguins were astonishingly gorgeous, really Wallace and Gromit-grade spectacular. I'm not sure I'd have been able to watch them just walk out the door either!

(So will you have a chance to re-use them on a future cake or did they become a stealthy grown-up snack once the…

One Woman

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:06:43 +1300

Jolisa, you did a wonderful job on your penguin cake. It's darling! I wish you much success in your future cake making adventures. There is nothing so satisfying as making our kids' cakes ourselves – and it's so much fun (whether we keep our sugar creations or not, lol *wink*).…

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:00:17 +1300

And thanks for the warm comments. I sometimes feel shy about posting family stuff – Soft News, as it were – but y'all make it so worthwhile.

I love this website, Jolisa, bur sometimes the news is a bit hard. As has been said by Giovanni, you write beautifully and…

Jolisa

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:07:29 +1300

Sarah, if you can put lollies on a cake and tinfoil gumboots on a fairy, you can do anything! And while I'm keen to emulate Amy in the fondant-fondling stakes, I usually just work with icing the way my nana made it: butter, icing sugar, water. Lashings of the stuff.…

Amy Gale

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:29:40 +1300

[JG] What was up with that? She's just going to keep them in a special penguin box in the cupboard?

Oh, probably not in the cupboard. Maybe on display in the china cabinet.

[SD] I don't know what fondant is. I have so much to learn.

It's the ungodly sweet…

Jolisa

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:07:04 +1300

the uber-mum who couldn't part with her penguins.

Y'know, I'm not one to judge, but... yeah. What was up with that? She's just going to keep them in a special penguin box in the cupboard?

For me the best thing about cake "art" is watching it be demolished. Although the…

Barbara

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:22:21 +1300

Cakes that is....

Barbara

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:11:35 +1300

Your cake is so impressive. Much better than the uber-mum who couldn't part with her penguins.

It gives me ideas for the future. If there any cakes for the future.

We've already had all the 21sts, and the two we did ourselves, were much more appreciated than the professionally done…

sarah duckworth

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:28:21 +1300

Crikey! Thanks for the pictures. You are my hero and role model. I only do pink icing covered with smarties or green icing covered with smarties. I'm lucky my clients have limited imaginations. I thought I was being very nifty sticking a fairy in the middle of the pink cake…

Jolisa

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:27:57 +1300

Oh, so smart. I don't know why I didn't think of that. All those tiny wee dextrous fingers, so good at all the little fiddly penguin bits. And yes, the edible party favour, always a winner.

Next time.

Amy Gale

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:47:47 +1300

Now now, with two over three your mind can start turning to indentured labor as a first solution to all life's fiddly little issues. You could even make it a party activity. Make a penguin! Then we'll stick it on the cake! Then you can take it home! Because nobody…

Jolisa

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:31:09 +1300

PS you took a class in sugar??! We are so home-schooling that.

Jolisa

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:29:34 +1300

Amy, do you do mail-order? I got all excited about hand-rolling penguins (flashback to the forty naked ladies my siblings and I made for my dad's 40th birthday cake... that's eighty tiny pink marzipan breasts alone), but then just couldn't make the time to do it. And when I priced…

Amy Gale

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:38:18 +1300

Wallace-and-Grommit-style penguins are ridiculously easy – apply within for directions if you can't infer them from the finished product.

giovanni tiso

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:35:44 +1300

Let us know how it goes!

I Helen-Kelleringly will. (Adverbs will do in a pinch).

Jolisa

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:25:56 +1300

Also: I shall make it my life's work from now on to try and work Helen-Keller as a verb in all of my conversations.

I'm all ears. Let us know how it goes!

giovanni tiso

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:22:05 +1300

And thanks for the warm comments. I sometimes feel shy about posting family stuff – Soft News, as it were – but y'all make it so worthwhile.

Oh, if it helps I'll chime in – beautiful, exquisite writing, as per usual. *Never* feel shy about posting like this.

Also: I…

Jolisa

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:10:46 +1300

That cake is so fucking badass I think I'm going to lose control of some crucial bodily function.

Hopefully just the salivary sort?

Kyle, duly noted for next year. It is my life's ambition to make a 1:1 scale cake of some sort. Maybe I'll work my way up to…

Kyle Matthews

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:53:13 +1300

although I didn't go all the way like this uber-mom

Meh, that's pansy.

You should have done a cake 15 feet across, and recreated March of the Penguins, including falling snow and gale force winds. Morgan Freeman optional.

Danielle

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:40:23 +1300

That cake is so fucking badass I think I'm going to lose control of some crucial bodily function.

Jolisa

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:36:01 +1300

Aw [blushing], I thought you'd never ask. See original post for newly added pics.

I just work to the client's brief, no matter how baroque or boring. This is the first non-vehicular cake in a while (let's see, yellow taxicab, helicopter, fire engine, space shuttle, moving truck, airplane, rocket...). Last…

sarah duckworth

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:05:29 +1300

Couldn't we see a picture of the cake? I'd love to see a picture of that cake!

Rebecca Williams

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:04:23 +1300

"What say we get a sea lion for our house? That be nice. Ha ha, I just jonking you! [wheeze, snort, honk]."

that made ME wheeze, snort and honk. thanks for a lovely post.

as to the kind of car they'll be driving, my hubby frightens me by pointing out…

Marian Hobbs

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:29:16 +1300

Thanks so much. I am waiting for the M5 to clear so as I can make it to work and I read this and smiled and cried. I too love it when the siblings have this wonderful relationship. My two still have it 25 years later!!!

Mark Graham

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:31:39 +1300

Huge. Loved it. I wish I had the eloquence to describe the same thing happening between my two year old and four year old and love that you've captured it for me.

David Slack

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:28:35 +1300

I mean birthday cake = sugar yard-glass.

I have been enjoying that all day. Our cake efforts have been very modest by comparison.

If it’s a bad bump, he wails “I need a hug and a kiss, I really do!” and flies across the room – to give you the…

Paul Williams

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:50:42 +1300

I'm loving all the parent-type posts here, they're great fun. This is a lovely story Jolisa, thanks.

Spinal taps; scary stuff. A friend's daughter had two also (the first didn't succeed at doing whatever they do). The parents are still traumatised!

My three and a half year old's discovered jonking…

Tim Michie

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:50:04 +1300

Thanks so much Jolisa,

That was such a good read. I did worry, at your mention of H G Wells, whether the mind was at the end of its tether – but clearly not.

It's nice to know that when he was three busybaby was much more than was hardly…

Jolisa

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:46:08 +1300

Vintage Morris Minor with retro-fitted airbags and seatbelts. Great for picking up chicks (or lads), and good luck getting anything above 50 kph.

Helen, I hear you on the 3 year old "performance review." Notice I carefully failed to mention a) the toilet train, which has not left the station,…

Ian MacKay

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:34:04 +1300

Jolissa. Start making a decision on what sort of car you think he/they will be driving. Be terrified at the thought because it will be tomorrow or will seem like it.
When one of my boys was nearly three, I happened to video a conversation (mostly his) about castles and…

Brent Jackson

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:32:25 +1300

threenager outburst

Love it ...

Thanks for a wonderful post.

Helen Searancke

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:30:48 +1300

oops, first and wrote nothing, above – sorry... I blame the tears of laughter and self-recognition rolling down my face.

Thank you for the delightful post, Jolisa. Don't ya love that sibling relationship? It is completely independent of the parents. Your boys remind me of my daughter and her five-years-younger…

Helen Searancke

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:25:02 +1300

Discussion from blog post.

Public Address

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:25:02 +1300

Discussion from blog post.