When I was in middle school, my parents let me pick out a new color for my bedroom. I went from a light pink to a really deep pink. I always loved pink and thought the darker color was much more grown up. I loved it, and still love it, though on darker or rainy days it sometimes makes my room feel like a cave. That’s why lately I’ve been admiring white bedrooms. They are much more crisp and bright. I especially love the idea of adding gold and blush accents!
Handira, or Moroccan Wedding blankets, are hand woven out of sheep’s wool, cotton, and linen. The blankets are laborious as they can take hours to complete. Because of the amount of hard work that goes into these blankets, they are not cheap. I’m currently researching ways of how to easily, and economically, recreate these beautiful pieces of art!
A couple weeks ago many enjoyed FX Network airing every Simpsons episode ever. The marathon brought back such great memories of episodes I hadn’t seen (or ever seen!) for a very long time! It also inspired me to create a cake in honor of the show. I settled on the famous pink doughnut…sprinkles and all!
1. The very first step is to bake a cake in your favorite flavor! I used two 8 inch pans. Refrigerate your cakes until completely cool. This will make it easier to ice and stack! Begin by cutting off the tops of both cakes to get an even surface. Ice the top of one of the tiers, then stack the second tier on top.
2. Use a swiss buttercream to crumb coat the outside of the cake. Refrigerate the cake for a minimum of 30 minutes. We want a nice cold cake for sculpting.
3. To begin sculpting the rounded doughnut shape, trim the top edge of the cake at an angle. Start slowly! It’s better to cut off too little, than too much!
4. Your cake should start to look a little something like the picture above.
5. To create the doughnut shape, cut out a hole in the center of the cake.
6. Create a more rounded edge by trimming the edge at an angle just as before.
7. Slowing keep trimming the inner and outer edges of the cake until they are nice and rounded! *Don’t forget to trim the bottom edge of the cake as well!*
8. Once your cake is sculpted, cover the cake in a layer of buttercream. Refrigerate until cool. Use your fingers to smooth the buttercream to get an even surface for the fondant.
9. Dye a piece of fondant a light tan for the base of the cake. (I used about the size of a grapefruit in order to cover the sculpted 8 inch cake.) Roll out the fondant until it is just big enough to cover most of the cake.
10. Place the fondant overtop of the cake and pull down the edges until the whole cake is covered. Use your hands or a fondant smoother to smooth the fondant over the cake.
11. Trim any excess fondant with a knife.
12. Use the non-serrated edge of the knife to smooth the bottom edge of the fondant to give the cake a cleaner look.
13. Cut a small hole in the center of the fondant and push down into the inside of the cake. If the fondant does not cover the entire center, cut a smaller piece of fondant to fill it in. Don’t worry about the seam as it will get covered by the frosting.
14. Dye a piece of fondant (about the size of an orange) pink. Roll out the fondant into a circle. *Or as close as you can get to a circle. As you can see, I struggled a bit*
15. Use your fingers or a pastry brush to add a thin layer of water to the top of the cake. It will serve as a glue between the two layers of fondant.
16. Place the rolled fondant over the top of the cake.
17. Trim the edge of fondant in a ‘wave’ pattern to create the drizzled frosting look.
18. Again, use your finger or knife to smooth the edges of the trimmed fondant for a cleaner look.
19. Dye small pieces of fondant in multiple colors for the sprinkles. Roll out a thin piece into a long snake. Cut the fondant into about 1/2 inch pieces to create the sprinkles.
20. Roll and cut all your sprinkles!
21. Add a dab of water to the sprinkle and place it on the cake. Continue until you have covered the doughnut in sprinkles.
And there you have it! An awesomely adorable sprinkle doughnut cake!!
Homer Simpson approved! Enjoy!!
As if I needed another reason to love gold. These temporary metallic tattoos have been popular with girls who like the idea of wearing jewelry at the beach, but don’t want to run the risk of losing it. The brand Flash Tattoos has had a big part in making the trend popular. Their tattoos last four to six days making it easy to change your look. Because I love recreating things I see on the internet, I’m currently dreaming up ways to DIY the look. Stay tuned!
images: 1,2&3, 3&4,5
Pineapples were everywhere this season, so obviously I wanted in on the trend. After finding this cookie cutter, I knew a pineapple project was in my near future. I still had some gold leaf lying around from this project, so I decided on some cute gold leaf patterned ring dishes. Like all my favorite projects, this one was a cinch!
What You Need:
Step One: Start by kneading your clay until it is soft enough to roll out. Use the rolling pin to roll the clay to a little over 1/8″ in width, and a little larger than the cutter.
Step Two: Cut out the pineapple shape with the cutter.
Step Three: Use your index finger and thumb to roll the edges of the pineapple upwards to create a bowl effect. Place on a baking sheet and bake the bowls following the instructions on your clay wrapper.
Step Four: We are going to use the gold leaf adhesive to paint a pattern onto the pineapple.
For one, I outlined the entire pineapple and then added a crisscross pattern. For the second I filled the whole top of the pineapple, then did small polka-dots for the bottom. Allow the adhesive to become tacky, letting it sit for about 30 mins, or as long as your adhesive indicates.
Step Five: Apply the gold leaf to the adhesive pattern on the pineapple. Use a brush (or be impatient like me and use your finger) to get rid of excess gold leaf. It is so fun to see your pattern take shape!
Repeat with the second dish.
And you’re done! Enjoy!!
