Nascar headache

It's finished!

After 18 hours of work- and loads of stressing and headache- the Nascar cake is finished!

I'm very thankful I have a husband who likes to help me when I'm stressed out. He stepped in and helped with all the tiny cutting out of each letter to go onto this cake.
We worked on it together for 5 hours!

Every aspect of this really was a headache with no major emergencies, but it took lots of patience.
I used the official Nascar cake pan- only to be disappointed that it wasn't really in the shape of an actual Nascar, and still required lots of carving.
Alas, the finished product: The perfectionist inside me isn't at all happy, but next time I will know how to better time it...... WAIT! There won't be a next time!!! Never again!

To help de-stress, we went to a local Ethiopian church yesterday. The obviously do everything in their native language of Amharic, which is beautiful to listen to!
The worship time was nothing short of amazing, and even though I couldn't understand a word they were singing, it brought me to tears.
They were gracious enough to give us a headset in which someone in a different room was translating the service into English- we were very thankful to that lady. Our brothers and sisters in Christ were very warm and welcoming to us and I got over feeling like we were sticking out like a sore thumb!

A week of Firsts

Hard to believe that it is mid January already.

Your mom told the truth: Time flies when you get old!

This was a week of historical firsts for our country as we have the first black president, and it was also a week of firsts in our home. We got our first kitten. She still remains name-less at this point after 1 week of being part of our family, but she is well loved and brings a certain joy to our home as she pounces to attack our toes in the middle of the night.

In honor of firsts, I also tried another new cake flavor and I encourage you to make your own at home!
The cake itself was dark chocolate, dosed in a blackberry simple syrup. For the filling, I used my special dark chocolate ganache, and while it was still soft, I topped it with fresh blackberries- cut in half. ALOT of blackberries.
So simple, yet remarkably great tasting.

In honor of this special week of firsts, here is a first birthday cake. Made with delicate royal icing butterflies and sprayed with pearl sparkle, I hope it was a hit for the little girl's special day!