The Hartland: June 2014

Friday, June 13, 2014

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

A Hartland Sign

So, loooooooooooooong ago I worked on this project, hung it up and forgot to tell you all about it!

I wanted something to go over my sink in the kitchen so I went out to our pile of wood and picked a piece out that would fit. I decided to go with the name of our blog and make it look like the title on the homepage. Being free handed, I don't think it turned out too bad! Check it out :)

I used the dark walnut stain from Minwax.

Yes, we still need to tile our back splash (a summer project for sure)

An official sign for the Hartland :)

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Cheeseburger in paradise

Well people... I didn't know that I could make a cheeseburger cake... but I did. First let me explain why I did this crazy cake. This year marked 3 years that my grandpa went to his heavenly home. Every year, we eat a cheeseburger in memory of him (with extra pickle) since it was one of his favorites and one of his last meals. My nanny (aka Graham Cracka-- yeah shes cool like that) celebrates her birthday in May and we decided to get her a grill and have a burger themed party! I was in charge of the cake so, I decided on making it epic this year... I mean, why not?!

While I am no expert on the art of cake making, I thought it would be fun to document my first artsy cake and explain how to do it in case anyone out there needs to make one. It was a big cake y'all so you could totally cut the "burger" in half and tweak this how you like (add onions or bacon?)

Anyway, here is my the process for all to see!

My ingredients:

-1 yellow cake mix (makes two small rounds)

-1 Devils Food cake mix (filled up the pan more and made cupcakes with the rest)

-eggs/oil/water for the cakes

-Food coloring

-Sugar cookies

-2 Cans whipped icing (one for coloring and one for mixing the caramel icing for the buns)

(I don't suggest the whipped icing-- go homemade if you can! It was too runny)

-Caramel flavor packet

-Green cookie gel (suggest doing it with piping and different icing, this was also too runny)

So, cake basics-- let it cool completely before icing (do a crumb coat and add that icing layer on the top so the cake doesn't slip off the next layer)

Next add your green goop aka lettuce in this example, and plop the burger on top of that. My favorite part was the cheese (see how I mixed colors below) I thought it looked like the melted ball park nacho cheese, which is one of my favorites to get at a ball game. Anyway,. I made a star pattern so the cheese was hanging at 5 different spots. That also counted as my icing layer.

Pop the sugar cookies in the oven while you are doing the cheese. Also, taste test the cookies just to make sure no one will get sick. A crucial step. Gotta be safe.

After the cookies cooled, I did red icing layer for "ketchup" and used the same icing for the cookie tomato. The green cookie is supposed to be pickles. I wish they would have looked better but I was working with what I had :) You could try fondant for the toppings if you'd like. Shaping fondant I think would help make it more realistic.

Plop the bun on top, icing it with the caramel icing and add your white sesame seeds. DONE!

My Graham Cracker loved her cake :)