Pink Texas Chick: amateur

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Caving In To Instagram Little By Little

Hola people! I thought I would share the fact that I am the last to catch the gravy train and FINALLY decided to start using Instagram. I heard about the app not long after it debuted but I (for some odd reason) had no interest. It was odd to me because I love, love, love to take pictures. I don't know what the hell I'm doing but I love to click and shoot away especially when it comes to my kids. A little bit about that here.

So with all that said I had a "meh" attitude about Instagram until early Fall last year. I already had the app on my iPhone but after two attempts of "trying it out" I thought I would take a stab at it one more time. I guess the third time was the charm because I definitely had an appreciation for it and actually enjoyed playing around with all the filters. And I think it was some of the Instagram photos I had seen on Twitter and Facebook that turned me off in the first place. Yep, I totally rolled my eyes every time I saw a picture of someones coffee, sleeping cat or frying bacon in a pan. You need a sexy, cool filter for that shit? Excuse my French but those were my thoughts at the time.

Well look who took a picture of her coffee one morning. Sentimental side note: I bought this mug at DisneyWorld on my honeymoon. It has been my favorite cup ever since and the one I use the most. :)

(why yes that is coffee with my creamer)

Lessons Learned: Barbie Doll Cake + Recipe

Okay so in my last post I shared with you all the Barbie doll cake I made for my daughter's birthday party earlier this year. Just an FYI, I looooove to bake but I still don't know what I'm doing. I have yet to take any baking classes or any of those cake decorating classes offered up at Michael's, Hobby Lobby or cake supply stores. I want to. Believe me I do but Mama just doesn't have the time, yet. Le sigh.

So I thought I would let you all know some of the deets to the doll cake. First thing is that I did not take many pictures while I made the cake or after! I am so mad at myself. I was a little stressed this day because of the challenge at hand but I really thought I had taken plenty of pictures. After the day was over I looked through the pictures on my iPhone and realized I had very few. Oh I was so sad. I hope my baby girl can forgive me in the years to come.

Here is one of her and her beloved cake just before we sang Happy Birthday to her. Yes, I blurred her out on purpose. But you can still see a sweet, happy girl. :)

This picture was taken by my aunt (thank you, Aunt Lita!) and if it had not been for her then I would really be in trouble. As far as I know, this is the only solo picture of the cake at the party.

As you can see, I have the cake on a round board covered in pink foil paper. It is actually two round cake boards made of cardboard taped together. I then covered the entire board with light pink foil. My huz bought the foil for me (in a desperate situation) at Make It Sweet cake supply store here in Austin. I am in heaven whenever I walk into this newly expanded bake shop! They sell decorative foil in many fun colors. Among lots and lots of baking supplies.

Now I said that my hubby went out and bought the foil for me in desperate situation. Like five hours before the party. The reason is because I was going to originally decorate the cake board with white fondant so that the cake could stand out as much as possible. Cause you know I wanted that pink dress to shine! Well that attempt went sour muy pronto. I wanted to do the fondant the way I saw laurapoopie do it on one of her YouTube videos. I have seen this video a total of umpteen times so I was confident I could do it. Not!

Mistake numero uno. The white fondant I had in my pantry was too old. Or not plastic wrapped properly because the thing was rock solid.

Mistake number two: I thought I would try it anyway. I put the block of fondant in the microwave for a couple of minutes to soften it up and then cut it up into chunks.

Disaster. I was able to roll out just a couple of pieces and the rest was just hopeless. Ugh. This is when I sent my hubby to the Make It Sweet store and get that pink foil. My man and pink foil to the rescue.

And remember those emergency cupcakes I mentioned in the last post too? The ones I had to make because the dome cake did not bake all the way. Well they were lifesavers because there was enough cake and cupcakes for everyone. And yes they were delicious thanks to a recipe I used from my January/February 2013 issue of the Food Network magazine. I think it is one of my new favorite recipes. I used the same recipe for the cakes and cupcakes. I'm telling ya this is one yummy recipe. Box mix? Pfft!

Basic Vanilla Cake Recipe

-2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature (plus extra for pans)

-3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans

-1 tablespoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1 1/4 cups sugar

-4 large eggs, room temperature
-1 tablespoon vanilla extract
-1 1/4 cups whole milk (I used strawberry flavored milk to make it a strawberry/vanilla cake)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9 inch round cake pans and line bottom with parchment paper; butter the parchment and dust the pans with flour, tapping out the excess.
Whisk 3 cups flour, the baking powder and slat in a bowl until combined. Beat 2 sticks butter and the sugar in a large bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to medium; beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. beat in the vanilla. (The mixture may look separated at this point.) beat in the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with flour, until just smooth.
Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake until the cakes are lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer to racks and let cool 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the pans and turn the cakes out onto the racks to coll completely. Remove the parchment. Trim to tops of the cakes with a long serrated knife to make them level, if desired.

This recipe is straight from my Food Network magazine. Instead of two 9 inch cake pans, I made three 8 inch cake pans following the same directions. I also used the same recipe for my emergency cupcakes and just adjusted the time to 25-30 minutes. It all depends on your oven.

Oh and the cake that I baked in my Pampered Chef batter bowl was in the oven for about 50 minutes at 325 degrees. I did some research (after the fact) and found out that the cake needed to be in the oven longer and at a lower temperature. But there are so many testimonials out there about baking a cake in a batter bowl so this is something that I'm going to figure out on my with more trial and error. Womp, womp.

The frosting I used for both the cake and cupcakes was cream cheese frosting. I prefer cream cheese frosting over butter cream any day. That recipe is easy cheesy. This one I've had and got it from one of my All Recipes cookbooks. Not sure if they still print them.

Cream Cheese Frosting

-1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

-1 8 oz. brick cream cheese, room temperature

-4 cups powdered sugar

-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-red food coloring (few drops)

Beat butter and cream cheese until well blended.
Add vanilla until incorporated and gradually add the powdered sugar until smooth and creamy.
Add a few drops of red food coloring until you get the desired shade of pink. Again a gradual step, you can always add but you can't take away!

I doubled this recipe since I knew I was going to need quite a bit for the cakes and cupcakes. Oh and I don't have a picture of the cupcakes with frosting. Again, I was horrible with pictures that day. But they pretty much looked like these (below) minus the tiaras and pearl candies. These cupcakes were from her birthday party last year. I made the cream cheese frosting except I cut back a bit on the powdered sugar and added a couple of tablespoons of strawberry jam. I eyeballed it really.

So these are some of the lessons learned while making my daughter's doll cake. I gave myself a few gray hairs that day but it was all my fault for not allowing myself a practice round. I learned the hard way. But you know what? I was actually impressed for pulling it off and our guests were impressed too. Receiving compliments from our family and friends was very nice to hear but most of all my baby girl was happy with her cake and that is what matters. Right? Oh why didn't I take more pictures? Grrrrrrr.

My Attempt At A Barbie Doll Cake

Hola lovely people. Today I am home unexpectedly because although my baby girl's dental appointment went well; she herself isn't feeling her normal pinkalicious self. We are self-proclaimed pinkalicious gals. :)

So how about I tell you about my darling daughter's birthday cake while she naps? She turned the big girl five over a month ago and she ~~demanded~~ requested that I make her a Barbie doll birthday cake. She came across this YouTube video last summer (she likes to watch baking videos like mommy) and decided right then and there that the doll cake was going to be her next birthday cake. So I watched the video more than a few times and paid close attention. I told myself to practice but noooooo I was too busy to do that so my first and only attempt it was for her birthday. I'm a dodo bird.

I'm a dodo bird for not practicing and for not taking many pictures of the cake. This is the most decent one I have taken by my aunt.

How obvi is it that this was done by no Cake Boss? Lucky for me that my precious girl did not care. Ignorance is bliss. I pretty followed the directions given in the video but I made the cakes and frosting from scratch. I'll provide the recipes on my next post along with other details. Here is how I made the Barbie doll cake.

I baked three 8 inch round cakes and one cake in a large Pampered Chef mixing bowl. The PC bowl was used to help form the dress part of the cake. I used a very small Tupperware container to score the center of each cake to make a cut-out. (Didn't have a biscuit cutter)

Oh did you notice that the pics above show this cake did not bake all the way through? The two pictures above and the one below is of the cake I baked in the Pampered Chef bowl. For some crazy reason it did not bake all the way and it was the outside that was not fully baked. Crazy!

Grrr! I had no time to bake another one in the large bowl so I whipped up some cupcakes since this part of the cake could not be eaten; but I still needed this "dress" part of the cake to construct the doll cake. Mama had to think quick on her feet and march on, folks.

So again each cake had the center cut out to make room for Barbie once she was inserted through each layer. I first stacked the three 8 inch cakes frosting each layer. I then stacked the not fully baked dress part of the cake on top of those three cakes and began to frost it as well. Again, although it was not fully baked I needed it to complete the look, if you will.

Those are strips of wax paper that you see at the very bottom of the cake. The strips make frosting a cake much easier that way there is no mess on your presentation board. You remove the strips once you are all done frosting and voila it looks purdy! This tip is in the video but I already knew this one. :)

Now I have no pictures of this step but I after I finished frosting the cake I used a strip of regular paper (like for your printer) to smooth the frosting. I cupped the cake with the paper and smoothed it going upwards. Then I used my small off-set spatula to make these swirly things for the dress. Cause you know I was running out of time and I'm not trained with any fancy decorating skills.

Next I inserted my already Saran wrapped Barbie into the stack of cakes. I wrapped the doll from the chest down in plastic wrap. Her big birthing hips almost didn't fit in the cake. Whew!

Once I got Barbs in I frosted her torso and tried to make it a little fancy. Tried. You can still see part of the cake through the frosting but I gave it my best shot, right?

See the emergency cupcakes in the back? Thank goodness my Mama bought me two of those 24 cupcake pans. Yes, I made forty-eight cupcakes on top of the the Barbie cake I made. We always have lots of guests. It's a um, Hispanic thing. :)

So here is my masterpiece again. Well according to my daughter anyway. Oh and I used the tiniest hair clips to hold up Barbie's hair and used of the many doll tiaras in my daughter's collection. And of course it was all pink. Pink is our signature color. Yes, Pepto-Bismol threw up at my wedding and continues to do so in my life. :)

Pictures: I Love Them!

“Get my camera!” That is something my husband is used to hearing from me. Or, “take pictures, hurry!” The poor guy knows that photography is a big thing with me. No, I am no pro or near pro or even amateur pro. I just ~~like~~ love taking pictures. I always have ever since I had my first pink Le Clic camera. Yep, I had one of those and I thought I was one cool teenybopper with my pink Le Clic that used disk film. Oooooh yeah I was clic chic because my camera required the expensive film. Oh how I wish I still had it. Just to have it ya know.

Source unknown

Well fast forward a decade or so and I am a late teens/early twenties girl working in the photo lab of my local grocery store. That is when I really took a liking to photography. I learned so much working in the photo lab and I was even one of the best at developing all of that 35mm film in an hour.

{Brag note: I even had regular customers specifically request that I develop their film. Double fist pump in the air!}

Yeah, you remember those 1-Hour photo labs. That is where I wore my white-look-at-me-technician-coat and developed all sorts of pictures for a few years. The variety of pictures that we came across was from A-Z. Wowza. Thankfully, we only had to call the authorities once and thankfully, the pictures we reported did not involve children. And that’s all I’m gonna say on that topic.

Anywho, each picture is different because of its setting. I learned how to process each negative accordingly. Density was added if a picture was taken indoors or at night, i.e. we increased the “exposure” to prevent having those bright, white faces on people. Cyan, yellow or magenta were either added or taken from the photo if the picture was taken in a hospital or at the beach. Hospitals and offices have fluorescent lighting so pictures taken in that setting always had adjustments. Always. Hospital pictures were near and dear to my heart because most of the time the y were of newborns. Hells yeah I was gonna make that new momma happy with her baby’s first pictures. Now do you remember back in the day when you turned in a roll of film and the pictures came back with a tint of pink, yellow or blue or the flash made everyone pale faced? And the technician said they couldn’t fix them because of the lighting, the film or maybe even your camera? Lie! I’m sorry to tell you that the photo lab technician was just being one lazy son of a gun. With a little tweaking, the great majority of those 35mm pictures can be fixed.

So, yes, over the years, I have taken tons of pictures and my poor hubby says I take too many. No way. You can’t have too many pictures of the memories you're making. Never. But I admit that my camera (sometimes cameras) is always in my purse. It’s like having my wallet in my purse. Gotta have the camera too. And yes my poor kids are like “enough already you crazy lady!” Yeah, I’m one of those moms. A mamarazzi like how I’ve heard a few people say. Chuckle, chuckle. It makes me giddy. J

Now are you ready for the shocker? I do not have a fancy smanchy camera- yet. Nope, I don’t have one and I’ve been eyeing them for a few years now. After everything I just shared with you, you’d think I owned a top-notch camera. Once I am able to get the camera, I am going to buy this baby:

A Nikon D3100.

I can’t wait to get my hands on it and call it my own. In my opinion, Nikon is alpha to Canon although they do make great cameras. Heck, if someone gave me a Canon I would shamelessly and gratefully accept it. I just think Nikon is a wee bit better. Just sayin’.

So until I can get my dream camera I rely on these three cameras.

My Fuji Finepix Z33 WP pink camera.

I’ll be honest. I would never buy a Fuji camera. This camera was a birthday gift from my husband and kids a couple of years ago. I didn’t have the heart to tell my hubby it wasn’t on my wish list. Well actually I kinda did tell him but I didn't have the heart to return it. He was proud of himself because he really took his time trying to decide what camera to buy me and asked the salesperson lots of questions. He didn’t know that I no longer wanted a point-n-shoot camera. Obviously, I kept it and I’ve worked with it. It’s a lot better than I thought. Still not my ideal camera BUT it is waterproof and that is a huge bonus. I am digging that especially since I can snap away while the kids play in the pool or splash around at fountain parks. I mean here are a couple of shots of my boy underwater.
Pretty cool, huh?

Then there is my almost nine-year-old Nikon Coolpix 3100. It’s a great point-n-shoot camera but it’s been dropped a couple of times so sometimes the battery will hang out a bit and turn the camera off and on. wonk wonk.

Notice how the bottom doesn't close all the way? :(

And then there is the good ‘ol iPhone camera. Yes, my phone screen is crack-a-lackin’ but no worries because that just happened yesterday (I don’t want to talk about it) and I will soon be upgrading to the iPhone4. (come on iPhone5 release so the price on the iPhone4 can drop!)

Ya know, for a camera phone it is not bad at all. It’s come in handy many times. I even took this picture of my boy with my iPhone. It was such a great pic that it was featured during the weather forecast of my local news. hoo-wah!