Noelle likes Good Food

I was feeling adventurous yesterday. Or maybe it had more to do with the fact that we have an empty fridge and I didn't feel like going to the store. Of course, I never really feel like going to to the store. But I guess that is just life.  I have always wanted to try making my own pasta. But, it just never happened. I thought that to do it right I needed a pasta machine or else it would be super complicated and take more time than it was worth. But, with some extra spaghetti sauce, no packaged noodles, and no other better ideas for dinner... I decided to give it a go.  Surprisingly, it didn't take that long at all. I had a lot of fun making them, and yeah, the noodles were really really good.  Start off with 2 cups of whole wheat flour ( I used King Arthur's 100% Whole Wheat) and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Make a well in the center and crack in two eggs. Add in 2 Tablespoons of olive oil. Mix around with your hands and then knead for 4-5 minutes until smooth and elas...

Now, onto the wedding cake. I also baked the wedding cakes on Thursday. In the picture below you can get a glimpse of the chaos that ensued that day.  Here I am about to make my 4th out of 6 batches of cake. I have cakes in the oven, cakes cooling, and cakes wrapped ready to be put in the fridge. The recipe I used was the Vanilla Buttermilk Cake that I found off of Smitten Kitchen's blog. She used this recipe to make a wedding cake for her friend that she blogged about. If you like reading about cake-making, her account is pretty fascinating as well. She used a swiss buttercream that is on my list of things to try. For my cake I used a standard buttercream icing, and raspberry jam for the filling. I used 5 dozen eggs for this project between all the cakes. The bride wanted her cakes to be separated by silver spheres. They are called  globe pillars . Normally they are $9-10 for a set of four. For this cake I needed 12 for three layers. I didn't wanted to spend $30 plus ...

Yesterday was the wedding. It was beautiful and I am very happy for the newlyweds. I didn't take any pictures of the actual wedding. I only took pictures of the cake. I guess that shows my priorities. The cake is all that matters. Right?  Today I will post about how I made the icake :).  On Tuesday I made the black and grey fondant as the base for the cake. On Thursday I made another batch to color for all the apps. I wanted to make it fresh that day for all the detail work so it would be easier to work with. I found out that it takes a lot of work to get it soft and pliable again after it has been refrigerated.  I referenced a photo of another iphone cake someone made online, and made a list of what colors I needed for each app. This is my interpretation of the solar system :). I like to use the gel colorings. It doesn't change the consistency too much like liquid coloring and gives a truer and richer color to your finished product. Use it sparingly, because a litt...

Hey everyone. I have been meaning to update. But last night I was up until 10:00PM baking cakes and after I finished I practically just fell down. haha Then today things took longer than I thought they would and I am just finishing everything at 4:00AM. But they are done. Hallelujah! It has been a bit of a stressful week, yet fun and I got to be creative :). So... the wedding is tomorrow morning at 11AM. I promise to document it well. I think the cakes turned out great. Now I am just terrified of something happening to them on the 2 hour drive there. Ah! Hopefully tomorrow, but more likely Sunday, I will post about the rest of the process in a few posts. The cake baking, the decorating, the fondant, the cake separators, the assembly, etc. I took lots of pictures of everything and it will be fun to write about. Thank you for your great comments and for reading. It is always encouraging to get feedback from you. Happy Saturday!

Yeah! All the frosting is made, the cake boards are completed and I have made two out of three batches of fondant. Before I continue I want to say a few quick words about a faithful member of our family. My hand mixer. It came to be in our house as a wedding present and we have had a very close relationship ever since. I knew I could trust it through thick and thin. But, I guess yesterday was too much. It couldn't take the pressure and gave out after the 5th batch of frosting. I missed it terribly as I hand mixed the final 6 batches to whipped creamy perfection. But on the bright side I feel that my left arm is more toned this morning :). The buttercream icing for the wedding cake is pretty standard. I just picked one that uses all butter because I prefer the flavor over the recipes with shortening. For the groom's cake I made a cream cheese chocolate icing that is incredible. Normally, I am not a big fan of icing. I prefers muffins over cupcakes for this reason. However, ...

This week I get to pretend to be a pastry chef. I will be making a wedding cake and groom's cake for my friends who are getting married on Saturday. The first will be four tiered vanilla cake with buttercream icing and black filigree piping. The second will be a strawberry cake with chocolate cream cheese icing and decorated like an iphone.  It has been in the works for months and I have tried to plan as much as possible. On the agenda for today is to make 11 batches of frosting, 3 batches of fondant, color the fondant, and finish prepping the cake boards. For the boards I took each size cake pan and traced it onto a piece of cardboard. Then I cut it out with an exacto knife. For each cake I will have three layers of cardboard that I will tape together and cover in a decorative foil for the base. I don't know about you, but if I am about to start a big project I want everything to be set up and prepped so I can work efficiently. I have been prepping for about two hours now tr...

I have already told you about my twin sister Nicole who lives in Mexico. She only comes home to visit once a year around Thanksgiving and she is home right now! I stole her away from the rest of our family for a few days to spend some time with me up here in Homer. During her 4 day stay here we exercised, cooked lots of food, ate said food, and spent hours at thrift stores and bookstores perusing shelves of books. It was perfect! We actually are very similar and our time spent showed our equal love of literature, fitness, and food :). A highlight of our culinary creations were waffles. We tried several different varieties, but our favorite was one we created with cornmeal, beets, and coconut milk. It is naturally gluten free, as well as dairy and sugar free. We decided to make it savory and topped it with avocado and tomatillo salsa. Nicole wanted to add the extra beet on top for presentation, but it didn't go too good with the salsa. We just picked it off before eating the rest....