Trial Run

I've been thinking lately about what I would do for Max's first birthday. I thought of doing "Where the Wild Things Are" (how I'm decorating his room), but what I found online was either too complicated or discontinued...

Then I remembered that Max does occasionally watch Curious George, and he does resemble the precocious little monkey. So there you have it. Since watching "Ace of Cakes" and "Food Challenge" I decided that decorating cakes is, well, a piece of cake.
I went to PBSkids.org and there is a coloring page (most likely meant for 5 year olds) where you can go step by step to draw Curious George. My monkey looked NOTHING like the example. I decided I had better make a stencil if I want people to think the cake is appetizing. I used cocoa powder to dust my homemade stencil and successfully dumped the can onto the cake creating brown smudges everywhere. It still tasted alright, and I have to say my crumb coating was spectacular.

Since I have realized baking sweets with no purpose leads to excess weight on me, I gave this trial run cake to our friend, Jamin.



I learned some important lessons through making my trial run:
1. In the world of food coloring, red and green do not make brown- they make a nasty gray color.
2. The Smiths in Dayton does not carry food coloring!
3. I should not make too much chocolate frosting because I eat all the extra and get sick.