He found this little guy in the zucchini plant. I thought to myself, "Why would you catch a mouse to show me?" I looked closer and realized it's an itty bitty baby rabbit. I'll insert Jess and Kaylee's "aaawwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!" noise, the one they make at all things cute. It's super annoying. Frank looks at me with a gleam in his eye and says, "You wanna keep it??" It was more of a statement than a question. We now have 4 rabbits. I hope he never finds a stray cow out there.
This gives you an idea of just how tiny this thing is.
The rabbits aren't sure what to think about the baby.
We have some pretty spoiled animals. I chop leftover garden veggies and hand feed them to the ducks. Ridiculous, huh.
And now for my pride moment. This is the first thing I've done in a very long time that I've been proud of. It probably won't save us from zombies during an apocolypse. Unless zombies eat pretty cakes, in which case we'll be totally safe and it'll be deemed a life saving skill. Perhaps it's not a useful skill but nonetheless, I did teach myself something new. Ok so technically youtube taught me.
I watched Cake Boss on youtube and 4 hours later I have an iced cake smooth as a baby's butt and ready for fondant! Before I began, I ran to Walmart and bought a cake turntable. I'm so glad I did! It made all the difference. I also bought a cake leveler but I didn't even need it. My cakes didn't crown for the first time ever!!! Maybe it was Cake Boss's cake recipe. Maybe it was my homemade cake strips that I made from an old ratty bath towel. Whatever it was, I have LEVEL CAKES!! This is monumental!
Who knows if the cake will be any good. My high tech method of scribbling down recipes on scrap papers doesn't always work out. I tend to forget to write down things or read my chicken scratches wrong. So I might have forgotten to add the butter and cream it with the sugar. No worries, I just threw it in when I realized it. No biggie, right? Cake Boss would cringe if he saw my baking methods.
Let me tell you, the cake batter is HEAVEN. Smooth, buttery, silky heaven. It was so good I wanted to grab a straw and drink it. I refrained.
The icing is also a Cake Boss recipe. Again, I kind of read the recipe wrong and did things out of order. It didn't seem to matter because this stuff is GOOD. Really good. (Pay no attention to the icing drips and clumps. You're just imagining things.)
Now, on to the fondant. Have I ever mentioned that I tend to get a bit messy in the kitchen? Thank goodness no one was here to witness it. The pictures don't even do it justice. It was so bad the dogs were shaking their heads. (And why does this photo make my hand look so pudgy? Who ever heard of unphotogenic hands? Is unphotogenic even a word? Apparently not, according to spell check.)
Doesn't my table look beautiful? Yes, I kneaded the fondant right on the bare table, food coloring and all. It was so FUN, kind of like playdough for adults. Only messier. Believe it or not, cleanup only took 5 minutes and I didn't even have to call on the Magic Eraser. From the looks of my shirt, maybe I should think about investing in an apron? Aprons are for sissies, though. People who wear aprons are rich housewives who wear pearls and high heels while they bake. I bake barefoot and just wipe my hands on my shirt. Classy.
Here is the finished fondant, ready to hang out in the fridge overnight. I plan to give Martha Stewart a run for her money tomorrow! If all goes well, I'll have a nice cake to serve to the dads for Father's Day. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
This is a small sample of what my kitchen looks like after I'm done baking. Have I ever mentioned how small and ugly my kitchen is? Again, cleanup really didn't take that long. Ok, so maybe I left part of it for tomorrow. See that hand mixer? Frank watched me whip some heavy cream by hand to make whipped cream. It took about a billion minutes because my old mixer was broke. Wasn't that thoughtful of him? Someday I'd love to have a stand mixer but I'll need to win the lottery first.
So how do you get 3 ducks to go in their house at night? First, you chase them in circles around the chicken coop. When they refuse to cooperate, you try to entice them with treats. If that doesn't work, you curse them and threaten them. Then you plead with them. After about 20 minutes of looking like a 3 ring circus you grab a rabbit and start chasing them with it. Works like a charm. I could hear the neighbors peeking out their windows and shaking their heads.
And now for today's grand finale. No kids and no husband = I can eat whatever I want for dinner and no one will complain. Except maybe the dogs because I won't share with them. I whipped up some fried dill pickles and had a nice healthy dinner. It occurred to me in all my cake excitement I'd forgotten to eat today. Oops. Well, unless you count cake batter and icing. If that counts then I ate about 5 meals. Today I learned that if I had no children and no job I'd weigh 700 lbs. and have to wear a mumu (is that even how you spell it?) and have extreme diabetes and cholesterol issues.
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