MY WILTON COURSE 1 FINAL CAKE

Last Monday was my "graduation day" for the Wilton Basic Cake Decorating Course I had been attending for the past four Mondays, and here is my final cake for the course:

Honestly, I was kinda disappointed at myself for not being able to achieve the look I wanted for my cake.

First, I yet again had another tough time icing my cake.  Although I've noticed that my icing technique had relatively improved as compared to when I iced my first cake, I really wish I could have done it much better.  There were a lot of rough and unevenly iced parts on the side of the cake.  The icing was supposed to be white and smooth, but because it was a red velvet cake underneath, the icing turned pinkish and those red speckles all over were cake crumbs that my spatula kept on catching as I was icing it  :(  Boo!  I really need to practice more and work on my icing technique, but I'm going to try my luck next time with a cake icer tip, and hopefully, that will save me time and effort, resolve my icing technique issues, and make it much easier for me.

My first cake

Secondly, the flowers on my final cake were "soggy."  When I baked and decorated cupcakes with swirls and flowers last week, I was really pleased with my finished product.  For my final cake though, I had to transport the made-ahead flowers in a plastic container, and by the time I got to my class, the flowers already softened up and some had been crushed during the travel.  However, I'm pretty comfortable with piping basic borders and flower designs, so I'm positive that had I decorated my cake at home, I would've made a better job in that regard.

I dressed up my cupcakes for a spring party!

Anyway, this is a brand new experience for me.  I've never iced or decorated a cake prior to attending the Wilton Basic Cake Decorating Course, so overall, I'm quite happy with my newly acquired skills.  I definitely need to practice more if I want to improve and make better cakes in the future, so that's why I signed up for the second course, which is Wilton Flowers and Cake Decorating Course.  Now, I'm excited much! ☻

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KNEEBOARDING AT CAMSUR WATERSPORTS COMPLEX

During my family's Bicol vacation last November, we went to Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC) for a little aquatic sports activity.  Vince had previously done knee/wakeboarding at CWC several years back, and he got me so hyped up when he told me how fun his experience was, so I made sure that I included this in our very cramped itinerary.

We got to CWC quite late in the afternoon and because it was starting to get dark already, not to mention it was raining and Pakoy was sick, unfortunately, we weren't able to explore the whole complex.  Despite that, my sibs and I had a great first time experience of kneeboarding.

So, how does one kneeboard?  Basically, you position yourself on the kneeboard by kneeling (hehe!) and you hold onto a tow rope which is attached to a machine that pulls you around in fast speed.

In CWC, there are markers that you have to sort of stay within, especially during curves and turns, to keep yourself from falling into the water, as well as to avoid being pulled back by the machine.  Trust me, you don't want that crazy machine jolting you!  Oh my jeez, I felt like my shoulders were going to detach from my torso every time I got strongly pulled by that machine.  Ugh!  On my first try, I was screaming on top of my lungs like a birthing mom, everyone in CWC at that time probably thought I was crazy.  Haha!

Vince, me, and my younger brother, Pipoy, were all successful during our first round of kneeboarding.  We were able to make a full circle without falling into the water, and most importantly, with our upper bodies intact in one piece.  LOL.  My sister didn't want to try it at first, but when she heard us laughing and exchanging our funny stories after our first round, she quickly changed her mind and joined the fun.  My bro-in-law fell while maneuvering a turn on his first round, so his wife (my sister) was teasing him that he had gone shopping somewhere, because it took him so long to get back to the starting point.  He sort of lost his board in the water and he was on the far side of the waters when he fell, so it took him a while to walk back.  But guess who fell in the water next?  Nonetheless than my sister and my bro-in-law got his turn to tease her.  Haha!

My bro-in-law wondered, "Where was I when this picture was taken?"
He had the right to ask that because there were supposedly four of us kneeboarding then.
My sister blurted out, "That was when you fell in the water!"
All of us cracked up laughing.  Haha!

One thing I can say about kneeboarding is that you need to have a good physique and strong upper body to be able to withstand this.  All I did was basically ride around on the kneeboard and yet I already felt like my whole upper body was disowning me then.  I can only imagine how much more with those avids who do crazy jumping and twisting stunts ☻

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CUPCAKES, ANYONE?

Last Monday, I learned from Wilton Basic Cake Decorating Course how to pipe shaggy mums, pompom flowers, drop flowers, rosettes, leaves as well as how to put filling into cupcakes and decorate them. For that lesson, I baked Black Bottom Cupcakes to practice decorating with while in class. Since I needed plain uniced cupcakes at the time, I didn't add the usual cream cheese filling that goes into Black Bottom Cupcakes. Honestly, I was successful in baking those cupcakes and I really liked it, but I'll hold off on sharing the recipe and pictures here in my blog until the next time I make them with both components present - cake and cream cheese filling.

Anyway, I was invited for a dinner tonight at one of Vince's co-residents' house, and I took that chance to hone my baking and decorating skills (or the lack of it!) by obviously showcasing my latest hobby.  Since I wanted to step up my game and go beyond the common chocolate or vanilla cupcakes, I spent several nights reading up on various recipes.  I didn't want to be too ambitious because I don't have much baking experience myself, plus some ingredients for elaborate and level-up recipes are not easily available at the grocery store, so I went for something that I'm familiar with - COCONUT AND BANANAS!

All dressed up and ready for a spring party!

I got this idea from a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication - Cupcakes magazine.  The Island Bananas Foster recipe listed in the magazine is a bit complicated for me (I think).  It's a "spiked" cupcake in that rum is one of the ingredients for the batter, and for the frosting, you have to ignite the rum and set your pan on flame - you know, just how you see chefs do it on TV - that stuff, and I'm definitely not on that level yet, so with fingers crossed, I decided to modify the recipe - batter and frosting.  I was wary not to screw up because I was doing modifications to a "live" cupcake.  Should they turn out inedibly bad, I cannot just toss them to the garbage or else I will have nothing to bring for dinner, so this recipe that I had concocted in my mind has got to be right.

Fortunately, the cupcakes turned out alright.  I may have to do some minor tweaking with the batter next time but the current recipe is overall good already.  For the frosting, if I had followed the recipe, I would have added 7 cups of confectioners sugar.  Can you believe that?  Seven fatally sweet cups of fine powdered sugar.  Dang!  I was afraid that if I do that, my cupcakes would put a diabetic into coma, so I knew that there's just no way I'm going to add seven cups of sugar into the frosting.  I stopped at 3 cups, although I think I should have stopped at 2 cups.  The reason behind the confectioners sugar is that you add as much until you reach piping consistency.  At 2 cups of sugar, my frosting was way thin and rather runny, so I added another cup, but when I tasted it, oh boy, I couldn't bring myself to add another dash more.   I have to do something though to make the frosting thick enough for piping, so I thought I'd try adding shortening and see if that would do the trick, and voila, happy me, it did!  ☻

So, for posterity's sake and for those who would be interested in trying Kokonut Banana Kupkeyks a la Karenina, here goes the recipe:

MY FIRST WILTON CAKE

One of my "extracurricular activities" that has taken up some of my blogging time recently is Wilton Basic Cake Decorating Class.  I signed up for this eight-hour course at Michaels Arts and Crafts Store, and I have attended two of the four lessons so far.  It has been keeping my weeknights busy because I'm not a crafty person and so I have to devote some time after work to practice piping, read the book, research for recipes, etc.

Anyway, during the first lesson, we were taught the basics of baking a cake, how to prepare icing with different consistencies, how to level, torte and ice a cake, and how to make a design pattern and transfer it onto a cake.  At the end of the two-hour class, we were given time to practice piping stars onto flat round cookies using Wilton star tip and ready-to-use decorator icing.  We were also given a homework to bake a cake and prepare medium and thin consistency icing, which we then brought to class on the second lesson for application of what we had learned the previous week.

So how did I do?  Hmmmm...

1.  Bake a cake at home. Check!

Want some chocolate fudge cake?

2.  Prepare thin and medium consistency buttercream icing at home. Check???!

Conquering Wilton's almond buttercream icing recipe.

3. Leveling, torting and icing the cake. Uh-oh! Mayday, mayday!  This part was done inside the classroom, so unfortunately (or fortunately I should say), nobody took pictures to document my disaster while I was icing the cake.  It seemed that the icing I prepared  at home was not the perfect consistency and so I had to redilute it with water to make it thinner.  I spent a lot of time tediously icing my cake and trying to smoothen it as much as I could, which in turned caused me to run out of time to finish decorating it on class.  My teacher wanted to see my decoration, so I told her that I'd continue at home and will show her next week a picture of my finished product.

Seriously icing!
My T-shirt says: "I'm a pretty awesome Pinay"

4.  Dimensional decorating.  This also involved coloring the icing as desired, and transferring the design pattern onto my cake.  I toiled on the icing redo job and I was too tired and hungry already by the time I finished icing my cake that I decided to skip the design transfer portion and just piped and decorated directly onto my cake.  

My anything goes dimensional decorating.
I swear a gradeschooler can do better than me on this!

5. Tadaaaaa! Oh well, this may be the ugliest cake in town, but hey, it's my first time and I did put my best effort on this, so I'm happy and proud of it.  Yay!

I still have two more lessons to attend for the basic decorating course, and after that, I'm planning to sign up for the next three courses, so stay tuned to find out my progress in this craft.  Until then, wish me luck! ☻

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DIY CENTERPIECE

While blogwalking this morning, I came across this nice and easy do-it-yourself project.  The original article featured a Christmas-themed candle holder centerpiece with three upside down glass wines, each with a mistletoe inside and red tea candle on top.

I thought our dinner table at home was a little bare and could use a bit of dressing up and this DIY would make a really pretty centerpiece, so it got me excited to take on this DIY.  I eagerly scouted our home for the materials needed.  I was lucky enough to have found two unused glass wines that Vince and I got as a gift (we are not wine drinkers, so we don't really use them), a couple of fake lei (which were used for my Hawaiian-themed birthday party last year) sitting in a basket just collecting dusts, and about half-a-dozen of tea candles.  Since the original idea called for a three-candle holder centerpiece set and I only have two, I just used an ordinary glass as my third man in this triumvirate of a craft.

So, what can you say about my centerpiece?  Not bad, eh?  I know it looks so kikay because of the colorful lei, but there are other more options you can go for with this DIY.  For example, you can use fresh flowers, jelly beans, decorative stones and the likes to put inside the glass wine, and you can even make a four or five-candle holder centerpiece instead of just the usual three.  Nice, eh? ☻

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WATERPROOFED!

White hooded vest - Aeropostale
Thermal undershirt - Kohl's
Snow pants, jacket and gloves - thrift buy from
Wal-Mart

Recently, Vince and I went on a ski trip.  That was the first time we've gone to such, so we needed to buy the essentials including waterproof pants and jacket and thermal layers.  We did look up in the Internet what materials are appropriate for such winter activity, and we found out that cottons are definitely a no-no, for the main reason that cottons sup up water.  Wool, fleece and polyester are recommended.  You just never know how much rolling in the snow you'd end up doing, so the idea is to outfit yourself with something that does not absorb or trap water to keep yourself warm and dry ☻

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WEDNESDAY APPAREL

And nope, they're not for sale ☻

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MY FIRST SKI-DVENTURE

You most likely know by now that I'm more of a li'l mermaid than a snow bunny - I'd rather find Nemo than play with Frosty the Snowman - BUT I do have a good sense of adventure especially for the outdoors, that if given the chance to ski, no matter how hesitant I might be, I would try it anyway, right?  You bet!

Last Saturday, I went on a ski trip with Vince and his co-residents at Ski Roundtop in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania.  There were eight of us, and two in our group have skiied before; one of the two actually has her own ski gears.  The rest of us were all first timers.

My original plan was to stick with snow tubing (which I didn't get to do and haven't done yet ever).  However, we got excited when we saw the slopes and all the people skiing there, so the five of us signed up for a group basic ski lesson, and our other friend for group basic snowboard lesson.

It took us so long to get our gears from the rental shop, much longer putting our ski boots on!  Oh my!  You are not going to believe how heavy and hard those ski boots and skis are, and how painstaking it is to walk on those Darth Vader boots (that's what Vince calls them).  By the time we got on the snow, my feet were already picket fencing in protest and ready to disassemble from the rest of my body!

Anyway, I managed to stand and survive the boots, and went ahead with our lesson.  I was doing okay in the beginning, but then I struggled with gaining control, making turns, and stopping.  I got towed and rescued by our instructor so many times, especially on higher trails.   Good thing is he's a really nice and funny guy, so I was maybe embarrassed a bit when I kept on falling and all that, but it wasn't humiliating.  Vince, on the other hand, was impressive!   He really skiied well, and I think he only fell once during our lesson.  Each of us had a rolling-down-the-hill, butt-skidding, flopping-down-on-fours-from-the-ski lift blooper moment. LOL.

After an hour of ski lesson, I was all sweaty (it was a fine warm winter day at 9 degrees Celsius) and so thirsty that when we got down, I gulped a bottle of water, took off my jacket, kicked off my ski/Darth Vader boots, and rested for a while.  Vince and our three other friends went back uphill to ski/snowboard, while I and another friend stayed down to rest.  When we both started to feel a bit chilly, we went back to the bunny slopes and practiced skiing until it was time to go home.  I didn't take any more chances of riding the ski lift and going uphill, as I wanted to work on my turns and control first to gain more confidence, and hopefully the next time we go on a ski trip, I'll spend more time on the slopes with my ski than my bum! LOL.

So, did I learn anything?  A lot. TGIF - Toe Goes In First when putting on the ski.  Walk sideways when going uphill. Don't look at your skis when skiing - they're not mood skis, they don't change color.  Turn your head to the direction you're turning.  Lean forward, not backward.   "Pizza" to stop.  Make a turn to slow down, and traverse across the slope.   Put your weight onto the balls of your feet and not on your heels.   Screaming will not slow you down.  Same goes for panicking.  LOL.  Ski poles do not work like brakes!   If you find that you can't stop, drop on your bum and scoot, but be sure to do it soon enough to avoid collision.   Trust me, it's always closer than what you think. Hehe.

At the end of the day, we were all happy with our ski-dventure.   We definitely had a great and memorable first time.  It was a fun and wonderful experience - something that's worth of a second and nth time in the future ;)

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SPARES AND STRIKES

Happiness is...

...realizing there's hope after all.

After all the countless gutter balls I threw and taunting I received from the pins I've failed to knock down (as flashed on the digital screens in bowling lanes) in the past, I've proven that I am not a basket case when it comes to bowling.

I long accepted the plain obvious that bowling is a sport I could never be good at.  Competitive as I may be when it comes to games and sports, I long gave up on myself in terms of bowling.  No matter how hard I tried and no matter how bad I threw my tantrum and frustration fits, there was just no way I could roll a bowling ball to knock down those pins.  Pathetic as it may sound but I was averaging on two to three pins per roll. I would get the rarest of the rare very lucky strike once in a blue moon, but everything else was a hilarious joke.   I swear even my own family laughed at me and teased me.  That's how bad I was in bowling. I sucked big time!

But lo and behold, about a couple weeks back when Vince, I and a friend played three hours of unlimited glow bowl on a Friday night, I was amazingly surprised with my game! I never imagined ever being able to do double strikes several times and scoring in the low to mid-100s considering my hideous bowling history, but I unbelievably did all those! I even beat Vince in one game. Ha!

I know I sound like I won an Academy award or an Olympic medal, but all the people who had played bowling with me in the past would understand why I'm totally floored with my recent achievement. I swear, with the way I bowled last time, it was like the lame was made to walk again and the blind was caused to see. You get what I mean? LOL.  In fact, when my father heard about it, his exact words were, "It's a miracle!"

A world class Pinay (in my own terms and right).
Hehe!

So anyway, Vince and I went on another glow bowl date last Friday (and on V-day), and I had again a fabulous time knocking down pins.  It just makes me so happy that after all those hopeless hit-and-miss bowling moments I had in the past, I finally got the game.  In fact, I found myself a new hobby that's something I never ever really considered before ☻

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GONE FISHING !

MBBC-Toronto Fishing Trip 2010

Have you ever gone fishing? ;)

I have.  When I was still in Toronto, one of our church activities that I dare not miss was the annual fishing trip.  We would usually do it either on Canada Day or Civic Holiday, at a park/campground by Little Lake Barrie, Ontario.  There had been a lot of people attending this annual fishing trip, and the highest number of attendance was about 100 people.


Participants would be grouped together to form teams composed of 8 to 10 members, and would be designated a pontoon or a boat.  There would be a leader of course, and each pontoon/boat would have someone who knows how to swim.  Ehem :D

Vince and I were on Pontoon #9 last year :)

Each pontoon would get a fishing kit complete with lines, hooks, sinkers, bobs, lures, scissors, pliers and baits.   A couple of rods would even be provided for each pontoon.   So, all you would need to bring is your fishing license and happy spirit!  Teams would compete against each other in terms of which pontoon gets the first catch, the biggest catch, the most number of catch, and the loudest pontoon of them all.   It gets more fun and exciting every time we would hear someone shout and laugh, implying that someone got a catch, and then you would start to feel the pressure to work double hard on your fishing rod and lines, so you could have a louder rejoicing than the rest.

Dr. Valencia performing "wormectomy" on a poor  fish.  LOL.

It could really get frustrating a lot of times because you could move from one spot of the lake to another and let your bait stay in the water for half-an-hour or so and not get a single bite, whereas, the person whose line sits next to you would get a bite every minute, faster than you could even say, "GO FISH!"  And to think, you were fishing on the same spot and using the same bait???  LOL.  You would begin to wonder that you probably got the not-so-appetizing part of the worm, and that is why fish have been evading your bait.  Haha!

Little fish.  Big Smile.

Anyway, it's a common knowledge to everyone in my church, that I am not a very successful fisherman, and should not consider fishing as a career.  I never got the biggest catch award, or the first catch award, or a member of the pontoon with the most number of catch.  One thing everyone in the church knows though is that I can laugh and scream so loud effortlessly, that every year, I won the same award - The loudest fisherman of them all.   Hehe!

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AND THIS IS HOW WE ROLL ;)

When was the last time you did something for the first time? ... ;)

giddy ^^

I remember the first time I tried rollerblading was back in the 90s (some 15 pounds ago).  A churchmate lent me his rollerblades, and so I taught myself how to glide (where? -- on our rooftop).  I never had the chance to practice after I returned the blades to its owner.  I wanted to pursue rollerblading as a hobby then but unfortunately I wasn't able to.

Fast forward:  Vince, Donn and I went rollerblading at Castle Roller Skating Inc., in Lancaster, Pennsylvania this evening.  Although I still remember the basics of rolling and gliding forward, I got a bit scared when I saw the fast skaters in the rink (which are mostly kids - like little kids).  I wasn't even in the rink for a long time when I fell *hard*, that after some time, I decided to keep off the rink and stay on the side, where I got to practice on the carpeted floor ^^

The Three Musketeers :D

Docs on Wheels

So you think you can dance?

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting !

Anyway, I believe I can do better next time.  I was actually fine when I was skating on the side, so I think I just need to gather more confidence and work on my balance, and hopefully, I'd have more courage to join the skaters in the rink the next time we do it ;)

PS:  You probably figured out why the pics are kinda blurry *wink wink*

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