During the past few months while my blog was out of commission, I’ve been busy. I baked and decorated a Hello Kitty cake for my daughter’s fourth birthday:

It looks complicated, but it’s not. I just made a simple layer cake, frosted it with pink tinted buttercream frosting and then made a template from a Hello Kitty Coloring page. I scored the design into the chilled frosting using a toothpick, outlined it with black gel frosting and piped in little stars to color each section.

My attempt at piping shells around the edge of the cake wasn’t entirely successful, but I started to get a better feel for it towards the end. I think my next cake will be even better. I learn a lot from each one I do.

It did take a long time to decorate the cake and it was gobbled up almost instantly. Was it worth it? Yes. The cake and frosting tasted good, unlike the cakes you get at the grocery store. Kids also seem to remember their cakes years after the celebration and it makes me happy to provide them with a good memory.

I’ve also been doing a lot of regular old every day cooking, which is a big deal for me. I always enjoy whipping up a feast on special occasions, but the drudgery of everyday cooking has often defeated me in the past, so I resorted to heating up dinners from frozen food section of the grocery store. I still do that on occasion, but am better able to prepare shopping lists and find something tempting to make in the huge notebook I assembled of my favorite recipes. It’s mostly filled with articles from cooking magazines, which I was able to toss after this big organization project was done. Now, I don’t spend hours and hours looking for a vaguely-remembered recipe in a stack of magazines. I can just flip to the relevant section in my notebook and get cooking.

I’ve also started baking bread again. It’s one of those things that requires you to do it often to do it well, and when you do it well, it’s one of the most satisfying things imaginable. I’ve tried to convert Robin, my sister-in-law, and Dave, a family friend, to bread bakers.

They did a remarkable job with their first loaves!