One thing led to another ...

Before there's another cake to make next week (our office does find lots of reasons to celebrate), it seems the next stop on the adventure is the story of one cake that became two.

A few weeks ago, we found out that the director of our branch was going to be moving to a new position in the Ministry.  He's a good guy and definitely one of the reasons that I decided I wanted to stay in this office when I started working here as an auxiliary.  When I was asked if I'd make a cake, I jumped at the opportunity.  It seemed a good way to say thanks for how much I'd appreciated his leadership and how he'd made me feel like part of the team when I was just working one day a week as the "data entry monkey". 

We came up with the idea of the cake saying "It's been a slice!"  Then I remembered a cupcake creation that I'd made for a friend's son to take to daycare ... a pizza made of cupcakes.  That's the one of the challenges sometimes with cake decorating, coming up with just the right idea to fit the person and the occasion.  When we remembered that it had only been a couple of months before that our director decided to buy us all pizza for lunch, we knew we'd found the perfect combination. 

Take chocolate cupcakes for the base, stiff buttercream frosting for the crust, a little cocoa powder to make it look baked, strawberry jam for the pizza sauce, circles of strawberry Fruit-by-the Foot for the pepperoni, and choco-graham crunches for the sausage, topped with grated white chocolate for the cheese. Put it all together ... along with a box provided by the nice guy at the pizza shop ... and you've got a pizza!

The look on the his face made the slight lack of sleep from the night before all worth it.  After the cupcakes had all been devoured and enjoyed, our director asked me if I'd be willing to make a cake for the small retirement dinner he was having for our ADM. I'll admit the idea of that was a little intimidating.  That's pushing well out of my comfort zone of family, friends and work colleagues who normally get to see my cake creations. But when he'd been so thrilled with his cake and wanted one for his boss, how could I say no?

I'm so glad Wilton cake decorating classes include the piping gel
transfer method. I would not have wanted to freehand
the province or highways!

So one cake became two.  Highways play a pretty large part in the government ministry where I work so we decided on a map of the province highlighting some of the places and projects that had been part of our ADM's career.  Making little highway signs was such a laugh.  There was a little squealing when I realized exactly how close to the original they were turning out.  My brother was the one who pointed out that highway signs often have curved corners and that was the finishing touch needed to make them just right ... okay, it's true more squealing ensued =) 

Oh, if you're looking closely, you might  notice that I included the new program that I'm working on as one of the signs.  It's come in under our ADM's leadership, and I think it's a good program ... so I decided it could make the cut.  Creative discretion and all that. 

In case you're wondering, the little piped swirly things on the sides ... purely a good way of distracting anyone from noticing that I really can't get buttercream frosting super smooth. 

And that's the story of how one cake became two.