Back in Cyberworld

A quick update from me – I’m cautiously optimistic that I’m back in cyberworld again!!!  I’ve had three hard drives put into my computer since it arrived on my doorstep brand spanking new 11 months ago.

I’ve had 2 hard drives die within 6 weeks.  This last time I sent the whole computer back to Dell – and was without a computer for 3 weeks just to get a new hard drive.  Let’s just say, after my experience with Dell and their technical support and their laissez faire attitude about defective hard drives (“oh, we’ve had a lot of issues…) this will be the very last Dell computer we purchase, and we’ve been loyal (we’ve bought 5 computers from them).  If I have to re-install all of my programs one more time I think I’m going to scream – especially ones with a finite number of installs before you have to call the company for a new install code.

Beyond that – I'm finally through my first trimester and much of the queasiness has passed.  BUT, for some crazy reason, I seem to be pregnant with a health nut.  I only get nauseous around greasy food and sweets.  I told my husband that I’m just not sure this is our offspring ;)

So, I’m going to TRY and get back into the kitchen soon and hope to start posting again NOW that I’m back online.

No Baking yet...

Well, things aren't going much better - I still have an unhealthy friendship with our toilets and every garbage can in the house - oh and my bed (which I'm not complaining about too much...lol). There are some great recipes coming up in TWD  - my husband is practicing an amazing amount of patience and understanding with our lack of baked items and I really hope to be back to normal soon.

No Cake Slice or TWD for 2/24

All the ingredients are sitting in my kitchen, but with hubby's birthday and an last week's TWD cake combined with my morning sickness - there's no way on this planet I am baking anything right now.  I can't even cook dinner because just being around food makes me queasy.  Hopefully by next time I'll be back to normal.

Back to the Real World!!

Wow, you just don't realize you have an addiction until you are yanked, torn, dragged away from it with no allowed use for several days.  My goodness!  I feel like I've been living in the dark ages, and that notion, in all reality, is quite silly, BUT it doesn't make it any less true.  My hard drive died (again - this time by human fault not computer malfunction) and I was without a computer for 4 days!  Holy batman that's a long time!!

So, my TWD almost didn't happen....again.  See, when you discover, much to your jaw dropping surprise that, oh, just say for the heck of it, you're pregnant....AGAIN, and morning sickness has kicked in full force, food, in general sounds horrific.  So, baking, cooking, eating - anything to do with food at all just doesn't sound appealing.

But, I pressed on because I'd been DYING to try this cake for some time now.

I had a couple of issues -

I could not get the temperature of the boiling sugar about 220 degrees.  Not sure what happened but I let it sit there quite some time - maybe my thermometer is broken, I'm not sure.

The cake turned out awesome but the frosting, not as fantastic.  The frosting as soon as it was done tasted like - well, hubby said it tasted like cough medicine.  BUT we persevered, put it on the cake and put it in the fridge for an hour, and afterwards, the frosting lost that weird aftertaste. 

My frosting wasn't as fluffy.  I assume I didn't mix it long enough.

My cake didn't crumble...it all just stuck together, so there's big chunks of crumbled cake pieces decorating my cake...lol.

Overall, not as good as I hoped but not as bad as I thought it would be when I first tasted the frosting. I would definitely make the cake again, but use a different frosting though.  I really can't wait to see how other people fared!

Okay - so, this picture makes it look a bit worse than it actually was!! I had just cut a super tiny slice for one of my little ones and it smashed down part of my cake.  With that being said, it's easy to see that my cake was a far stretch from the cover of our cooking bible.  Yes, I still have a looong way to go, but it was still fun to make!

Also - my hubby is having a birthday this week and his two favorite cakes are Champagne cake and black forest cake so if any of you know of any good recipes, please let me know!!

Thanks =)

Come back on Wed.

Ahhh - - - another round of dr. appts. and one of my babies has a bladder infection, plus more dr. appts. for me today and tomorrow.  I will be making floating islands hopefully tomorrow =) I can't wait to read everyone's stories in the meantime.