Baby shower and Super Bowl

We had an eventful weekend. It involved a fair amount of baking, a lot of eating, and some freezing cold.

First up - My lovely visiting teach-ee Janell is having her first child next month so we had a baby shower for her at my house. Now, I should point out that it was merely at my house. Her friend Elizabeth did almost the entire thing by herself and she did an amazing job. I felt bad because people kept telling me what a wonderful shower it was and really all I did was provide a room.

I did, however, make a cake.

Ah, the cake. It was such a disaster. I'm still not sure how it went so horribly wrong. I'm pretty sure the culprit was a cold cake. After I put the buttercream on, I put it in the fridge to firm up the icing. I think it was too long and the cake was too cold because the fondant went on fine, but shortly after started bubbling up. It was like air was being released from the cake and had no where to go, so it just started forming bubbles. Then the cake looked like it was sweating and dripping down the sides. I think condensation was forming inside and made the fondant wet and runny. I tried for hours (probably three) to salvage it, poking holes to release air, smoothing with more cornstarch, trying to cover up the mess with more fondant bubbles. After several tears and frustrations, I just left it. This is not my best work, but I figured I may as well show the ugly and bad as well as the good.

I felt like I got to redeem myself a little bit on Sunday. Our friend Tim (who is also Hans' boss and our home teacher) and his wife, Kelsey, had some people over to watch the super bowl and have dinner. They asked guests to bring desserts and I made these super bowl cupcakes. They are one of my favorite, tasty Dr. Pepper recipes, topped with green icing, green sprinkles, and goal posts made from chocolate melting chips. They didn't take long to make and weren't nearly as frustrating as the previous days' cake.

Check out how awesome their back patio is. In addition to a fire pit and an outdoor kitchen with a huge grill, they also have four tvs - it's better than any sports bar I've seen.

And this is why I don't wear hats. I look extra Asian and kind of like a cancer patient. But it was freezing so there you have it.