Happy 4th of July!!

Marquette texted me this morning that the lightning storm last night knocked out their internet and asked me to get up a little update. That same storm had me up at 3ish this morning and then sleeping with my fingers in my ears. Boo for lightning, happy for the rain though!!!

We are both with family today, and at some point will probably be with each other celebrating our beautiful country's Independence Day!

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe 4th of July that is full of friends family and celebrating our nation's birthday!

http://www.middletowninsider.com/2013/02/american-flag-retirement-ceremony.html

And if you're a reader who isn't from around our neck of the woods (err...country, lol) we hope you have an awesome Thursday!!

Much love,

The Pinstrositeers



Shrinky-Knives

I may or may not have just crawled out of bed. I'd apologize for my laziness this morning, but I'm not really too sorry, lol. Everyone needs these days every now and then. We spent the day yesterday with my sister, Cameron's brother, and their kid (a set of sisters married a set of brothers...our family tree is interesting) down in Tucson, AZ and had a marvelous time. Why we chose July to go to Tucson, I have no idea. But despite the 113 degree weather, we had a blast. If you ever have the chance to go to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, take it! It's fantastic. Even for those of us desert rats who reside in the desert already, it's fantastic. Just one thing about it though...if you go during the summer hit it early in the morning or go for their evening hours. It was still totally worth it mid-summer-day though. Had we been smart, we would have done what my friend in the Phoenix valley did the other day and left at tray of cookie dough on the dash of the car and had hot, fresh baked cookies to eat when we got done (no joke, she did that and it worked). Or maybe we should have tried today's Pinstrosity in the car...it definitely got plenty hot in the car while we were at the museum. 

The Original Pin:

http://shellesplayschool.wordpress.com/2012/07/

Using the shinky-dink idea, Shelle decided to try using plastic cutlery to make art and ended up figuring out how to make plastic personalize bracelets from plastic knives. If you click on the link captioned in the above photo you can see more of her creations. 

Katrina one day was trying to figure out what to do with all the plastic knives she had kicking around, so she got on Pinterest and finally hit on Shelle's idea above. Seemed perfect! She said, "So my 12yr old daughter and I started markering up all these plastic knives...we took almost 2 hours.....and imagining who we would give them too, if we could sell them at a craft fair....and just thinking how much attention we were going to get for being SO STINKING CREATIVE!!!! We planned some colors on the knives, that would match some outfits we would have!!!!!! LOL "

The Pinstrosity

Rather than curling, their knives mostly just shrunk!  Katrina's daughter worked to salvage the situation by saving some of the now mini-knives to use as cheese or butter spreaders, but there were definitely no bracelets. 

It's hard to say just why there was no curling. First, the website does specify that you need #6 Polystyrene Plastic cutlery for this to work. Not just any plastic will do. Second, you need to make sure that your oven is fully preheated before you stick the knives in so they get a shock of heat immediately when you put them in. 

Since the knives didn't curl up on their own in the oven, one thing the original site suggests is to put on oven mitts and use metal tongs to carefully bend the knives as they are taken out of the oven one by one. Shelle's directions on this matter say, "When the bracelets look to be about the right size for the person who will be wearing them, the grown-up should take them out of the oven quickly using oven mitts.  Then, while they are still hot, the adult can shape the bracelets using the metal tongs.  The bracelets will probably be about the right shape already, but you will want to make sure the opening is big enough to slip a wrist through.  Also, if the edges did not curl in the oven, now is the time to curl them using the tongs." But, having played with melty plastic before, it is still easy to break the knives even as you pull them out of the oven, so be careful. Or on the other side, if the knife is really really melty, then you end up with melted plastic stuck to the tongs and the mitts (but you'd have to leave them in the oven for quite a while for that to happen).

So if you're in need of a some fun and cheap jewelry for you and your kids to sport at the 4th of July parades on Thursday, this may be a really fun craft to try out! Check out Shelle's patriotic bracelets made out of a spoon, a fork, and a knife:

http://shellesplayschool.wordpress.com/2012/07/

Give it a try and let us know how it goes! 

Wrath of the Wreaths

I LOVE summer. I am so excited to get it started. All our school friends are in their last week of school (good luck on finals!) and then it's play time! Swimming. Hiking. Picnics. Making collapsible kayaks (the husband is quite excited about the possibility of this one). Family reunions. The 4th of July. What a wonderful time of year! 

So I know some of you still have snow (ew...sorry), but I'm going to jump into a summer post anyway. It's always fun to decorate your house for the season. We live out of town a ways and I used to think that meant that there was no reason to decorate the outside of our house because no one would see it. And then after a while I realized that was a silly way of thinking. That shouldn't be the point of decorating, to show others how awesome you are. The point of decorating is to beautify and personalize, to make a place your own. So now I try to add small touches that will make this our place, and not just that one spot we lived in once upon a time. Some times I better at it than others. Today's submission though has me thinking about what I could do to add a small touch of us for summer "decor".

The Original Pin

http://thecreativeimperative.blogspot.com/2011/06/american-flag-wreath-sort-of.html

Cute, no? I already know I'd lose patience wrapping the yarn over and over and over again. But I'm supportive of all y'all who stick with it! Betsy saw this and wanted to make one to summer-ize her front door, only those foam wreath forms are expensive! So she found another pin that suggested to use foam tubing and decided to give that a try. 

The Pinstrosity

http://everwys.blogspot.com/2012/09/pinterest-fail.html

Betsy said, "I'm sorry USA, it's not you, it's me.  Can you forgive me?

And yes...it hung sorta proudly on my door for the summer.  Too cheap not to."

Hey...this reminds me of a wreath we were sent in around Halloween:

The same thing happened. 

So how do we make this work? There has to be a way, right? There probably is, but it probably will take more time and supplies. That's how it usually goes. Cheaper doesn't always mean easier or quicker. 

Idea #1: 

Run a piece of wire through the inside of the wreath. Not jewelry wire. A coat hanger that's been opened up and shaped into a circle. If you have a general contractor in your family see if they have some leftover wiring from a building project (growing up with a general contractor Dad was/is awesome for doing projects). Get some good thick wire at the store. 

Idea #2:

The instructions I've seen to do these DIY wreath forms has you tape the two ends of the foam tube together to form the wreath. I'd use duct tape. Lots of it. And I wouldn't just tape the two ends together. I would wrap the entire tube in tape to help stabilize the shape. Layers of tape. 

Idea #3:

Cut out a cardboard "wreath" to glue the foam wreath to. This will help make hanging easier and if the glue is strong enough it can help hold the shape of the foam. You just have to make sure the cardboard is smaller in width than the wreath or your wreath may turn out looking more like a bundt cake. 

You know...one of these:

http://pixelatedcrumb.com/2011/10/16/pumpkin-buttermilk-cake/

Idea #4:

Paint a wreath on your front door and then you can just use stickers to change out the decorative items for the seasons. Okay, not really. Unless you're an awesome painter. Mine would look like an ogre sneezed on the front door. 

So there you have my ideas. If you try #4, send me a picture. 

Is that Poo or Berry Cobbler?

Welp, I did it again. I think I need to write the afternoon/evening post earlier in the day now that the monsoons are finally becoming more regular. 

Here's the last post in our 4th of July series! Y'all ready? 

The Original Pin

http://livingachangedlife.blogspot.com/2011/04/recipe-review-berry-cobbler.html

Quick and easy Berry Cobbler. Looks yummy! I love these. 

The Pinstrosity

Sandi's Cobbler Surprise. To use Sandi's own words, "it looked like something that came out of my son's diaper." But she says it tasted great. 

To troubleshoot this, let's go through Sandi's process. 

• "I added the frozen fruit (maybe a little too much fruit if there is such a thing), then added the cake mix on top of that, then finally added the Sprite. 
• Too much fruit? If you ask me, no. If you as my husband, yes. But I don't think it had much bearing on the outcome of this. As long as the cake mix covers the fruit, I think you're good. 
• Well after I added the Sprite it didn't cover all the cake mix so I added some more Sprite."
• If you look at the pictures in the original post, her soda does not cover all the cake mix. There are dry spots left. Too much soda might actually be part of the next problem. 
• You could let the cobbler sit for a few minutes after adding the soda to try and get more of a reaction between the soda and the cake mix. 
• "I baked the cobbler in the oven but forgot to set a timer so I was maybe 5-10 minutes over or under on time. When I pulled it out of the oven the cake mix was still powdery in many (most) places. 
• I've actually never had a cobbler that is done this way that does not have powdery cake mix places, but it still tastes good. But of course you don't want it to all be powdery. This may have something to do with the type of cake, but I'll address that in a minute. 
• So I stirred the cobbler up even though it says not to just so we could eat and not have dry cake mix everywhere.
• The original post says not to stir the soda and cake mix together before cooking, otherwise you won't have a crust topping, you'll have a cake topping. After things have baked a little while stirring shouldn't give a cakey topping, it'll just mix the crust and the berries all together, making the cooking time of the uncooked crust a little longer. 
• I put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes, and when I took it out it looked gross. I had to beg my friends to try it and while it tasted good, it looked like something that came out of my son's diaper.
• Mmmm. 
• "Turns out that you aren't supposed to use cake mix with pudding in the mix. I didn't see that until the next day when I was checking to see what went wrong."
• This right here might be the issue with the crust not forming correctly. It's the fine print that gets ya every time. The pudding in the cake mixes is supposed to help keep the cakes moist which is not quite what you're going for here.  

                             

Cake Pop Color Crunch

Well, this one was supposed to go up yesterday evening, but we had a pretty good storm here so our computer was off most of the evening. So you get it today!  Continuing on with our 4th of July theme, we have a Pinstrosity from Kris: The Cake Pop Flag.

The Original Pin

http://www.myjuicecup.com/4th-of-july-cake-pops/

 Kris tells us, "I decided to be super festive for 4th of July, and make this really cool looking dessert. I had made oreo truffles before, so I figured these cake balls would be super easy....they were not."

The Pinstrosity

Not bad. I'd still eat them. Let's see where she ran into trouble. 

1. "I didn't know where to buy 'candy melts' in my small town, so I used dipping white chocolate likes from the oreo truffles. I came to find out really quick that you CANT add food coloring to dipping chocolate because it makes it seize up. That cost me another trip to the grocery store."
1. For coloring chocolate you have to use a powder or oil based food coloring. A good tutorial for coloring white chocolate can be found here. These dyes aren't usually in regular grocery stores, they will either need to be ordered online or found through a specialty baking store. 
2. Obviously everywhere is a little different, but I've seen different colored candy melts at many Walmart. If there is a Walmart near you (and in our family near is relative...the closest Walmart growing up was always at least an hour away...now it's 1 1/2 hours for my parents in their new house), check out their cake decorating aisle...they may have what you're looking for. 
2. "The balls do not come out so round and nice and perfect."
1. This can be kinda tricky, as I have found out from my personal experience. They say that if you get the right cake to frosting ratio that it makes it easier. One website suggests 2 c. of frosting per cake mix. Another website says 1/2 the frosting in the container to 1 cake mix. Anyway, getting the consistency right helps, and then you should refrigerate the cake balls for about 2 hours. When I first did this I froze the balls, but since then I have learned that refrigerating them kinda dries them out a little bit and that freezing them can leave a layer of water on the outside (and chocolate and water don't mix). 
3. "The website that this came from didn't explain how to make cake pops, so I had to find the website to do that so I was working from 2."
1. I'm not sure which websites Kris was working from, but here are 2 that I think are quite handy
1. http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/02/how-to-make-cake-pops.html
2. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Cake-Pops
4. "Now that I'm looking at the website again, it does say that she rolled them in chocolate to make them like truffles. I don't know how she found colored chocolate or made it colored because I tried multiple outlets."
1. Cake pops are essentially cake truffles, but cake pops is just more catchy of a name I think. 
2. If you can't find the colored chocolate/candy melts near you, you can order them. Wilton is the brand many stores carry and you can order online at their website. 
3. I thought Kris' solution was quite good...colored sugar crystals. One thing that could have helped in the presentation is instead of sprinkling the crystals on top (which is what it looks like from the picture), right after dipping the balls in the chocolate, roll it in the crystals. This will give color over the whole pop and help the color stick to the balls better. 
5. "I also found that freezing them was a lot easier than just chilling in the refrigerator, because the chocolate was too hot to dip them in without them falling apart. The freezer didn't make them come out any worse. They tasted fine to me and every one else at my party."
1. Freezing them definitely won't hurt them, and it is faster than refrigerating them, but sometimes it can affect the dipping chocolate if there is too much water on the outside of the frozen cake balls (this is more of an issue in places with high humidity). 
6. "This gave me no insight on how much cake mix or frosting to buy, or how many a single cake mix batch would yield. I found that one box of Duncan Hines and half of my frosting recipe made about 55 balls...too bad I needed about 88 to make the whole flag, so I had to make a whole other cake too."
1. It's true. I haven't seen anywhere how many cake pops one cake mix will make. Now we know! Thanks Kris!

                         

Rice Krispie...well, Crisp Rice Clumps

Having had a Rice Krispie cake for my wedding (seriously, best cake ever...4 tiers, ribbons, and little farm animals on each tier), I am quite partial to Rice Krispie treats. They're just so good! It made me smile when we had our first Rice Krispie Pinstrosity sent to us by Jamie. These scrumptious treats seem too easy to mess up, but so many of us just have a hard time with them.

The Original Pin

http://lilluna.com/fouth-of-july-rice-krispies-treats/

Aren't those awesome! I love it. Because Jamie's email was funny and fantastic, I'm going to give you her words about this Pinstrosity: 

"After having great success with a modified strawberry dessert from pinterest, I was hoping dessert #2 for the fun 4^th of July would have everyone’s tail wagging. Apparently not."

"Rice Krispie Treats are just about the easiest things in the world to make yet for some reason, those three little krispie guys never have me in their favor. But I was convinced that because this was a holiday and I was going the extra mile that they would help me out and I would have amazing red, white, and blue treats that would awe the masses and they would think I was some creative dessert genius."

"The first item on the list is Rice Krispies Cereal. Well my first mistake was probably that I bought 'Crisp Rice Cereal' because HELLOOOOOO it was a whole dollar cheaper!  Not only was the cereal a dollar cheaper it has its own recipe for 'crisp rice treats' right on the box!!  Since I was making these treats at my mother in laws house, I had not printed out the 'original' recipe and just used the one off the cheap cereal box (5 cups as opposed to 6 cups from the original recipe). What could possibly be the difference?! 'Rice Krispie Treats', 'Crisp Rice Treats'…same thing."

"The original recipe said to divide the ingredients in thirds before mixing together but I thought I was above that extra work and just piled it all together and made magic! Then I divided it into thirds and I’m pretty sure they weren't even. Oh well.  Saved a dollar, saved some time, I’m on a roll. I added my food coloring and was ready to layer my tasty treats. Blue, then white, then red. The directions said to pat down firmly with wax paper but my finger worked just as good.  As I was patting though, the crisp rice (because remember, they’re not rice krispies) kept sticking to my finger and I had a feeling that I would have a gooey mess on my hands when I was done."

"The treats in the picture are perfectly packed and perfectly square so I figured I would have to refrigerate them for a while to get them firm enough to do that. So they sat in the fridge for 2 hours. The original recipe said to “let set for a bit” but she must live in a fantasy world where rice krispie treats get hard after “a bit”.  I was so anxious and excited to cut them up when I took them out of the fridge that I made a huge ruckus out of it and had everyone excited and on their toes, waiting in anticipation (even though they were in the other room obviously with something better to do). I grabbed my knife and made the first slice and my crisp rice stuck to the knife and the blue got smeared up through the white and red and when I cut back down, the blue smeared the red on top and they were just a huge mess. I tried to make small squares because I had the genius idea to put little toothpicks in them but that was also a huge fail. By the end, they had turned into a psychedelic mess. I was only able to salvage a few and those few were still ugly. I have no idea where I went wrong. Maybe that dollar would have made all the difference."

The Pinstrosity

So...not so pretty, but I'm sure they still tasted awesome. But now how do we get those perfect Rice Krispie (or Crisp Rice) Treats? Let's look at a few issues and ideas.

• Crisp Rice vs. Rice Krispies. Honestly, I've never had a problem switching out the two. Anyone else? 
• A few things to help the treats firm up a little (try only one of these at at time, and then combine tactics if necessary)
• Add more cereal. Start with 1 c. if that doesn't do it, add another. 
• Add extra butter (butter here, not margarine). Start with 2-3 TBS, but more can be added. 
• Cook the mallow/butter concoction 1/2 to 1 minute longer than normal. 
• When refrigerating them, keep them uncovered to help them dry out a bit (but they really aren't going to dry out a ton in just a few hours, but they will dry out a bit). 
• If they still come out sticky, when you go to cut them, butter the blade of the knife or spatula. That will help the knife to just slice right through and not tear the treats up as much.                              

Layered Drink Doozy

Sarah sent us in this 4th of July Mocktail Pinstrosity.  I've seen this idea a number of times, and even tried a variation of it myself a while back. 

The Original Pin

http://blogs.babycenter.com/life_and_home/a-patriotic-mocktail-for-the-kids/

Sarah says, "I was all kinds of excited to try this awesome pin for our 4th of July celebration festivities! What would be more festive than a drink that resembles our nations's flag? So a few days before, I bought my fruit punch, Gatorade and Diet Sprite and out them right in the fridge so they would be nice and cold! The blog explained that the different layers came from the sugar content... the parts with the most sugar would stay on the bottom and the part with the least amount of sugar would stay on top. The instructions said to fill your glass 1/3 full of ice and pour the fruit punch to almost the top of the ice. Following that, fill your glass with 1/3 more ice then to carefully pour the blue Gatorade on top; finally, top the glass off with 1/3 more with ice and carefully pour Diet Sprite on top. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong"

The Pinstrosity

Mmmmm....

"My husband and I tried multiple times with no luck. We tried everything from pouring differently to laying the ice in different ways. The top layer (Diet Sprite) did, in fact, separate from the rest of the drink, but we definitely did NOT see the wonderful blue and red that I was hoping for. The project ended leaving me disappointed with a ton of a fruit punch concoction left to drink."

I can feel Sarah's disappointment through the email. I know I would have been highly disappointed. I've done some looking around (and some far reaches back to my college chemistry classes) and I have a few ideas of how to help this out.

The separation of layers comes from the density of each drink, and the sugar content of the drinks affects the densities. You have to make sure to have good variations in your sugar content to get this to work just right. The pin Sarah used called for fruit punch and blue gatorade for two of the layers, but a little more specific information is needed. If your fruit punch isn't the thick fruit punch, it's not going to work so well. The gatorade and the punch need to differ in densities (or thicknesses if you want to think of it that way). I looked up some other recipes and found a more specific ingredient list for you:

• Sobe Pina Colada for the white
• Gatorade Fruit Punch for the red
• G2 Blueberry-Pomegranate for the blue. 

And here's the process I'm reading in many posts:

• Fill the glass all the way full with ice (not just the 1/3) and pour in your thickest drink first (using the above ingredient list, that'd be the Pina Colada Sobe). 
• Slowly, pour in the next drink through the ice, and follow up with the last drink (again slowly!). 

Pouring slowly through the ice will help to reduce mixing of the layers (although some mixing will occur). 

Here are some great examples using this exact recipe and method!

http://www.thesisterscafe.com/2011/06/layered-drinks

http://www.mooreminutes.com/2011/07/american-backporch-bbq.html

And then one different ingredient list:

• Cran-Apple Ocean Spray Juice
• Pina Colada Sobe
• G2 Blueberry Pomegranate 

http://www.inkatrinaskitchen.com/2012/06/july-4th-layered-drinks.html

                            

Stars, Stripes and Sadness Pie

Marquette here! I LOVE the 4th of July. Family, food, parades, food, fireworks, food, awesome music, food, flags, food and lots of fun! It's always fun to see the dishes people prepare to celebrate America. Marty found a great picture and recipe for a stars and stripes pie and thought she'd give it a whirl for her 4th of July festivities. 

The Original Pin

http://www.womansday.com/recipefinder/stars-stripes-pie-121895

Doesn't that look amazing?! Oh man, I want to go make pie now. This was Marty's first pie attempt, which I'm rather impressed that she'd do this as her first pie...it would have scared me away to try and make this pie on my first pie making experience. So 100 points to Gryffindor (and Marty) for that. 

Marty tells us "I tried to make this for 4th of July. I followed the recipe exactly with the exception that I used strawberry pie filling instead of cherries because I don't like cherries. I used pie filling from a can and in the amount called for in the recipe. This was my first pie. It looked quite pretty before I put it in the oven. I even made sure I had 13 stripes. I was very excited."

The Pinstrosity

Still not bad. Here's what Marty had to say about it:

"Well, the filling overflowed all over my oven. Clearly, it called for too much filling. Also, as you can see, it doesn't look like the Woman's Day picture. It also didn't taste good. Next time, I will not fill it as full and I will make my own filling. I will try again next year."

I love Marty's resolve. So many of us quit after projects don't turn out quite how we want them to. Way to go Marty. 

So on to dissecting this Pinstrosity. 

• The Pie Filling
• Marty used strawberry pie filling instead of cherry pie filling because she's not a big fan of cherries (which I probably would have done too...not a cherry fan). The only thing that probably affected was the color of the red in the pie; it wasn't as vibrant as the cherries. 
• Like Marty, I think there was too much pie filling. When I read the original recipe I thought, "Holy cow, that's a lot of filling. That'll never fit in a 9" pie pan." I have trouble keeping 1 can of filling from going over the sides of the pie, let alone 3 and a half! I would probably start with one can and then add fresh fruit into it to get the consistency right. That's one of my favorite pie tricks, adding fresh-or frozen sometimes-fruit to the pie filling; it gives a great textures and adds nicely to the flavor of the pie. I especially do this with berry filling (and especially with strawberry filling) since sometimes the canned pie fillings have a funny aftertaste, which may have been Marty's taste issue, I don't know...having not tasted it I can't say what to do about the taste. 
• The crust. 
• I'm just not a fan of pre-made pie crusts. I'm not a fan of the flavor and they are usually thinner than I like them. I know it's easy to just pick one up at the store, but I just have never had great luck with them (I know some have wonderful success stories with them, but not me). I would always suggest making your own crust. It's really easy, and yummy, and you get to make it as thick as you want (I LOVE thick pie crust). 
• Here's the super simple and yummy recipe I love:
  http://mowercooking.blogspot.com/2012/02/pie-crust.html
• It looks like Marty needed a higher crust in her pie to help hold in all the filling. Making your own crust will let you customize things to get the desired effect. The crust around the edges also makes a nice frame for the stars and stripes, pulling the whole design together. And it'll help the stripes not to slip around when baking. What I would do, is to cut the stripes longer than the width of the pie, then lay them over and pinch the edges of the stripes into the crust to help solidify everything. Then after that you could crimp the crust (or do whatever crust design you want). 
• Placing the stripes in line with the blueberries rather than at an angle also might help give more of a flag look to the pie, if that's what your going for. I think Marty's looks fine, but there's another option for the pie. 

                            

4th of July Festivities...

Sunday is our day off from the blog (those of you who have been following for a while may have noticed that, those that are new...there you go), but I just thought I'd give you a preface of the projects coming up this week. 

I love holidays, but even more so now with Pinstrosity. As we near and pass each Holiday, we receive some great pins from people's festive pin trials. With Independence Day in the recent past we have had some great Pinstrosity submissions sent to us. I won't reveal the Pinstrosities yet, but here are the projects they came from.

4th of July Rice Krispies!

http://lilluna.com/fouth-of-july-rice-krispies-treats/

Patriotic Mocktail

http://blogs.babycenter.com/life_and_home/a-patriotic-mocktail-for-the-kids/

Stars and Stripes Pie

http://www.womansday.com/recipefinder/stars-stripes-pie-121895 

Flag Cake Pops

http://www.myjuicecup.com/4th-of-july-cake-pops/

Berry Cobbler

Happy 4th!

Happy Independence Day! I hope all y'all are having a wonderful day! We're each with our families, visiting with siblings that drove in from out of town, playing games, eating great food, and enjoying this fantastic weather!

God Bless America!

The Cake of Freedom

We're back from Camp! We survived! I'm still not unpacked...but I'm home. Em takes her tests this weekend, and then we'll be able to be back in full swing! Hooray! 

In the meantime though...

The 4th of July is coming up! YEA! I really love the 4th of July. Fireworks, family, good food, America! We had a Pinstrosity submitted to us today just in time for a jump into Independence Day. Check out this awesome cake!

The Original Pin

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1703278/hidden-flag-cake

I'm not supposed to be eating sugar right now, but that picture's making it a little difficult. MMmm. Pinner Taylor saw this cake and knew she had to make it. "When I saw this cake I instantly thought of my brother. He loves being American. I know, I know... we all do. But he REALLY is proud. When he went to study abroad this summer I wanted to make it for him as a welcome home surprise. The night before his return my mom and i decided to make the cake. We started at about 8 p.m. (that was the first mistake of many) By the time all of the cakes were made and cooled it was about 1 am. I then made the icing. (only to be interrupted by my drunk friend who needed a ride home from the bars) At about 3 oclock the icing and layering began. the cake kept shifting and the layers began to break. by 430 a.m. i decided it was the thought that counted and called in a night. i threw it in the fridge in hopes of solidifying the icing before it fell over. not so simple i guess."

The Pinstrosity

Taylor continues her story, "Anyhow, when he got home I gave him the cake and he loved the thought behind it. :) He also said I'll have to practice before I make it for his celebration when he becomes President of the United States. I don't think I'll be making this pinstrosity ever again..."

It may not look exactly like Ol' Glory, but it still looks tasty to me! Now, I'm not a cake guru...making a good cake is on my list of thing to learn, so I don't know any specific tips to give here other than what I know I would try if I were to attempt this right now and what I am finding on Google. Here's what I've got: 

1. First off, the thin red layers. I didn't have any clue about how to even start cutting layers, so I googled "Cutting Thin Cake Layers" and came across this genius idea: Toothpicks and dental floss. Check it out!

http://www.wikihow.com/Cut-a-Cake-Layer-in-Half

2. Then, how to frost it so it's smooth. Again...I haven't had great luck with this, so I just now googled "How to Frost a Cake" and this great article popped up (which also sports the toothpick and dental floss method for slicing):

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/how-to-bake-a-cake5.htm

But most of all I'd have to agree with Taylor...maybe the late night was what did it in. I know that'd do it for me! 

I know we have some bakers who follow along, do any of you have some little pearls of wisdom you'd like to share here?