Seven Day Scramble…May 1, 2011

Scramble, Schramble.

I’m tired.

So, I’m just going to talk about my life a bit. If you want to catch up on this week’s posts, please do. There were some great recipes – including the Pancake Souffle from Friday, and the Pear, Fig, and Arugula Pizza. Carrie from Fields of Cake guest posted on Wednesday with an amazing chocolate milk recipe as well – so definitely take a look at that! On Tuesday evening, I had an 80’s Trivia Quiz, with the winner claiming a new fennel colored Le Creuset pan – LUCKY! Did you play along? If so, did you enjoy it? And, even if you didn’t play along – would you if I did another one this week?

There will be a lot going on this upcoming week here on Doughmesstic – including a couple of nice giveaways to celebrate my 3rd Blogiversary! I can’t believe it’s been 3 years since I started this site…I never stick to something for this long! It truly is a labor of love. I love the cooking, the photography, the writing. And I LOVE all of YOU. Seriously. The community is amazing, and interacting with so many of you is very rewarding. I’ve gotten to meet so many great folks both online and in person – and I hope to meet many, many more of you!

I’ve also been very fortunate to be able to experience opportunities I had no idea existed – like being able to attend the Good Egg Tour, the Dole Summit, and the Iowa Cornucopia Tour. I’ve even won a recipe contest that whisked me away to the Rose Bowl for several days, all expense paid! Also, one really great thing I’ve gotten to do is to attend the Culinary Institute of America. I cannot tell you how wonderful that was…and if you have the time and the resources, I highly recommend it. Do what it takes to get yourself there – you will NOT be sorry!

What else has this blog done for me? It’s helped to pay the bills. Not only through online writing and advertisments, but through CAKE. I started making cakes about a year and a half ago, and now I stayed pretty much eyeball deep in cake. Especially on the weekends, when weddings are the order of the day. Speaking of cakes…here are a couple from this weekend that I mentioned on Facebook.

First up is a Tinkerbell cake for a 4 year old cutie. Seven has decided that she is his girlfriend, despite forgetting her name in between her visits. Tinkerbell is an actual doll – no point is sculpting a Tinkerbell when all she really wants to do is play with it. I shaped a fairyland tree trunk and rock coming out of it in subdued colors, a few little mushrooms, and placed some flowers about. The flavor was strawberry cake filled with buttercream and crushed wafer cookies.

The next is a wedding cake for a young bride who was excited to incorporate her Marine Officer grooms uniform into the cake. I think we succeeded! Three tiers, with a taller than normal second tier. navy ribbons circle the cake and gold buttons accent it, but the star of the show is the large cascade of bright red roses – there were over 3 dozen. Her flavor was devils food filled with chocolate mousse. I hope she was pleased!

I am so looking forward to this week…I am kind of on a break! We are taking off this upcoming weekend to go stay with some friends at The Homestead, located in Hot Springs ,Virginia. I’ve been by several times, but never stayed…so it should be a great little trip. Isn’t it gorgeous? I can’t believe here was actually a Groupon to stay here…so glad there was, though!

We are also excited to be headed to Salem on Wednesday evening to see The Zac Brown Band in concert! Pray it doesn’t rain – this concert is outdoors and I am NOT a fan of the rain!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and is planning a wonderful week!