Scared of the unknown? Just do it!

This new year, I am trying to have renewed confidence about my cooking and home DYI projects. I am often scared to try complicated recipes or big projects around the house. Sure, I'll do a bit of painting or cook simple recipes, but decorate a cake or undertake a mini-remodel...no way!

But this year, I am determined to make William's birthday cake. Not only make it, but decorate it. Not just with a bit of icing and store bought decorations, but home made decorations...I don't want to give too much away (for fear of failing!!!) but I'll post the picture of the cake here in mid-April.

Another example; our shower doors. You see, we only have one bath in our house. For the first nine months of William's life we've bathed him in a "baby" bath on our kitchen counter. However, as he started to stand up in it, we thought it was time we used our big bath. The problem was we had double shower doors on the bath tub. We could slide the doors to one side, but you were not only restricted, but you had a painful metal track sticking in your ribs as you bent over the bath! 

One night we just decided to remove the shower doors. As David picked up the screw drivers, I went for my power screw driver. You should have seen the look on David's face. Very quickly he decided he wouldn't waste his energy and he left me to do it! We removed the screws and pried the metal vertical and horizontal tracks off the bath surround. It was tricky because the tracks had been sealed to the surround with a clear rubber-type sealant. However, after carefully scraping off the sealant, we now have a lovely bath made for baby bathing!

Just yesterday we went to Home Depot to price 'half' shower doors on a hinge. We thought we could replace the fixed double doors with a much more flexible option that would swing out. Quickly we discarded that idea. They cost $1000! Instead we bought a $40 curtain rod. So family and friends, if you stay over at our place now, you'll have to put up with shower curtain...tough!

Comments

[David]

I will confess that I chose not to get between this woman and her power tools!

[ian]

Given Dave's history with shower curtains, I presume you've already instigated an 3m exclusion zone and moved everything away from the bath.

[Lesley]

Really good tip for cakes - as you will be finding yourself making more and more as William gets older - this also makes it really quick.
Weight your eggs - in their shell
then do everything else to the same weight ie eggs 215g so flour 215g sugar 215g and marg 215g - if you want it to be chocolate swap between 30g and 50g of the flour for coco powder and if you want the cake to be more fudge like add two tea spoon of warm water (I always add 1 teaspoon of baking powder too)- once sugar and marg is beaten together and eggs and flour addedin beat with your mixer for 3 minutes, this is totally fool proof makes a killer cake every time and really easy for the kids to do too! cook on 170-180
Cooking
*For fair cakes 13 minutes is usually best for larger cakes depends on the number of eggs 3 eggs usually 25 minutes 4 eggs 30 minutes and so on - you just need to keep checking it!

Lesley x

[Home Office Mum]

The thing about making kids cakes is that the kids don't care how they look. They just want to eat them. It's the mums who care how they look. I have made a pirate ship that looked more like the Exxon Valdez and a lion that looked more like an alsatian that had been shot, but honestly, the kids just see sweet icing and sod the rest. And the mums all seem to think you're a goddess for even trying to bake something instead of buying it. So go for it.

PS - a brilliant way to make a cake kids love that is simple is to make a plain chocolate cake (like the one Lesley described above), ice it with butter icing or a chocolate ganache but then, decorate it with smarties all over. Looks like a cake with chicken pox but the kids see sweets and go bonkers for it

[Shower Doors]

Awesome tips. Topic is really cool. Anyway I just love to bake the cakes and cream rolls.