Present Cakes and Door Handles

Here is the present cake that I finished on the weekend.  I hope that Ann liked it!  

Present Cake

With all of this cake-making, I usually end up with some leftover cake - either when I cut the top off to make it flat or chop the side off to make another shape (like the hand-bag).  Now, my cake is tasty, but there is such a thing as too much mud-cake.  So I end up either giving it to friends or taking it into work for others to eat.  This week I gave some to my neighbour, who then gave us some olives that he had bottled (using a sea-water recipe).  Maybe I should start a barter system :)

Also, I started watching a new cake show today - Ace of Cakes.  I'm not convinced yet. I don't really buy the main guy who acts like he's super cool.  Maybe I'll change my mind after I watch a few more episodes.  I get that it would be frustrating when you don't have enough fondant from your suppliers, but do you really need to go on about it on tv?  Seems like a big act at the moment.  Fabulous Cakes is a much better show.

And just a little rant about a non-cake related thing... we have been having hassles with our front door handle over the past week.  'Hassle' meaning that I couldn't open the door without some brute force.  We got the door guy to come out last week. Of course, when he came, it didn't get stuck, and he said that it was some screw loose on the plate which he tightened.  The handle was still a problem over the weekend, and then today it happened - I got stuck outside for 5 minutes trying to open the door just after I had come home from the pools and was dripping wet.  When I finally got inside, I rang the door guy. He sounded all annoyed, and almost as though I was making it up.  After some 'but who do I call if I get stuck outside' debate on my part, he agreed to send someone out to look at it. When the guy came, I couldn't open the door.  What a surprise - there was a faulty bit inside the lock mechanism. See.... I'm not just some paranoid chick.  Not usually anyway.   Unless it's about how my cake is going to turn out.

-N-