Wuhan Here We Come!

So it's official. We are moving to Wuhan China in August. CRAZY! McKay was offered a job teaching at the university last week. Right after he got the job McKay put in an application for me to work there as well. On Monday they offered me a job teaching English at the university as well. We sent them an acceptance letter on Tuesday so it is official. It has all come together in less than a week!So fast and so easy! I guess it must be fate. We have to be checked into our apartment by August 24th so we will be leaving sometime before that. We will be teaching for two semesters with a 3 week break in between that we will use to travel around China (I'm really excited about that part). We don't know when we are coming home for sure yet, but we know it will be the end of may or beginning of June sometime. Hopefully there will be lots of adventures to report while we are there. AHHHHH!!!! I am moving to CHINA! I am so excited and so nervous! Wuhan here we come!

Here are a few pictures of the university and the city.

Gumpaste!

I realize it has been a while since my last post, midterms got in the way of my writing. However, now they are over and i am working on a fun little project in my spare time. I am teaching myself (with the help of some video's on you tube) how to make flowers out of gum paste, which means I am making sugar flowers! I have only finished some roses so far, but I am in the process of making some calla lilies. I don't know why, but for some reason the cake decorating bug has bit me again. I seem to go in cycles. There have been a number of times in my life where I have been really excited about and really into cake decorating, and then periods where i don't even think about it. I am hoping that this most recent decorating bug will stay with me for a while. At the moment I think it would be absolutely amazing to make wedding cakes for a living. Maybe I will end up making my way to culinary school.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

I have made some small buds, as well as some medium sized and large roses. I do not have a cutter to make the right kind of calyx for a rose, so I have just been using a daisy cookie cutter, and I think it is working just fine!

Lets Make Some Cake!

I love baking. Actually I love, love, love, love, LOVE baking. I am torn between what I want to do with my life. Do I want to sew wedding dresses? Or do I want to go to culinary school and end up making wedding (and other) cakes? I don't know yet, but in the mean time I am baking up a storm. The other day after talking about cake decorating, I was told referred to a really cool site by Krystal called cake central. I cannot tell you how much I love this site! My first time on the site was Friday night, and i ended up staying up to reading recipes and forums and look at pictures and videos until 2:00 a.m.! You got me hooked Krystal!

Well on Friday night I saw that someone had posted information about wrapping a cake with chocolate. I saw the cake and instantly decided "I HAVE to do that". So two days later I have been given a chance to make a magnificent cake, because McKay happend to invite some people from the ward over for desert. I ended up making a chocolate cake, iced with chocolate ganache, wrapped it in white and dark chocolate layers, and covered it in white chocolate shavings (they were supposed to be curls, but my chocolate was too brittle). Chocoholic Heaven! Maybe that is what i will have to call it.

To get the layers of chocolate around the cake i had to spread the chocolate on a piece of plastic, then wrap it around the cake and place it in the fridge for about 15 minutes. You have to repeat that for each layer (I found out that white chocolate sets much faster than dark chocolate). I ended up using the left over chocolate i had to do some piping along the bottom because i didn't want to waste it.

Here is the cake chilling in the refrigerator to let the chocolate harden.

This lets you see all of the chocolate shavings on top. I was going to cover it with chocolate covered strawberries, but they were $4.00 per package and I am not made of money.

If anyone wants more detailed instructions on how to make this cake just let me know and I would be happy to fill you in.