My race for the Cure

When July is over and Augst begins I start feeling very warm inside, it notifies my souls that my favorite season is on its way and that my favorite holiday is coming up. I really love fall and even more so I love October. Fall brings weather that makes being at home even more craved than ever, picture this your at work looking out of your office window and its a little cloudy and it begins to rain and turns into sleet. Its lunch time and you didnt bring your lunch or your jacket and now you have to go out into the chilly weather and get wet while your filling your belly to complete a days work. Its inevitable that this weather kicks off you starting to desire your bed more than you have all year long, and crave that delicious bowl of hearty chilli. Yep you cant tell me Im wrong because Im human and I have felt all those feelings all too well.

However a few years ago October took on a whole new meaning for me and my future. I remember talking to my mom and her telling me that a very good family friend had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. I was in total disbelief how could this be true, we just was her and she didnt look sick, or act sick. As time went on we realized that it may have been possible she hadnt gone for a mamogram in a while and this ugly monster had crept in an invaded her beautiful body unknowingly trying to rob her of her life, an many blessings and open doors that awaited her. As I pondered the Whys?? and Hows??? of this news I immediately realized that I could not google her a quick cure or ever offer enough Im sorrys, kisses or hugs or words of encouragement to lift her spirits. I added her to my prayers but wanted to do more physically and emotionally.

During my life ive never been a gym rat or been excited about sweating till I was about to faint, but i had started a simple workout regime. Running .... well maybe more like a fast paced jog, with lots of brisk walking, and maybe a day or two of weights...hand weights that is. The gym I went to had advertised Race for the Cure for breast cancer 5k, i first had to do the math to find out how far that was and how to sign up. After doing some research I got all the information I needed and added registering for the Cure 5k on my list of to dos for the week. When saturday came I was up an at it, gone to register an do my workout just a little harder to prepare for my upcoming race.

About a week before the race a friend asks me "why are you doing the run?" I was a little offended but realized she wasnt me neither did she know our friend who had been diagnosed. My answer to her was Im running the race for those who are too weak to run and are in a daily race that will take longer than 3.1 miles to the finish line to find a cure and get their lives back, and lastly im running for those whose lives ended before they got to the finish line. There was silence for a moment and I wasnt sure if she had fallen asleep during my long answer or she had hung up, "are you there?" i asked "yes im here." she replied Im just so moved by what your doing, my father has throat cancer and i dont do talk to him because im angry due to family issues." I went on to tell her that what im doing is not enough compared to what these women with breast cancer who are my sisters really need.

The day of the race came, its my first race and its early and even worse its cold forty five degrees, my body was craving the bed and I wanted hot chocolate, neither were anywhere in sight, but i didnt care all of my petty complaints could be cured but the reason im at this race is still in search for its cure. I followed the crowd and we counted down to the beginning of the race. Ive never seen so much pink in my life it was so beautiful, I guess thats why the ribbon color is pink because these are beautiful women being stricken with such an ugly disease. Upon finishing the race I knew that I wanted this to be a yearly tradition a way for me to connect with my sisters whom I know are going thru a battle a will never meet.

Best Fondant Recipe

Marshamllow Fondant Recipe

Delicious Fondant Recipe

Fondant Recipe!!!

Fondant has stumped so many people including myself, we see it on almost every cake and cupcake at weddings and any other occasion. When you go into a custom bakery and you order your cake and you say I want it covered in Fondant the cash register rings as if you just hit the power ball. I remember when my husband and I were cake tasting for the best day of our lives aka our wedding, the price didn't sound so bad until I said we want Fondant and boy did that Change a lot. So much that I opted out of a Fondant cake and went for a satiny buttercream finish. I loved my cake I didn't even miss it one bit neither did my guest. So Once I began my cake artist journey I set out to lean how to make this highly sought after dough icing. Now there's a company that makes millions of pounds of Fondant every year and to be honest it taste worse than the leather on the bottom of my husbands church shoes. I discovered many recipes to make the best Marshmallow Fondant , yep forget all that gelatin and other ingredients you can't pronounce or spell and you definitely don't need a sumo wrestler to knead it. So here's the recipe.

Fondant recipe:
1 10oz bag mini marshmallows

2 TBSP butter
2 TBSP + 1tsp vanilla flavoring
1 lb powder sugar reserve one cup for dusting board
Plastic wrap
Cutting board
Food coloring ( optional)

How to make it:

-Place MM in microwave safe bowl with vanilla flavoring.
-Heat for 1 min until MM are melted and begin to expand.
-Stir MM till smooth
-Of using food coloring add drops at this time and stir till desired color is reached.
- Add in powder sugar and stir
-Mixture may look crumbly and chunky ( this is good)

- continue to stir until it is mixed as well ad possible.

-Spread tensing cup of sugar on board, and pour mixture on to surface

-Grease hands with butter and begin kneading, if you need a little extra add it, but not too much or it will be crumbly to roll out.

-keep kneading until you have a nice smooth ball of Fondant not too dry or sticky (resembles play doh).

-Wrap in plastic and let sit for one hour in fridge

- when ready to use knead till warm soft and pliable. Then roll out and use as necessary.

Enjoy your Fondant!!

Post your end results .

How to make Marshmallow Fondant

Many friends have asked mw how I make my fondant taste soooo good and soft well... Im going to enlighten those of you who have tried but have not been successful. But first im going to tell you that "You Are The Boss" when it comes to fondant no matter whatelse happens in your life "You ARE the BOSS of the fondant, it is NOT the boss of YOU". Now that we have that out of the way we can move on. Fondant is very simple to make no matter what recipe you use, mine or a different one, its kind of like making rice krispie treats but without the rice. SO lets get to it, here are the ingredients you will need:

Fondant Recipe
10oz bag Mini Marshmallows
2 TBSP Butter or crisco
2 TBSP + 1 tsp Water, Butter, or Vanilla Flavoring
1 lb Powder Sugar
Plastic wrap
Cutting board/ nonstick surface

This weekend was a wonderful success my community has a summer festival in which I participated in. I made 20 dozen of cupcakes, and 100 cake pops. I made a combination of flavors, Red Velvet, chocolate fudge, vanilla, and key lime. I sold out of the cake balls an hour into the event ( :)) ) and sold completely out of red velvet and key lime in two hours, I knew the red velvet would sell fast but even though I'm a key lime fanatic I wasn't sure about others, but it was a hit. This event was great and allowed me to do some networking and get my feet wet in the "shark tank" of selling. I felt a bit nervous in the beginning but soon became comfortable. Overall I couldn't ask for more and hope to be a part of it again.

The past few weeks god has really shown me the power of prayer, I remember giving my two weeks noticeafter deciding that i was going to stay home with my babies full time I knew I was making the right choice, my husband fully supported my decision an allowed me to decide myself. I'm not one for sitting in sweats all day wearing an wearing a banana clip, which is why I started my cake business. I recall feeling like my career had ended but at the same time I was picking up the reigns to something I wasn't one hundred percent sure how to guide. I was a bit worried about what I needed to do to get orders so... Being a person who likes to plan things out but also have a pinch of spontaneity I began to pray and just tell God that he has full control and to send me the business HE wants me to have, and amazingly ive had people call inquiring about my business and telling their friends and business has come from places I didn't expect. I know that in this process my patience is going to be strengthened and my trust in him is going to be stronger than ever.