Creative Cakes ala Margie

I (Jen) have some memories of mom having cake decorating supplies. Of her making royal icing, and teaching me to make roses. When we'd go to the store, I'd love to stop at the bakery department and watch the ladies there decorate the cakes. I'm fairly certain I said that was what I wanted to be when I grew up ... a cake decorator. Mom had taken a class before I was born. Here are her memories ...

Several of us in our Saint Street neighborhood took the class. So the teacher came to the Kosorok's home, so it would be handier for all of us. One evening a week, we would go there (2 doors down from us) and bring our cake, with the base frosting on, on a turntable, for ease in decorating, along with our Wilton tips and bags and little jars of paste colors, and buttercream frosting to decorate with. We were taught to color frosting by dipping a toothpick in the jars of paste coloring and then use the toothpick to add the color to the frosting, adding more with a clean toothpick if needed. The color was more concentrated and you needed less, using the paste colors. The teacher said using the liquid coloring would make your frosting too runny. Then I got pregnant with Jeni and with morning sickness, I had trouble working with food/cakes :-) .

For many years, I made gingerbread houses with you kids each Christmas, that we decorated with Royal icing, and all sorts of candies. Not sure if we still have any photos of them. Then you would each get to eat yours after Christmas.

We also made sugar-mold eggs with you kids, with little "scenes" inside, and decorated on the outside. We made all different sizes. One year, your Grandma Westra/Burgener made sugar mold eggs for all of you and mailed them to Richland to you for Easter. They are a lot of work, but very fragile. They arrived all broken. I felt bad since she had gone to so much work and effort. I can't remember if I told her they broke in transit. Probably not, as that is not my nature.

I don't have specific memories of making and eating gingerbread houses, but I remember there was one (the same one? different ones?) on a white pedestal plate on the piano for many years. I definitely remember the sugar-mold eggs. I LOVED those. Loved peeking inside and seeing the little scenes set up there. Later when I married, I bought some molds and little figures and such to make some ... but then I never did.