Why its a Horse of Course!

So I am not much of a cook, even less of a baker. Usually cooking is quite a chore for me, and usually I can't say my productions are too tasty. What I do enjoy, however, is decorating food. Turning a plate of some usual item into a masterpiece. I love those really fancy restaurants, where the portions are itty bitty...simply because each plate that comes out is truly a work of art. So, over the course of this blog, I may not be a main contributor of delicious recipes, but I will try to share my more "artistic" pieces...both past and present.

And what is more fun to decorate than cakes? This past week was my friend Sadie's birthday. She was having a really rough week, including having to write a grant on her birthday, so my friend Anja and I decided to surprise her at her lab with cake. Anja was in charge of buying the goods...and comes over to my place with a boxed mix of German chocolate cake and some chocolate frosting. (Sadie is a huge chocolate fan!) So I look at it, and go...'so what did you get to decorate the cake with?' She had clearly forgot that part! No candles, no colored frosting...just brown on brown cake. At home all I had was chocolate chips...more brown.

So I think about it...what does Sadie like...well Sadie is a horeback rider! She grew up with horses, she goes riding at the equestrian center on campus every chance she gets...and lucky for me, horses can be brown! As the cake baked, I planed out my design, and ended up having a lot of fun with it. Here you can see my end result. Anja decided to take my scraps and make "horse acessories"...including a horseshoe and a pile of horse dung.

The real test of my efforts came when Sadie saw the cake...and she was able to tell it was a horse!