Visions of Sugar Plums

I've been so excited all week about finishing and photographing this, my latest creation, so that I could post it and finally, here it is! It's my first artificial cake, and I'm reasonably pleased with it. At the very least it was great fun to make. The first of anything that I make, I find, is very seldom the best, but almost always the most enjoyable. I'm teaching myself cake decorating; even though my icing isn't real, the piping of it is pretty much the same as if I were icing a real cake. It isn't as easy as I'd anticipated...I have a newfound respect for all the cake decorators out there! So, anyway, here's my first (hopefully of many- I already have another one in the works) fake cake prototype...an expansion, I suppose, of The Houses on Peppermint Lane since the gingerbread house is made from the same template as #1 Peppermint Lane which I blogged about last week. I think I may be applying some of these new techniques I've recently developed to some Halloween decorations, and put the Christmas on hold for a month or so. We'll see...and I'll let you know how it goes!



Speaking of sugar plums- I have a poem I think is fitting for this post...and it's just too sweet not to share!

The Sugar Plum Tree

by Eugene Field

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.

When you 've got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below---

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:

You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground---

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

Sending happy weekend thoughts your way-

sweetly, happily, and artfully yours,

randi