Going Out In Style

I aspire to retire one day.  So you can understand why I take great pleasure in helping coworkers who have so deservedly reached that milestone celebrate.  Linda Gore is one of the finest 4-H Youth Development Extension Agents in the state of North Carolina as well as a good friend.  When another incredible 4-H Agent asked if I would do the cake I was honored, and needless to say jumped at the opportunity.
I have to admit retirement cakes stump me.  Finding a cake that represents that time, effort, and incredible impact a person has had at their career is difficult.  So I will say I turned to my new friend Pinterest.  After searching several retirement cake designs I combined several ideas to come up with this cake.  Since we were planning for 200 I had lots of opportunity to express what I needed to, but I also had to remember it was likely much of administration would be there so nothing too funny.  So in my mind I planned out the perfect cake, hoping I would come close to what I saw in my minds eye.
About three days before the event the number of folks in attendance was dropped to 100 which made this cake at least one tier shorter and a little easier on me figuring out how to get all the layers into the freezer at one time.  Frozen and base coated I loaded up the cake and headed to Moore County which is about a ninety minute drive.  Once there I worked to construct the cake and finish decorating it.  That included a couple of last minute additions and deletions to my design.  A 4-H clover was added to the side to cover the start and end of the ribbon on the second tier.  The hanging clovers from the top were a whole other issue in patience as the plan I had in my head had to be re-engineered to work.
In the end the three teir off white cake was made with three two layer butter cakes.  The writing on the front, "Linda the end is just a new beginning" was done in pure white to let it stand out from the base off white.  A green ribbon and floating clovers helped accent the cake.  As far as the lady of honor, well she cut her cake and shared it with the masses there to honor her and celebrate her special moment.  She enjoyed the cake and there was just a bit left for her (and anyone else) to take home to remember this special event.  

The Sweet Taste of Retirement

  I am starting to really enjoy the edible image printer I have and so are other folks.  It is amazing that I now get more orders for folks wanting edible image cakes which is how this order started.  A colleague called and asked if I might be able to make an edible image cake for the retirement of one of her husband's colleagues.  She had designed the invitation and wanted the invitation as the image.  No problem there.  So a quick e-mail later we had the custom image ready to go.  A butter cake to feed about 100 in the colors on the invitation.  Sounds simple right?  It would be except for one thing, Mother Nature.
Thanks to a predicted ice and snow storm the retirement celebration had to be postponed a few weeks.  Fortunately, I had some sort of sixth sense, and an unscheduled trip halfway across the country, that kept me from baking the first cake.  So two days before the rescheduled event the baking began with about a pound of butter, flour, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla, powdered sugar, shortening, and other baking goodies.  After freezing the butter cake it was time to ice it.  After successfully placing the edible image on the cake it was time to fill in with borders.  The cake made it to the party and I have no doubt after this send off, retirement was really sweet.

Trying Something New for Retirement

  Most people who retire are ready to sit back and enjoy all the things they haven't had time to do.  Rarely does that list include house cleaning, laundry or mowing the yard.  Usually it is things like traveling, taking up a hobby, devoting time to church or other organizations.  For this lady, I have no doubt retirement means just devoting time to other areas of her life that bring her so much happiness.
  Not long before this post I had a retirement celebration cake post for this person.  So when her sister asked me to make a cake for her for another retirement celebration that her family was throwing for her I was a little befuddled because I put my all into that last cake.  When this sister called me and asked me to do the cake just like the last one but not tiered and no clovers, I was once again befuddled.  So I went with the old standby, what colors are you decorating in?  She said orange and green.  So I had to ask, dark, bright, pastel?  "I don't know it's orange and green.  Not 4-H green not evergreen just green."  With time being of the essence I said OK and starting trying to figure out how to do this cake.
  I did three cakes again of different sizes but did not tier them.  Knowing my pallet was green and orange I threw in a little white to balance things out and went to work.  The first cake I decorated with a white base and orange and green polka dots.  The next cake had an green base with orange polka dots, and the last cake had a orange base with green polka dots.  Mind you I still had two issues.  The first was that I still didn't think these cakes said, "Aggie." The second problem was that I did not know exactly what shades of green and orange I needed to match the decorations, so it either matched or clashed.  I had no idea and no way to fix it at this point.  Since there was no way to address the second problem I went straight to the first.  To make this cake more Aggie like I worked with a new medium, color flow.  Essentially it is an egg white powder that you mix with water and confectioners sugar to make a writable and edible objects to put on cakes.  I decided for my first time out to make an A and a R, the retirees initials.  Now please don't think that I am so talented to do this on my own, I printed out the letters and placed wax paper on top of them so that I could trace them with the color flow.  It take 24-48 hours for this to dry and then you peel it off the wax paper and place on top of the cake.  So I waited until the next day and packaged up the letters in a Ziploc with instructions to place on the cake.
  Believe it or not this was a particularly busy weekend for cakes, so this one I delivered to my office for the family to pick up since the party would be on Saturday and I had to travel to Virginia for the rest of the weekends cakes.  Now here is the other kicker.  I was told the party was a surprise.  So when I got a call at 5 pm on the Friday before the party saying the cake had not been picked up, I was slightly panicked.  We could not call the honoree because she did not know about the cake or the party (I found out later that she knew about the party, but not the cake) so who would we call?  the sister who contacted me did not answer at the number I had.  Fortunately, our receptionist at the office, thought to call another sister to come get the cake.  Unfortunately the letters got left behind when the cake got picked up so the final Aggie touches were never put on the cake.
  After the event, I was told that Aggie was tickled with the cake.  As a matter of fact her daughter apparently walked in after the celebration program and took the small cake and put it away for herself and left the two larger cakes for the rest of the crowd.  As it turned out the colors on the cake matched the decorations to a T.  Aggie had no idea about the cakes until she walked back and saw them, and I was happy to add to her special day, again.        

It Really is a Celebration

This is one of those bittersweet moments that I am finding myself and this cake wrapped up in. You see someone that I have worked with for the last 10 years is retiring. Lets call her Aggie. Now on one hand I hate it because I can't imagine Aggie not being at the office everyday, working side by side with her on something she is so passionate about. On the other hand I am so happy for her that I could turn cartwheels. After 17 years of giving, toiling, making the best better, she now has time to enjoy the things most important to her. She can spend time with family, friends, and do the things she wants to do without a second thought. Of course when someone gives so much of themselves it is imperative that you throw one humdinger of a celebration. For Aggie, humdinger doesn't quite cover it. As part of the celebration it was important to have just the right cake.
If you know Aggie you know that there is a special flair that was needed for this to make it representative of her. She always says she bleeds green, so we needed to include the 4-H clover. She is also big into polka dots lately. Not conservative little dots but big, bold dots that stand up and get your attention. Aggie is also allergic to chocolate which made it that much easier to get ermine that the inside would be a butter cake. Also, if you know Aggie, you know she is all about the sparkle. this is what let me come up with a cake that represents Aggie. The cake had to feed about 100 so i knew it had to be tiered. The design was a no brainer. Black with white polka dots on the bottom, green with 4-H clovers in the middle, and white with black polka dots on the top.
I had thought about putting fireworks on top for extreme sparkle but decided the fire marshall might get me for that so I settled for some sparkle cake candles. What I didn't know was that the candles were trick candles and when I put them in it was a little late to come up with a plan B. When it was time to cut the cake the candles added a little levity to what could have been a somber moment.
Aggie made sure the first piece of cake went to her pastor, and from there it was on. We cut and served cake like it was going out of style. All in all I would say it was a wonderful celebration of Aggie's 17 year career as well as a celebration of her life to come. Happy retirement Aggie!

A Retirement Special

After more than 30 years with one organization a person deserves a party with a really special cake. I have to give you just a little background to this story and this cake. You see our esteemed County Extension Director, Everett Davis, decided to retire from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. Now he didn't want a party, and well we (I believe there were three of us) did our best to twist his arm and he finally relented. What he didn't expect is that there would be almost 200 of his clients, friends, coworkers, and family who would show up to celebrate his incredible career.

Of course knowing Everett like I do (I have been his 4-H agent for the last eight years), I knew there were many things that could be on the cake. He has a crops background, sold tractors, was in the Navy. He loves to play golf, travel, and fish. He is a long time church member, member of the fair board, and loves N. C. State University and his family. Try getting all of that on a cake and come up with a saying that fit the fun yet bittersweet occasion was tough. Not to mention the cake had to be big enough for a growing guest list in the hundredsSo we started with a basic golden butter cake. To make the amount of servings we needed it had to be two tiers. However to allow for decorating the square cakes were stacked in a manner that allowed me to decorate the top tier and the corners of the bottom tier. We picked some of his favorite things to decorate the cake. One corner had a farm scene complete with tractor and a North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service sign (marketing even as he headed to retirement). One corner had a golfer, since I heard through the grape vine that one of his gifts would be a year's membership to a local golf course. One corner had a fishing scene since that is something he talked about frequently and was looking forward to doing with family members. The last corner had an airplane to represent the travel he enjoyed and the tours he was getting ready to put together as his retirement career as a tour coordinator. On top it was decided we should say Bon Voyage, since he was sailing on to the next adventure.

The cake was not the only feature, I made candies in the shape of the N. C. State University Block S logo. This decorated the side of the cake and we also had a plate of them for people to enjoy. All in all the cake was a hit. I promise after cutting it I did not bring any back home with me and Everett seemed pleased with the entire event, which was a proper send off for the man who lead us all these years.