Let the adventure begin! My last day of school was May 18th. I have since enjoyed the last couple days cuddling with my kids. Another stay at home mother told me she doesn't work for the shine of her home, but for the shine in her children's eyes. I found that to be very fitting.

Finished Corn Free Retirement Cake

The adventure began by being asked to make a retirement cake for a couple teachers. The challenge being that one is allergic to corn. I don't know how many of you have read ingredients, but everything includes corn! I used a cake recipe (most boxed cakes have corn products) and found that I was out of all purpose flour. I usually make my own flour since we are wheat farmers and so it had gone unnoticed. The good Lord was on my side because the cakes were perfect even with whole wheat flour. Then came the frosting. I thought about fondant,but didn't have the substitutes to make corn free fondant. Once again checking products along the way. Checking shortening and margarine, the obvious things. I make a batch of frosting and ran out of powdered sugar in my container and grabbed a new bag. Heading out of the pantry I happened to look at the ingredients and corn starch is the anti-caking agent. One batch of frosting that I can't use. I start the process of making my own powdered sugar. 1/2 cup of sugar at a time in the food processor, but it still wasn't getting fine enough. My husband thoroughly enjoys his coffee to my advantage this time. I cleaned out his coffee grinder and it worked wonderfully at making powdered sugar unfortunately in very small batches. I finally had the frosting made (Wilton's Buttercream Recipe). I went to start coloring the frosting and found that gel colors contain corn syrup. Plain food coloring works! My frosting was not as smooth and creamy as with store bought powdered sugar, but was acceptable and the flavor was still good. Everyone loved that cake and the best part for me was that Linda was able to enjoy her cake.

Oh, remember I said this was an adventure. Before I started decorating the cake I went to check on my goat, Ebony, who had been in the process of kidding all day and still we didn't have babies. When I checked her she was having complications and I pulled both her kids. I was not able to save them. After finishing this I washed my hands at least six times and set to work and finally finished the cake at midnight.