I received an email from the Jessica Green, the author of Diary of a Would-Be Princess. (At least, I think it was her… no telling these days with the Internet!) She said that she doesn’t have a website, but you can purchase her book from Scholastic Australia. 

Thanks, Jessica!

Well, I just finished Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince. I can honestly say that I predicted a few of the events before I got the book – but not all of them. They said this one was much darker than before, and boy is it darker… and it is very sad. Make sure you have lots of tissues handy for the last few chapters.

The grocery store on our corner stayed open late tonight to sell copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Andrew drove me over there at exactly 11:55pm to get in line. We pulled into the parking lot and immediately came upon a Gilbert Fire Department engine, fully lit, with an ambulance and 2-3 police vehicles with flashing lights. 

My first thought was, oh my goodness, somebody pulled a gun on another person in line and there was a fight over who got to buy it first. My second thought was, maybe somebody fainted because they couldn’t stand the anticipation of owning this amazing book!

Then we walked into the store, and realized that half the fire department and most of the police force were there… waiting to buy Harry Potter. Now that’s quite an emergency!

Off to read Chapter 3….

Well folks, this is it. This is my final Wilton cake. I’ve taken all three courses and completed all of the lessons. This final cake is chocolate fudge with buttercream vanilla icing and covered in fondant roses and leaves. Everything is edible except the pillars and the cake plates (those are plastic). 

And of course, the mandatory cheesiness:

This cake took me about 22 hours to complete. Andrew helped out a lot (thanks hun) and I’m sure the guys at work will love to gobble it up. Time for bed. I’m really sick of fondant roses. They don’t even taste good.

I wanted to practice stacked cake construction before my final Wilton class. In the final class we are actually making a tiered cake, so we never get to make a stacked set. The holiday gave me a reason to give it a try.  

The top 6″ and middle 8″ cakes are double-layer golden butter with chocolate creme centers. The bottom 10″ cake is double chocolate fudge with chocolate creme center. The outer icing is all whipped vanilla.

Of course, here is the mandatory cheesy grin picture:

This cake took me about 6 hours to complete. Too bad I can’t pawn it off on anyone! Nobody seems to want to eat it. I guess after making so many cakes for class everyone around me is sick of them.

I wish I could cut it up and dole it out to blog visitors! It’s too bad they haven’t perfected that whole material object transport protocol yet. MOTP?