At least it's edible

The day after the pipe cleaner shower, me and my MOH attempted to make our version of a Chicago style hot dog for the groom's cake (this is what we called a dry run, though in reality we had one hell of a watery mess all over the place).

This is our inspiration

To make it even more of a challenge our wedding coordinator and her fiance wanted to come and watch us try to make this thing along with my old roommate. So we had a full apartment watching me make an ass out of myself.

The first thing that I did way back was actually make the cake part. I used a loaf pan to bake the cake and then put it in the freezer for a few days to make it easier to handle. On the day of, I pulled the freezing cold thing out and started to carve it to look like a hot dog.

My MOH had the brilliant thought to use our vegetable peeler to make the curves of the hot dog. It worked out a lot better than me using our bread knife (which caused a nice gash on my finger before I switched).

Meanwhile she made some icing (and by some I mean more icing than a herd of 4th graders can eat) as well as started the rice krispie bun and I began the horrible horrible experience of trying to use fondant. We'd gotten some simple colored stuff from the local Hobby Lobby that was not in the mood to cooperate.

I swore and sweated trying to get the thing to roll out and also keep it from breaking (I failed a lot). We got the hot dog part covered pretty well but that bun was gonna be impossible, we just didn't have enough fondant in one color. So one side was yellow and the other orange.Meet our play-doh hot dog. The colors on the box had looked much more toned down and well more hot dog colored, but upon pulling it out we realized that it was actually a neon pink, orange and yellow.

But we kept plugging along. We had lots of other toppings to add, my old roomate smooshed up some lime jello with pineapple in it to make the relish while I added the tomatoes (cherry pie filling).

My MOH frosted a cookie with different colored green icing (I managed to dye one of my fingers bright green while messing with the food dye). Those were put on top to be the cucumber slice. The less we talk about the "pickle" the better.

This is the final product (minus the poppy seeds) and well we learned a lot of stuff. For one only the hot dog is gonna be covered in fondant, two we're leaving the pickle off, and three we're gonna make stronger rice krispies by mashing them up (also if I am anywhere near dye I have to wear gloves).

The only thing left to do was to try eating it. Oh man you want to talk about a sugar overload, we all only got through some of the cake before we had to give up. It's sad but I think it looked a lot better after we'd cut into it.

Well now I just have to try to make it again all by myself the wedding week. I'm insane aren't I?

I am permenantly orange

Friday night after the hair trial my MOH got in for the weekend with her son.

While he and my fiance were busy playing "do you know where my shirt comes from" we started to make mints for the wedding.

We have a very simple a lazy way of making mints.

Step 1: Melt some almond bark in a microwave or a crockpot.

Step 2: Attempt to turn melted almond bark a pretty color and add some Mint flavor.

Step 3: Realize that the powdered dye you got for the almond bark is going everywhere so now all you touch is orange.

Step 4: Have your friend scoop out the colored minty bark into some molds.

Step 5: While you use a pumice stone on your hands she can put the trays into the freezer.

Repeat steps til all the almond bark is gone or your hands are now a gorgeous brown vomit color.

We did also have an interesting time of the red ones, we started out using burgandy powdered food dye which made the bark look like blueberry yogurt. As we were definetly not going for that color we started adding more and more dye so that in the end I added just enough red and orange so that it looked like chocolate as opposed to something else that is brown and not appetizing. (We did use chocolate almond bark as well, that was by far the tastiest)

It wasn't til sunday that we finally found a food dye perfect for almond bark. It has to be oil based, so if you want to try doing this for your wedding or any other get together make sure you find some oil based dyes or you'll have a big mess on your hands.

Can you build it?

Um, well we're gonna try anyway.

My MOH and I are nuts. There is just no denying that fact. For her wedding we decided to make all her mints using almond bark and adding food dye. Bad idea. Turns out that makes the melted almond bark turn all chunky so we had to add tons of oil to fix it.

Then there was the time we were making hobbit costumes and she thought that to make the feet we should just get some spray insulation foam, spray that onto our shoes and then shape it. In then end our hands were covered in sticky goo we couldn't get off and I had a big glob in my hair. (In the end we just stuffed and spray painted some toe socks)

Now we've decided to try and take on making my groom's cake (or his groom's cake, someones groom cake). My fiance has said that what he really wants is a Chicago style hot dog, what with him being from Chicago and loving food and all.

If you've never seen one they put everything short of mayo and sardines on these things. So we've sat down and tried to figure out all the stuff to make this hot dog work.

• Hot dog - use red velvet cake and then try shaping with and covering with fondant
• Bun - rice krispie treats (thank you Ace of Cakes)
• Poppy seeds on the bun - chocolate chips
  
• Onions - coconut (which I hate but he can't eat onions anymore so it might go on the side)
• Tomatoes - chop up some cherries
• Pickle Relish - a fruit salad with kiwi, apples, melons, and some green syrupy thing
• Cucumber - cookie that we frost to look green
• Pickle spear - possibly a banana we dye green
• Hot peppers - no idea, maybe no one can have them

As you can see from that long list we are in way over our heads. I've baked some (banana bread is the best I can pull out and we all know how well that goes over) and my MOH has a cake decorating kit but I fear we're gonna be doing a lot of test bakes and eating a whole lot of cake.

Is anyone else plotting something equally insane for their wedding or are you smartly just trusting the professionals?