Our Beloved Early Childhood Educator is leaving :(

I've made a couple of cakes in the last couple of days for our loved teacher Tania.  She has taught my two oldest boys and waited just as impatiently as I did for #3 to turn up, she has been a part of my life for the last 3 and 3/4 years.  Dont worry I bake so she's not going far for long :) 

Anyhow the first cake I made was a shallow 10" square cake that has been plainly iced in white and is awaiting the children's drawing with edible markers tomorrow.  I have made and painted some stars with her name spelt out

The stars have been wired so we can stick them in the cake.  The cake is a plain yellow cake split into three and 3 different colours and then marbled.  Filled and crumb coated in SMBC.

I have also made a 2 layer 9" cake for her to take home.  This is a new chocolate cake recipe for me and it called for almond essence and despite my reservations I added it anyhow.  I think if I make this particular recipe again I wont add it and will just double the Vanilla extract.  It has been filled with SMBC but coated in ganache then covered in fondant.  It also had my first ever attempt at people modelling.  I had two different faces going the other more elaborate but didn't look like the components of the face belonged together so didn't use that one and went with the more simple one.  Not really all that pleased with it but one can only improve...  The flowers were made using a cutter and then me being the cheap arse I am formed them in a egg carton because I'm too tight to pay for a former.  Lol, nevermind.  I really should buy one though!

The last photo is of my ganaching of the cake.  While it is far from perfect I can tell you that my crumb coating has come a very very long way!  So I'm proud of it even though it is still far from perfect.  A lot of my trouble with stuff like this is that rather than taking as much time as it takes is that I am racing the baby clock - when will he wake up, because I know that once he's up I'm not doing it.