Easy Beef and Noodles

What was I watching?......oh some show and they were making beef and noodles. It looked so good I had to whip some up. But I did not have everything the recipe called for, and I was to lazy to hop in the car and go shopping.

So like any good cook I used what I had:
Rump Roast almost 2 pounds; 1 small onion; 4 oz. can of mushroom pieces with stems; 4 packs of mushroom gravy and egg noddles.

Season the roast with salt, pepper and garlic powder. I browned the roast in a couple of tablespoons of oil and placed it in my favorite baker. Tossed the mushrooms into the same pan with a little butter and cooked the mushrooms until brown.

Put those on top of roast and then topped that with fresh chopped onions. Mix the mushroom gravy according to the packet instructions, and pour it over the roast. Toss in a couple of teaspoons of dried rosemary. Put the cover on and roast until cooked through.....the meat fell apart it was so good.

When ready to serve, I boiled off the egg noodles; drained and placed them on the serving dish. I shredded the beef with a couple of forks and stirred to combine with gravy. Pour over your egg noodles and enjoy with some good crusty bead and butter. 

  

Ryan Dungey Cake

So a friends hubby was turning the big Three O this year. She wanted to have a grand surprise party and of course a great cake. Justine the birthday boy, is a big fan of Ryan Dungey. A fab dirt bike racer, if your not sure who he is.

So after considering several options from a carved cake, to using a buttercream transfer. I decided on an frosting sheet. I found a pic of Ryan Dungey and went to my local bakery and they printed the pic on the frosting sheet.

Next I made copies of Dungey sponsors to tie the whole theme together. They were made of gum paste and fondant. For the Makita I used gum paste that I tinted red. I rolled it out and using a paring knife I cut around a template I made.

When working with gum paste you want to work quickly, as the gum paste dries very fast. Fondant you can take more time with, but you must cover any gum paste and fondant you are not using, with Saran wrap to keep it from drying out.

The next piece was the Rockstar symbol, I used gum paste for this as well. I tinted some dough with yellow gel food coloring and rolled it out and used a template I made to cut out the image. 

I used a pencil to draw a boarder about a 1/4 inch from the edge. I cut out the double R's of the template using a crafters knife.  Taped it down over the gum paste star and painted it with black gel food coloring.

I then painted the boarder with food gel as well....

I did the same for the Fox symbol......

This is the completed piece (sorry for the poor quality pic).......

For the Nike symbol I used both gum paste and fondant. I didn't have anymore white gum paste so I made do with what I had. I then painted the swoosh with food gel.

I rolled out yellow gum paste and used to different sized circle cookie cutters to get the yellow ring and then filled it in with white fondant. I used cookie cutters to make the Target symbol too.   

For the checkered flag I cut a piece of gum paste in a slanted rectangle.
To get the curve of a flag I placed the gum paste on top of chopsticks and used the handle of a pairing knife to hold up one edge to give it a slight curl. (as shown below)

The cake it self was a half sheet, three layers of chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling, and frosted in vanilla buttercream.

The finished cake........