I started decorating cakes when I was in 2nd grade or so. I bought a Wilton cake decorating kit from the Channel 15 (Public TV) fundraising auction. I haven't done very much cake decorating since I started college. I miss having my Mom make the frosting and clean up after me! As for baking, I've enjoyed that since I was a kid, too. My brother and I used to make some pretty yummy brownies from scratch. It was fun to bake for my friends at MIT because they thought anything homemade (even if it was from a mix) was good.
This cake for my brother's 36th birthday was an all-day family project. Dad supplied the idea and a sketch of Scott's new John Deere tractor, and Mom and I did the rest. The experimental chocolate frosting/Oreo crumb "dirt" was very tasty!		Although my Mom turned 65 in January, we celebrated in October - hence the pumpkin cake.

I made this cake for Seth's 25th birthday, which came right after the installation of the transfer arm in our lab (LOOE = Lab of Organic Optics and Electronics). The transfer arm is a long stainless steel tube with lots of flanges coming off of it. The flanges on the cake are approximately 2 3/4 inch conflats, but they have the wrong number of bolts--oops!		This one was in honor of Joe and Margery's engagement. I borrowed the heart pans from Jane. All of the cakes I made at MIT suffered from the absence of my Mom (the frosting maker) and my complete cake decorating kit.

Sung Hoon and Conor at Sung Hoon's birthday party in Vladimir's office. Hopefully there isn't anything confidential written on the white board! Conor is holding Sung Hoon's USA Colle pencil case which was the inspiration for the cake.		I made the real frosting all by myself, and now that I can do that, the sky is the limit! Except that I have to clean up after myself, too. This was a fun cake to decorate. "Being seen is good, and dressing up is fun!"

Steve can decorate cakes, too! He even baked the cake, but I made the frosting. I didn't give him much to work with--just one frosting color--but he did a good job.		October 14, 2002--the last day of my 20's! I'm glad I didn't have to blow out 30 (or 29.997) candles!		This cake doesn't really deserve to be on this page, since it took me all of 30 seconds to "decorate" it, but I wanted everybody to know I'm not the only old one (November 22, 2002).

Steve doesn't usually get too excited about baking, but he seemed to have fun decorating these Christmas cookies. He got pretty fancy with the colored sugar! (This was Christmas at Steve's parent's house in New York.)		Even Merry likes to help(?) make cookies!