Just for Fun

Do you know how you save things, sometimes for years, just knowing you will need it some day? Well, I finally got to use one of those things. For my daughter's 13th birthday we did a tropical theme and bought little paper umbrellas to put in the drinks. All of them did not get used so I put them away knowing that someday I would need one. That was 8 years ago.
Fast forward to 2011. A friend of my husbands wanted a vanilla cake with pineapple filling. Pineapple made me think of the little umbrellas I had stashed away. This was also an opportunity for me to decorate a cake with something other than flowers.
This is the result. I think one umbrella is just enough. Great restraint was exercised not to use more because I wanted it to be about the pineapple

Wear Red (Velvet)

I love Red Velvet cake. I use the McCormick's recipe and it is delicious every time. This time I made cupcakes for someone who wanted a dozen for Valentines Day. I made a 6" cake with the rest of the batter. Damn, I burned the cupcakes! :-(
I have a cupcake pan that I have long suspected of burning cupcakes. I have two pans of different makes. Whenever I make two dozen they turn out different from each other but I could never remember which ones came out of which pan. Now I know for certain who the offending pan is and vow never to use that pan again! (oh, how I hate to throw stuff out that will end up in a landfill)
Anyway, the new batch came out perfect and was scrumptious. (I always sample)

More Cookies for Mom

My mothers birthday is very close to Valentines Day. My grandmothers birthday is on Valentines Day. I thought some Valentine Hearts were in order for the occasion.

Tea Time

I made these cookies for my mother's birthday.
My sister decided that she wanted to make the birthday cake so, I graciously allowed her to. She made a German Chocolate Cake which was out of this world!
Back to the cookies. The recipe was my great, great grandmother's which she baked in a wood burning oven. My mother remembers eating these cookies when she was a little girl and she remembers that they were good. Back then I guess they would have been pretty tasty seeing how sweets were a rare treat. I found them to be bland and dry therefore decided they needed some icing. This addition greatly improved the taste and the looks. I had to guess at the time and temp., which I got right on the second try. Why, you may wonder, did I make teapots? Two reasons; #1. I found teapot cookies cutters at N.Y Cake & Baking Distributors and could not resist buying them.
#2. My great, great grandmother called theses cookies "Tea Cakes", so I thought it would be appropriate to use these cookie cutters. My mother was surprised and pleased which made me very happy.