Mothers Day

So, as I have said before, this was a busy week for me. I made chocolate covered marshmallows, cake bites, cookies and cake! The cakes: two of them were yellow cakes with chocolate butter cream frosting. Love that chocolate butter cream, hmmmmm! The roses are made of vanilla butter cream. I have gotten over my hesitation to make butter cream roses, finally got the hang of it. My writing still has something to be desired, but I am working on it. The 3rd cake was a favorite of mine, chocolate banana sour cream cake with cream cheese frosting. Funny story: the person who asked for this cake requested that it be made with "egg beaters". I said, "sure, I can do that." I go shopping and pick up the "Egg Beaters" come home and tuck the carton into the frig. I proceed with my baking, so pleased with my self because the cakes were beautiful. Later on I am out walking with my husband and he asks how the "egg beater" cake came out and I said "Oh, S---!". I come home in a panic, have to bake another. As you may have deduced, I forgot to use the "egg beaters" and I don't have enough banana. Donald runs out to three local markets, no bananas! Thank God for good neighbors! One phone call and I had my banana and a pleasant visit from the young couple and their adorable baby from up the block. They saved the day. The cake looked great although it did not rise as much as "real" egg cakes. I am waiting to hear how it tasted.

chocolate on chocolate

Some of the local churches take turns providing monthly birthday cakes for a neighborhood nursing home. May is our month, and seeing how I love to bake I volunteered to make 2 dozen cupcakes. I made this commitment over a month ago not realizing this was for the Wednesday before Mothers Day. I was so busy this week, so I decided to do something quick. Ganache is easy to make and then it's just a matter of dipping the cupcake and "voila" it is iced! Place a flower on top and there you have it! They were not only good to eat but pleasant to behold!

Your Name in Lights, no, wait, I mean Cookies

I think this is such a fun way to display your name, or express a sentiment. Then you can eat your words!! hahahaha!

Say Yes to the....Cookie

Not too long ago I started watching "Say yes To The Dress" on TLC. Before long, I was addicted and anxiously looked forward to each episode. I must have seen everyone of them because now I am seeing just reruns, which I watch anyway. I am fascinated by all that lace and tulle. I thought it would be appropriate to make wedding dress sugar cookies. These are not bad for a first attempt, and since I learn from every experience, I am sure the next batch will be even more beautiful.

Spring

Yay!!! Spring is here and whose thoughts don't turn to flowers and butterflies, especially the kind you can eat!

Brownie Bunny Eggs

My house smelled like chocolate last night! It was heavenly indeed! I made brownies, a Martha Stewart recipe that is out of this world. I take it a step further and cover them with a dark chocolate glaze. Since these are for Easter, I used an egg shaped cookie cutter and then decorated them with another glaze to give them that Easter egg like look. I took pictures, then quickly packed them up to send to my daughter Jess who will not be home for Easter this year :-(
I do hope they arrive intact.
The cute little characters in the picture are the M&M people that I used to give my girls on every holiday until they finally said "enough mom". I saved them and bring them out for the holidays. They make me smile!

Hippity Hoppity......

Yay, bunnies and chicks and eggs, oh my! It is that time of year when all the Bunny Beanie Babies come out of hiding and all the beautiful eggs I made with my girls when they were little get put on display. I was inspired by that memory to decorate sugar cookies. So, my girls, these are for you!

Butter Cream Roses

I usually make my flowers out of royal icing. Two reasons: they are so much easier to place on the cake and sometime I like to paint them. I have been shying away from butter cream roses, I find them so temperamental. Sometimes they fall over before I get to finish them, sometimes they are too soft and just lose their shape and lastly, they are hard to place on the cake(for me anyway). Tonight I figured out that if I put them in the refrigerator for a little while they are much easier to handle. Maybe I've gotten over my fear of them. I also kind of suck at lettering. (That may be a little harsh, perhaps I should say that I struggle with it) I can do beautiful lettering on paper, but with frosting; my hand shakes. I guess I am afraid of making a mistake and it is a very hard mistake to fix. I'll have to practice until I get over it.
Anyway, this cake is an 8" yellow layer cake with.....butter cream frosting. It was made for a woman who wanted to surprise her husband at work. Donald will be bringing it in for me tomorrow. I hope they love it!

more marshmallow

Last time I made marshmallow I regretted not taking pictures of it while it was still gooey in the bowl. So this time I did. I think it is so pretty although a bit messy.

Thank You Pvt. Piren

Pvt. Jimmy Piren is going to Afghanistan to serve our country. His wonderful sister gave him a going away party and asked me to make a cake for the occasion. It was my honor and privilege to do so. The theme of the party was, of course, red, white and blue. The cake was a 1/2 sheet, one side vanilla, the other chocolate. It is filled and frosted with butter cream. The American Flag was made from fondant as were the stars. I wanted the flag to look like it was waving so, I draped it over the handles of two wooden spoons to give it shape. I made the flag to scale, having taken the dimension from an official flag website. For me, it was pretty labor intensive. I don't work too often with fondant, but it is a medium I would like to familiarize myself with.
To Pvt. Piren, I wish you all the best and will pray for your safe return. thank you for your service to our country.

For Donald on his birthday

My husband does not eat cake, but I needed to make one anyway. I took it to church because everyone loves cake (except Donald). This is a vanilla cake with white chocolate morsels in it. The morsels sunk to the bottom but it ended up to be a good thing. They added a nice sweet layer of crunchiness to the cake. A good idea that I will try again. The frosting is cream cheese which I could not stop piping on. It really was a tasty cake and quite pretty too.

Mountain of Marshmallow

My daughter Emily and her girlfriend Kate recently came home for a visit. Kate is a very energetic and creative individual. You can see her work at www.themidnightbaker.blogspot.com. Anyway, when we get together we love to get into the kitchen and get messy. This time we made marshmallows. I had never made them before but had the pleasure of eating them last Easter. Mind you, the car is packed and the keys are in Emily's hand, she wants to leave now. Kate has other ideas, like making marshmallows. It was fun and not to difficult. I wish I had taken a picture of the marshmallow dripping off the beater, it was so pretty! So, we got the marshmallows in the pan and said our goodbyes. Our visits are always too short.
The next day I took the marshmallows out of the pan and cut them up, dusted them with powdered sugar and then... the CHOCOLATE!!!!

For the bit of Irish in us all

As you know, St. Patrick's day is around the corner so I was inspired to make these wonderful sugar cookies. I got the recipe from my sister-in-law Joanne. I have always been a great fan of her cookie skills and a little jealous too. Every Christmas she would bake the most beautiful and delicious cookies and I always wondered how she managed it all. She was a regular Martha Stewart, I was not. I am happy to say that my cookie skills have greatly improved. Decorating them is what I really love.
Check these out...

Happy Birthday Mom

I made my mother a coconut cake as a special request for her birthday. I found this recipe in a food magazine and every time I make it, it is a little different from the last time. It was pretty yummy, at least I thought so. Everyone said they liked it but they are family and might not want to make me feel bad if they didn't. I brought a piece to my daughter Samantha, so I will have to ask her. She has no filter and will say whatever she thinks, I can always count on her for the truth.
The icing is a seven minute wonder, so sweet, mmmmm. I covered it with angel flake coconut and added some sweet little hearts.
I would love to try another recipe, so if anyone has one, please step forward!

p.s. how do I delete an image?

Not For Smashing

Do you remember the "Smash Cake" I made for the twins? Well this cake is similar and was meant to be eaten in a civilized manner. It was made for the twins birthday party. The cake was an 8" vanilla layer with butter cream frosting, filled with chocolate butter cream. The dots are made from flow in royal icing. I do hope they enjoyed it.
See the twins, Gavin and Leah, enjoying their cake at, www.summerlifephotography.blogspot.com

Happy Chinese New Year

I had an incredibly busy time leading up to Valentines Day. My mixer was on overdrive!
When somebody asked me to make a cake for the Chinese New Year, I could not resist. I knew there would be no time to make the Chinese symbols out of sugar but I also knew they were important to the theme of the cake. So, I improvised! I found something in the party store that I could use. I cut up money bags and sealed them in plastic which I put on the sides of the cake. In between the symbols, I piped branches and placed plum blossoms, which represent good fortune, on them. When it was time to decorate the top of the cake I decided to cut the symbols out of the rectangles and place them in the center of the blossoms. I liked the way this looked and wish I had done it to the sides as well. Time was an issue, so I had to leave well enough alone.
This cake was a 10" vanilla layer cake with chocolate butter cream frosting.

Cake For Two

These little darlings are 4" vanilla layers cakes. They are both filled with butter cream as well as frosted with it. The dark one is chocolate (obviously) ganche which I spiked out with a spatula. The top of the white one is covered with white chocolate ganache. Okay, there is a story here. What a mess! First of all, I had cut the circles out of a sheet cake, stacked them and proceeded to frost them. They crumbled and stuck to the frosting, it was extremely messy. So I patched them and carefully applied the crumb coat and let it set in the frig. The second coat of frosting went on nicely, yay! But then, I applied the white chocolate ganache and it caused the butter cream to fall off. Maybe I did not let it cool enough. The dark chocolate ganache behaved so differently. So I removed it all, except from the top and reapplied the butter cream. I gave them to an old friend who thought they were beautiful. The third cake that is pictured is also a 4" vanilla layer cake with butter cream frosting. I covered it with a pourable fondant that was I tinted pink, VERY pink! I can't decide it I like it or not. what do you think?

oh, so sweet cake bites

I decided to try my hand at cake bites again since I had leftover cake pieces and butter cream. This is chocolate sourcream devils food cake mixed with buttercream frosting and shaped into little balls. They were then dipped into a dark chocolate glaze and since it is Valentines Day and they needed something pink, I covered them with pourable fondant (much tastier than the packaged fondant I had previously used) and I topped them with some darling little sugar hearts.
Donald brought some into work and so many people loved them. I will be making a ton of them this week :-0