Christmas

It's been a while since posting here.  I've been busy with life and really haven't made many cakes.  I spent Christmas Eve baking up a batch of goodies and spent time with my granddaughter making a gingerbread house (her own special one).  I taught her the correct method for holding a decorator bag....

 

Not bad, eh?  She'll soon become my assistant.

We had a grand day of baking.

 

Here are the results!

Lots of yummies for our tummies.

 

And a last minute Christmas Cake.  

The original idea was to have presents around the tree and some poinsettias in place of a few bows, but time was NOT on my side.  It was delicious and the family loved it...that is all that matters to me!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I found this wonderful recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog.

I love zucchini bread and thought that with the addition of chocolate, what could go wrong? 

Absolutely nothing!

It was moist and fudgy.  It needed nothing to make it better.  (I added the strawberry to make the photo pretty.)

You can find the recipe here.  I omitted the nuts and chocolate chips, but found it rich enough that they weren't missed.  I may add the chocolate chips another time.

Enjoy!

Vacation, etc.

I've been on vacation.

Apparently, the blog design I used for my blog is no longer available.  So here I am back to my original blah design.  I think I'll leave it for now until I can find another design I like.  At least the white background shows off my photos much better!

So, before going on vacation we celebrated my beautiful granddaughter's 3rd birthday.  I made her a tinkerbell cake.  I made the top layer to resemble vines and leaves and incorporated her name and "happy birthday" into the vines.

It didn't come out too bad, but it is a bit busy looking.  Next time I try this I will go a bit easier on the vines and flowers.

Whoopie Pie Cake & the 4th of July!

This past weekend was not only the 4th of July, the wonderful birthday celebration of our great nation....but it was also my birthday!

Normally, my mother would make me her famous whoopie pie cake for me.  This is my all-time favorite cake; I even had her make one for my wedding.  Since she is two hours away from me and I was camping, I made it myself.  I prepared the cake before we left and made the frosting there.  My camper has a nice little prep-area that was just perfect for putting this cake together.

Presentation wasn't all that important in the making of this cake, considering it was just for the family and we were staying in a pop-up camper, so you'll have to excuse the crumbs and the pillow in the background.

It's very simple to make and put together.  Simply use a box cake mix (I like Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge) and use the filling recipe for whoopie pies that can be found here.

Next year, enjoy a piece on the 4th of July and then go enjoy the fireworks.  I'll be right there with you in spirit!

Blessings!

Whoopie Pies

Okay, so this has nothing to do with cake decorating or their accessories, but whoopie pies are just like cake, so I’m honoring them here.

This past weekend, we attended the second annual Whoopie Pie Festival. What a treat for us whoopie pie lovers. We get to sample many wonderful flavor creations by some very talented bakers. My family & I actually spent the weekend in a local campground so that we could attend the festival. It could become an annual tradition.

So, what is a whoopie pie you might be asking?

Wikipedia defines it this way: A whoopie pie (alternatively called a gob, black-and-white, bob, or "BFO" for Big Fat Oreo) is a baked good made of two round mound-shaped pieces of chocolate cake, sometimes pumpkin cake, with a sweet, creamy frosting sandwiched between them. While considered a New England phenomenon and a Pennsylvania Amish tradition, they are increasingly sold throughout the United States.[1] According to food historians, Amish women would bake these (known as hucklebucks at the time) and put them in farmers' lunchboxes. When farmers would find these treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!"

Here is a picture to help you get the idea.

Whoopie pies are wonderful and can be made with many different flavor combinations. My favorite is chocolate with peanut butter filling made by the Isamax Company. (my providing this link in no way shows favoritism or free advertisement for their whoopie pies.  I just happen to love them. I encourage others to send me their links and I will be happy to put them up for you!)  However, thanks to the Whoopie Pie Festival, I was able to taste many wonderful flavor combinations this past weekend. A couple of my favorites was a molasses with hazelnut crème filling, and an apple with regular crème filling. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Here is the recipe I use for a simple chocolate with white frosting filling. If you’ve never had them, give them a try, you’ll be so happy you did.

Recipe

1/2 c shortening
1 C sugar
2 egg yolks
5 TB baking cocoa
2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling

1/5 C shortening
2.5 C confectioners sugar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix shortening and sugar together. Add egg yolks and vanilla. Sift together flour, cocoa, soda and salt. Add dry ingredients, alternating with milk to first ingredients. Drop by round tablespoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool. Mix all ingredients for filing and beat well. Spread on flat side of one whoopie pie and top with another pie, flat side towards filling.

Enjoy!

Father's Day

I haven’t had much time to blog here, although I have lots to blog about. I have some pretty things I want to show you, but every time I want to take a picture of them, my camera battery is dead or I’m busy doing something else.

I’m in love with cake plates. I have discovered that I love to make my own. Unfortunately, while I can tell you about them here, I still don’t have any pictures to show you.

I did find some lovely plates at a couple of yard sales this past weekend that will make beautiful foundations for my cakes. I will, I will take pictures of them this week!

I do have some other pictures for you though. DD #2 (dear daughter) wanted to make a cake for her #1 Dad this weekend, in celebration of Father’s Day. She designed it, I made it. However, we have discovered that you should never, ever attempt to frost a cake when it’s 90 degrees out and extremely humid. Unless you have an air-conditioned kitchen! We don’t have an air-conditioned kitchen; we have no need to here in the Northeast.

So the frosting drooped just a little and the shell piping and stars wouldn't form. I can just hear the wicked witch of the west screaming “I’m melting, melting, melting…..” 

#1 Dad loved it though and DD #2 was very excited and proud to present it to him.  It was the start of a very nice Father's Day.  You can read about the rest of the day here.

My latest creation (and a bit of a disaster)

I think it only right to show my disasters, along with my other (better) creations.  I made this cake for a friend's shower.  Unfortunately, I had my granddaughter with me and she is a bit of a distraction.  The first thing you'll notice is that I didn't level out the top layer of the cake before frosting.  What can I say?  My sweet GD wanted my attention.

I also messed up the lettering.  It's not straight and the effect didn't come out the way I planned.  I started with white lettering and then planned to use a gel over the top of it to give it a popping out effect.  The black gel was too black and it just didn't work.

On a positive note, my roses are getting better!

Now I need to work on a backdrop for my photos.  Notice the lovely, OLD, tv trays in the background.  hahaha.

I made this cake for my son's welcome home party.  My extremely handsome and very brave son serves in the US Army as an MP.  He recently returned from a tour in Kuwait.  So grateful that he's home safe and sound.

This cake is a marble cake, with chocolate fudge frosting.  The edges have dark and white chocolate drizzled along them.  Yummy strawberries finish it off.  And yes, I know I spelled my own son's name wrong.

Practice makes perfect!

Ok, here is cake no. 2. I was trying to make it look like the cake plate it was sitting on. This was a "just for fun" cake.

My very first cake.  Not a bad first attempt, huh?  I made this for the ladies in my bible study.  It took me two nights to put together (I work full-time, so I can only work on my cakes at night.)