Polka-Dot Cake

This weekend we had a family celebration for my Grandpa and mom's birthdays and I was in charge of bringing the cake.

I'm a confident and proud cookie and cupcake maker but cakes…

Well… I'm not so good with cake.

It's always one of the first questions people ask when they see my cookies/cupcakes. "Do you make cakes?"

no

Honestly… I'm just not all that interested in cake decorating. Maybe it's because there's usually only one cake and one chance to get it right. If you screw up on a cookie or cupcake it's no big deal. I don't know… I'm just not a cake decorator.



Anyway… for the birthday thing, I thought I would just make cupcakes. Then, my son & I stopped at the candy shop when we were at the mall yesterday and I saw these sprinkled chocolates. I remembered seeing this polka -dot cake in one of my vintage Betty Crocker cookbooks and I just had to give it a try.



I tried to show the cake at its best angle for this photo but, it was really a disaster. The top layer slid over, the frosting ran, the sprinkles bled… the only good thing about it was the taste. Thank goodness I went ahead and made the cupcakes too. Saved my pride a little bit.

Keeping Secrets is Hard!

We did it!

Remember in my last post how I said we had lots of things cookin' here? Well… we were cookin' up a surprise party for my mom. She's an occasional reader so I couldn't say anything about it.

Last weekend… That's right. One (just one) week ago…

My dad came over and suggested that we throw a surprise birthday party for my mom and a close family friend (Mrs. G) back in our home town (2 hours away from here). Sure… No problem. How many people are we talking about? …Ohhh… just a few, mostly just the teachers (my mom and dad both worked at the school back home) and a few other close friends. …Okay, so we're talking about 30-40 people right? …Probably.

So my dad and the close friend's husband (Mr. G) went about trying to organize this thing.
They both made a few phone calls to people in town and asked them to call others, sent out some e-mails, left some messages on answering machines and reserved the community center. Problem… they weren't telling people the same thing! People were given different party times, some were told to bring a covered dish, others were told it would just be cake and coffee. Sigh…

Meanwhile… Mr. and Mrs. G's kids and I were trying to coordinate on the food plans with no idea how many people to expect or really any idea what we were doing!

Since dad said he would provide the meat… on Wednesday, I went with him to get some already cooked barbeque pork. On Friday, after work, when the meat place was already closed… I was quickly told we didn't buy enough meat. No time for discussion, mom was just in the other room. No problem… I'll find some more meat.

Meanwhile… I'm in charge of cake or cupcakes. A normal person would probably just go to the bakery at this point or at least keep it simple, right? Not me… can't do simple… oh no… have to impress all the folks back home… sigh…

Decorations… I did my best.

Plates, cups, napkins, chips, buns… tried to think of everything. The other family took care of all the drinks and brought a roaster for the meat.

There were several times my dad said things that almost gave away the surprise. I was sure my mom knew something was up. She thought they were going home for the day to visit Mr. and Mrs. G and to go out to dinner with them and another couple. How they got my mom to the community center is another long and funny story but she really was very surprised. As they were walking into the building she even said "We can't go in there. There's people in there. They've got something going on."

Anyway… when it was all said and done I think we had 50-60 people come. We barely had enough meat, but I think everyone got to eat. I made about 55 cupcakes, so hopefully everyone that wanted one, got one. It all worked out. It was fun. Mom and Mrs. G were surprised. It was a great day and one we will be laughing about for a long time.

Starting to Cook!

We've got lot's of things cookin' around here and honestly… they all have priority over blogging.

But… I thought I'd at least try to share with you some Photoshop Brushes I created a while back. My plan was to make them downloadable.


Here's the thing… when I try to do something like this, I realize just how lacking in technical knowledge I am. I know how to create a Photoshop Brush set but not how or where to upload them so that you can download them. So, if you are a Photoshop user and would like a set of "frosting brushes", I'd be happy to e-mail them to you. Just let me know! They were created in CS3 using a Mac and are saved as an .abr. I'm not sure if they'll work with other versions or platforms. If there is a way to make them downloadable, let me know!


And, quickly… here's one of the cookbooks I found on my weekend junking trip. I thought the cover was fun. It's going in my etsy shop as soon as I find the time to scan some more pages and get it listed!

Some friends have gone through some hard times lately. For them, time seemed to stand still. Time flies when you're happy. Busy is good. I'm lucky to have every single one of the things I have to do.

Going to the Bar

Happy Valentines Day!

I just realized this is post #50! I also just realized that I started this blog on the lucky date of 7/07/07 (I wasn't thinking about that at the time!). It was March of last year that I started posting here on a more regular basis so that's what I'm considering my "blogiversary".

I'm celebrating by going to the bar!


Okay… it's a cheesy play on words. I'm talking about brownies and bar cookies.

The last time I went shopping for cake decorating supplies, I noticed that Wilton has a line of products out for making fancy brownies. They've had similar cupcake kits and the like out for a while. It made me wonder…

Are brownies the new cupcakes?

Naaah… I don't think so. I love brownies but they just don't have the same appeal as cupcakes. I can't imagine brownie printed fabrics and paper and other decorative things.

Never the less… I wanted to see what I could come up with to make brownies and bars more interesting and, in the end, I fell back on the standard practice of stenciling them. I was happy that I figured out how to color powdered sugar. You can't really see it in the picture, but I made some pink powdered sugar to sift over the letter stencils. I just stirred in some red powdered food coloring. It worked great!

The home updating/redecorating continues here. It's slow going as we've had lots of other things going on too. So… my house has been a complete disaster for the past couple of weeks. NOT FUN! It will be worth it though! The new flooring has been installed in the kitchen and the walls and trim have been painted. I think somewhere, in some "guy manual" there is a rule that says oak must never ever be painted. I broke that rule when I painted my trim and the hubby isn't too happy. Consequently… I will not be painting my oak cabinetry (like I wanted to) and I might have to live with deer antlers on my living room wall. Oh well… I'm soooo happy with the white trim in the kitchen, I can't wait to get all the trim in the living room painted too!


Wouldn't you know… in the midst of all the chaos… it was my son's turn to bring treats to school for the monthly bake sale. So we cleared a patch of counter space and made some Almond Bark Pretzel Rods. Quick, easy, cute, yummy and fun to work on together.

Instructions:

1. Melt almond bark in microwave following instructions on package
2. Dip pretzel rods
3. Place on wax paper
4. Sprinkle



I got out all my sprinkles and let E go to town. The chocolate jimmies came out of the jar kinda fast and the "OHH NOO!" expression on his face was priceless.
I happened to have some pretzel rod sized cellophane bags from Nashville Wraps on hand, so it was easy to individually wrap them and get them ready to go. I was told that they sold out in a hurry!