60th Birthday Cake

A friend of mine from TWU recently asked me to make a cake for her mom's surprise 60th birthday party.  Considering she was my first "customer" I'm always flattered when she asks.  The theme was black, white, and red, and thankfully she only wanted white on the cake.  (Her party planner and I agreed that it's bad when your guests are walking around with red and black cake dye all over their tongues and lips!)  We traded a few designs and ideas and settled on a two-tier, wedding-style cake with a pearl theme.  She wanted a bowl of pearls spilling out around the cake, fondant pearls around the base of each tier, and white pearls on an ivory background. 

I made my usual buttercream frosting recipe with some ivory coloring.  The bottom tier was vanilla (white cake), and the top tier was red velvet.  I had enough red velvet left over to make a small, two-tier side cake in case she needed some emergency slices for unexpected guests.  I made some yummy marshmallow fondant by hand for the pearls around the base and painted them with pearl dust to give them that pearly glow.  At this point, the cake looks like this:

I had purchased a pretty glass dish (Libby glass, of course, for those of you who don't know my penchant for their stuff since my Louisiana days) for the pearls to spill out of and also picked up 10+ yards of stringed pearls from the craft store.  I was concerned that the glass bowl would lose its balance on the top tier, and compared to the luster of the painted fondant pearls I thought the string of pearls looked kinda cheap.  This is where I went into overachiever mode:

Yep, those are approximately 5.3 gazillion fondant pearls that I rolled for the cake.  Of course, I still had the concern about the top-heaviness of the glass bowl, so I took it a step further and, in keeping with the ivory/white theme, made my own bowl:

That is a bowl made of white chocolate, which matched the cake icing beautifully.  I filled the bowl with the tiny pearls and made four strands of those tiny pearls cascading around the cake:

As usual, I critique the finished product to figure out where I've grown and where I need to improve.  I am really happy to report that I sawed away at this cake's layers and avoided the lopsided-ness that was the castle cake of 2010.  (Funny enough, I read an article the day I baked and trimmed the cakes that said that frugal people have the hardest time levelling cakes because they are scared they're wasting perfectly good food...I so connected with that and it helped my rationalize what I was doing wrong!).  The area I'd like to improve upon is my icing smoothness and crumbiness (a real word, or at least it is now).  I don't know if it was particularly hot in my kitchen that day but even my Viva towel smoothing tricks weren't working.  I did the crumb coat but when I went to apply the final coat it rewetted the crumb coat and got crumbs in the final coat (especially red velvet, since it's dark red under a layer of white).  The good news about this cake is that I am more in love with the finished product than the picture I had in my head, and it usually doesn't turn out that way.  I'm so happy I took the time to make the tiny fondant balls and paint the big ones with the pearl dust.  It made it look so pretty, and it's a great technique that really gets you a lot of "pop" on the cake.

Getting there...

I've been working on crocheting a camisole for, oh, about a year now.  I put it down because it was going soooo slowly and also because I got a little distracted by an intense semester of grad work and other projects.  I recently picked it back up and added the tapered straps to the top and started on the back.  I plan on taking it with me to work on during our long flight to Canada this summer.  Maybe I'll finish it early enough in the trip to be able to wear it around on vacation!

More like "Feaster"

It's a little hard to focus on the real meaning of Easter when there's so much good food to be eaten.  Like Christmas, I need to remind myself of the God's love for us and the gift of His Son, and on this day above all else His sacrifice.  Days like Easter are about the fact that He loves us so much he sent His only Son so we won't have to spend an eternity apart from Him.  It makes that yummy food taste even sweeter to know love like that!

Since we were talking about food, here's a sampling of what I made today:

The classic Carrot-Raisin Salad

Coconut Cream Pie

My personal favorite:  Vera Cruz Tomatoes

The Vera Cruz Tomatoes are something I've been wanting to try for about 6 years but never found the occasion to do so since Adam won't eat this kind of stuff.  I found it in the back of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (the red plaid one that every kitchen should have!!).  My copy is the 75th anniversary edition, and in the back there's a special section that highlights favorite recipes from each decade that somehow lost their way over the years and are no longer in the books.  This is one from the 1960s and is delicious!  (It has bacon in it, so delicious is pretty much a guarantee.)  I don't want the cookbook people coming after me, but I found someone else who plagarized the recipe here (they changed it to Mexican blend cheese, but the original calls for mozzerella--go with that!).  I didn't melt the cheese on top, but instead mixed it in before stuffing the tomatoes.  They're good leftover, too. 

Happy Easter!

Adi

Baby Hartweg's Shower

Yea for Baby Hartweg!  We celebrated this little guy with a shower today.  His mom and dad have decided on Kepler as his first name, which is the name of an important astronomer, so it was only fitting that his shower be a star-studded event.

There were games, like guess how big Mommy's belly is (don't worry, it was Mommy's idea!):

and a Starburst guessing game:

Little Kepler is going to be one well-dressed little guy, because he now has 25 onesies to show off.  They were all decorated by Mommy's friends:

There are a lot of options, and lots of schools represented. Maybe Kepler will grow up to be a Horned Frog, or even a Ram:

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

This little guy got lots of other stuff, too! His momma is one really-loved lady.

There was a lot of food and fellowship at this shindig, too!

The shower ended with a little treat for everyone to take home--a Star Crunch for Kayla's little star!

Congrats to Kayla and Beau--we're excited to meet little Kepler soon!



My Little Blue Dutch Oven

I got myself a toy for Christmas:  a sturdy blue Dutch oven.  With my full set of pots and pans, you may be asking why I need a Dutch oven.  I wasn't really sure myself, but after seeing the amazing dishes coming out of them all the time on Food Network I decided I needed one.  I'd had it on my obscure Christmas wish list for a couple of years; you know, the list you kinda throw out when people are exasperated with you because they don't know what to get you for Christmas because you're grown up and buy your own stuff now.  (Surely that doesn't just happen to me!)  I'm afraid they may have only seen the ($200!!) Le Creuset version, which I would not buy for me, either. 

So there I was, wrapping up some Christmas shopping, going to Aldi of all places to buy a chocolate fountain for some friends of ours when next to the stack of chocolate fountains sat the one last blue Dutch oven, which just happened to be on sale for $29.99 that week.  I checked it out for dents and scratches, and picked it up.  I made myself wait until after Christmas to use it, just in case someone happened to get me one.  No one did, so off of the obscure Christmas gift list it went.

Now that I had it, I wasn't sure how to use it.  I didn't think it was like the big pot I cook spaghetti in, and that heavy, tight-fitting lid was supposed to mean something.  I did my research and discovered a website just for Dutch oven recipes named, of all things, justdutchovenrecipes.com.  I wanted to try a chicken dish, since that's what they're always cooking on TV.  With the snow day giving me extra time this evening, I tried out the recipe for "Chicken Licken."  The sauce was so delicious I'm excited about the leftovers.  I felt it was worth sharing, so get out your Dutch oven and give it a try.  Happy cooking!

(The picture doesn't do it justice.  The sauce has a wonderful silky look to it.  Mmmm-mmm!)



Chicken Licken
-1/4 cup margarine
-4 large chicken breasts, halved
-1/2 onion, sliced
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1 1/2 tsp salt
-1 1/2 tsp paprika
-1 tsp ginger
-1/2 tsp chili powder (preferably homemade)
-1 can crushed tomatoes
-1 cup chicken broth
-1 cup heavy cream

Melt margarine in Dutch oven and brown chicken.  Remove the chicken and saute the onion and garlic.  Add spices, tomatoes, and broth.  Add chicken.  Simmer covered for 40 minutes or until chicken is tender.

Blend cornstarch with cream to a smooth paste (about 1 Tablespoon of cornstarch).  Stir into the sauce.  Simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Pour into bowls.

(The chicken seemed a little awkward in its halved-breast form.  It would be better shredded or cubed.  This recipe would also jazz up spaghetti--the chili powder gives it a kick!)


**Bonus recipe**
Heavy Cream Substitution
(since I never seem to have it)

-3/4 cup milk (nonfat/lowfat is fine)
-1/3 cup butter
-1 Tablepoon flour

Melt butter.  Stir butter, milk, and flour until combined.
(makes 1 cup of heavy cream, but it can't be used for whipping)

A while back I promised a post of my Christmas crafts, but that was before I kinda misplaced the camera with all of the pictures on it.  (That's what happens when you clean!)  Luckily, it's been found, so I have craftiness to share.


The "10 days of Christmas" at work is a favorite event of mine.  For the first nine days you give a $1ish gift to your secret person, and the last day is a $10 gift.  I drew the name of the person I had last year, so I had to work harder this time to be sneaky and not duplicate last year's stuff.  She's a fun lady who is also pretty artsy, so I went in that direction. 


Here are the dangly Asian-inspired earrings I made:



Another day I gave homemade Chex mix in this funky bag:

One final picture of the homemade gifts:  a framed copy of "Dreams" by her favorite poet (she's also an English teacher).  I printed the poem on transparency, laid it over a stamped gold background, and framed it:



I also got crafty on a couple of other presents.  For my favorite two-year-old, Elizabeth, I made a frilly pink tutu:

For Kayla, I made a "nesting" necklace.  I got the idea from a magazine--it's a necklace that resembles a nest with eggs made from wire and beads.  I also added the "love" tag that dangles next to it:

Even the packaging was crafty!  (It's a recycled pineapple can...use a smooth can opener on the opposite end to open, wash it out, fill with the present, and glue back together.)

One final crafty project involves more appliqued shirts.  Kayla is teaching at a new school and wanted to make some unique shirts, so we used their colors as inspiration for these:

That wraps up the Christmas crafts.  Next up in the crafty department:  baby shower pics!

Just Desserts

I've been so busy in the kitchen that I've neglected posting my projects.  Here's a peek at what I've been up to, starting with Thanksgiving:

Maw-Maw's Cherry-O-Cream Pie

Granny Rae's Cranberry Sauce

(it's kinda messy)

Pumpkin Fudge

(After three years, I finally got it to work--cooking it longer was the key!)

After Thanksgiving, it was time for the Christmas baking to begin! 
Here's a treat for my people at work:

Some cute little mint brownie guys I took to a party, complete with a mini peppermint pattie button in the center of each one:

  

Christmas Eve and Christmas day brought plenty of time in the kitchen, too.  At the request of my dad, I tackled the Yule Log that I used to make when people came to visit us in Louisiana.  I had always made it with ice cream, but this time I used my homemade almond icing and made a chocolate ganache for the top (which I could eat by itself):

While it's not a dessert, I made my first ham this year.  It was studded with cloves and had a pineapple/brown sugar/honey glaze.  The great thing about ham is that it's already cooked, so the risk of undercooking is pretty much nonexistent.  Adam helped me by handling the cutting (I trust him more than myself with the sharp tools):

I'll focus on the crafts in my next post.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas!

-Adi