5/24- mainly music cake

My Church started a program called mainly music this past fall; it's a music and movement class that originated in New Zealand. It meets once a week, and there's a half-hour of singing and dancing around, then snack time, then an optional Bible Study for moms while the kids stay in the nursery (lunch is served to both moms and kids as well). I've really loved this program this year, and it's been so much fun to watch my kids enjoy it and grow up with it over the past few months.

This past Tuesday was our final session until the Fall, so we had a big picnic after the music portion was over. We had hot dogs and hamburgers, other picnic foods, as well as some fun play time outside. God graced us by letting the sun come out on what was supposed to be a cloudy day! While we were planning the picnic, I got the wild idea that I wanted to make a fun cake for the picnic. The other ladies graciously let me have my fun, and I debuted the cake at the picnic that afternoon.

Now before you look at the cake, let me explain it a bit. It's based off of some songs that we sing at mainly music. One of the biggest favorites of all is a song called "Five Little Ladybugs." Another one is "I Spy"..... "I spy a creepy crawly caterpillar crawling by me.... a teeny weeny tiny flea....... a busy buzzy bumble bee.... a flashy dashy butterfly...." you get the idea. Fun songs for kids to learn with lots of little critters in them. So I decided that the cake needed 5 ladybugs, some bumble bees, a caterpillar, 2 fleas, and of course some butterflies. The wings on the critters that needed them didn't work out like I wanted them to AT ALL, but the rest of the cake I was completely satisfied with. It seemed like everyone there loved it too, which was what it was all about, so that's all that matters. :) Luckily, I've got a year to think up a design for the next one!


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4/28- HH6 April Challenge- Sachertorte

 This month's HH6 Challenge was to create a dish or meal from a a country that you have lived in, been stationed in, or visited, outside of the US. Sounds like a fun one, right? Considering I've only really been out of the country once, that narrowed my choices pretty quickly. Back in 2004, before I got married, my family and I went to Europe for 2 weeks. We went to Venice; Salzburg; Mossbach, Germany; Munich; Heidleberg; Vienna; and finally Prague.  

My favorite cities we saw were Venice and Vienna. Coincidentally, those 2 cities had my favorite foods of the trip! Our first European meal was dinner in a very quiet Venice. We found a little tiny restaurant that was mostly empty, sat down and picked our meals. This is where it got sticky. I couldn't remember what I ate, and neither could anyone else in my family! There are no pictures of our entrees, either. The only pictures of that meal are of gelatto. While that was certainly delicious, gelatto wasn't quite what I wanted to make for this challenge.

So, on we go to Vienna. I believe on our last night in the city, we went to Demel and each picked out a dessert to take back to our (super awesome!) hotel. We each picked out a different kind of cake, or torte, and then booked it back to the hotel so we could sample them all. I did take pictures of them before they vanished, but I did not write down anything about what kinds of cakes they were. Once again, nobody else could remember either! My good friend Google helped me out though! I looked up Demel, and through their website figured out that the cake on the far left of the picture was a Sachertorte. Here again, Google came to my rescue and led me to a recipie by Wolfgang Puck. I figured it must be pretty accurate since he's from that region himself. The next obstacle to tackle was to find the time to bake it! I'm late posting this because of Rebecca's birthday (see the previous post for that adventure), Easter, out of town guests, and life in general. Better late than never though, right?

So a Sachertorte is a light chocolate cake that is sliced horizontally into 3 layers. An Apricot preserve sauce is put in between the layers, and then the whole cake is covered with a chocolate glaze. Because I happened to bake this on a particularly humid and monsoon-y morning, the cake didn't rise as weel as it should have, so it was really difficult to slice it horizontally. I ended up with 2 very uneven layers instead of 3 gorgeous ones. I guess I won't be getting a job at Demel anytime soon. :) It still tasted pretty good though! Ok, without further ado, I present you with my Sachertorte!

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4/22- Rebecca's First Birthday Cake!

I can't believe that the baby that inspired this blog is a year old already! Even though she's been out of the "oven" for a year now, I haven't come up with a better title yet. She was the inspiration, I can't let go of that! Anyway, I decided that she needed a spectacular cake for her first birthday, so I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the land of fondant! Being a Food Network junkie, I'd always wanted to try it, so I figured this was my chance!

I found an amazing-sounding chocolate cake recipe on allrecipes.com, so I decided that would be my base. Then since her room is chocolate brown and light pink, I decided I'd go with strawberry buttercream frosting. Let me tell you, the combination was just perfect! The cake was super easy to make (I made 4 of them. Yes. FOUR).  The buttercream is easy enough, but I ended up makig 4 batches of that as well. Let's just say that trying to make my life easier by making it ahead of time and freezing it did not work out. Note: you CAN NOT freeze this kind of frosting and then use it later. It separates and gets all gloppy and runny at the same time, and is absolutely disgusting. If you're like me, you'll try it and then end up scrambling to make 2 more batches of it when you're supposed to be fondant-ing and put yourself into a frenzy because you're running out of time before the party and the baby just woke up so now you have to do it all with both kids awake and you'll never get it done and what are you going to do??? Thankfully, my mom and sister rode to the rescue and helped me finish assembling the cake so I avoided total mental breakdown. Moms and sisters rock, don't they?

So I got the cake layered, crumb-coated, and all set to go in the fridge, only to discover that it wouldn't FIT! I'd made the base too big and it just wouldn't go in! Thankfully my sister and I managed to squeeze it into my parents' extra fridge. Phew! I also threw together 2 smaller cakes- one for Rebecca to demolish, and one for my brother-in-law who is allergic to strawberries. I got the smaller ones covered and decorated and finished them up rather quickly. Rolling out the fondant to cover the massive cake was more difficult. It took me 3 times to get it to not stick to the counter, and then the dang rolling pin poked through when I finally got it on the cake. I patched it up as best I could since there was no way I was getting it back off, and I think it still turned out ok. I worked on the cake until about 9:30 the night before her party, and then got to work assembling her toy kitchen. Now THAT was a project, but that's not exactly related to the cake, so I digress. :)




The cake was really fun to make, all things considered, and I hope to have an occasion to play with fondant again sometime soon! I've already warned my husband that this could become an addiction, and I've actually already had someone tell me they'd pay me for a cake! How cool is that?!




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