Birthday Cake & Surplus Frosting

I had a commission this weekend to do a birthday cake for a friend's mother. She turned 60, and my friend and his family threw her a surprise party. This is apparently, the year of 60th birthday cakes. Anyway, I was told cake for 20 or so, the Smitten Kitchen Best Birthday Cake, and mocha frosting. It was also mentioned that she likes lilacs, so I riffed a little on that, but in a modern, elegant, feminine-without-being-girlish kind of way.

Then I found myself with tons of extra mocha frosting. Boo hoo, poor me!
What to do with two cups of spare mocha frosting? (Besides sitting down with a spoon and a Colin Firth movie?) Bake chocolate cupcakes!
Ta da!

My Friends Tigger & Pooh, the Super Sleuth Cake

Yesterday we celebrated Felix's birthday, and as he is an afficionado of the Playhouse Disney animated series, My Friends Tigger & Pooh (warning, if you love AA Milne and Ernest Shepard, do NOT click on the link), I did his cake based on the colors and "Super Sleuth" logo favored by the show. Add some birthday candles and a set of figurines I picked up on sale at the Disney Store, and we have a cake with toppers you can keep and play with!

The recipes are all from The Whimsical Bakehouse, by Kaye and Liv Hansen, one of my favorite books on cakes. I did 10" tilted "mini" birthday cake, with chocolate butter cake, cookies and cream filling and vanilla Italian buttercream. Yum!

Looks like a success to me!

Shark Cake!

Every August, I bake a cake for my godson's birthday. (Well, not last year, but that was because he was gallivanting around France. As you do.) Every year, he gives me a theme, and I run with it. Three years ago, it was dinosaurs. This year, it was sharks. Ferocious, right?

Let's start with the cake. It's a near constant thing, the search for a perfect cake recipe. One that never fails, that tastes delicious and stays moist, that pleases multiple palates. I'm thinking I've found one over at Smitten Kitchen!



This was an easy one, just a rectangular cake, decorated with a shark diving Playmobil set - a cake with decor you can keep and play with!

Tipsy Birthday Cake, a three day Odyssey

My dad turned sixty a few months ago, and to celebrate, my mom took him to see Peter, Paul & Mary in Hartford. A pretty cool birthday gift, as they are one of his favorite performing groups. What he didn't know was that she planned a big surprise party for him, for three months later.

Aside from helping her to collect RSVPs, I was charged with assembling a playlist for the party, focusing on all the music my dad loves, and with making him a birthday cake.

The party was scheduled for Sunday, July 5, which gave me the whole long weekend to work on it.

On Friday, I baked the cakes, and froze them overnight (frozen then slightly thawed cakes are easier to slice for layers). What you see here is a thin 12" vanilla square, to be sliced into two layers and used as a pedestal, two 10" chocolate rounds, one thicker, to become three layers, one 8" chocolate round, one 6" vanilla round, one 4" chocolate round, and two 2" stacks, each to be three layers cakes. Normally, I'd wrap the cakes in plastic and foil to store them in the freezer, but these went in late Friday night, and came out Saturday morning, so I didn't worry about it.

Saturday was frosting day. I started with the vanilla Italian meringue buttercream for ringing and crumbing the cakes, since it's the most labor intensive, and I needed the largest quantity.

Sugar syrup coming up to temperature.

A pound and a half of cubed butter, a cup of egg whites, and vanilla extract.Meringue in the mixer.

After that, chocolate fluff buttercream and raspberry buttercreams for the fillings, and a second batch of vanilla for coloring and decorating the tiers. I got all six tiers ringed, filled, and crumbed, as well as colored before calling it a night. With a little shuffling, they all even fit in the fridge!

Sunday morning, Mark helped me rig a box to transport the partially assembled cake and additional tiers, and we packed up our stuff and headed west to my parents' house.

Between the stake I drove through the bottom three tiers, and the front flap of the box, and some judicious application of parchement paper, all six tiers arrived unscathed, and I set to work assembling and decorating.

Here's the finished cake, tilting its way up six tiers of yumminess!

An Evening at Wedding Camp

Guess who got to bust out the stand mixer and whip up ten dozen cupcakes for wedding camp? No. It's not Felix. And yes, those are Lego people and a Lego dog on top of the cupcake of honor.
A dear friend got married to a great woman this weekend, at a gorgeous camp in southwestern New Hampshire, and I got to spend some quality (though far too short) time with a few other good friends while I was there. I was sad to have to go home before the end of camp, but I had much fun while I was there.

When Your Carrot Cake Collapses

I meant to post today about Felix's first birthday party. You know, all those pictures of the baby all covered in chocolate frosting, and up his ears in wrapping paper. I still plan to, but today I want to tell the story of my cousin's carrot cake, and how it ended up looking like this:

Half eaten, in a bowl.

I offered to make a cake for my cousin's bridal shower, not really taking into consideration the fact that Felix's birthday was the day before, and obviously, I was going to want to make him a cake too.

A month or so ago, I asked my cousin what kind of cake she wanted. She answered carrot. I said, "Okay!" I baked the cakes a few weeks ago and stowed them in the freezer. This morning, I whipped up the cream cheese frosting, defrosted the cakes, and sliced them for layering. I was merrily stacking, filling and crumb coating the cake when disaster struck!

Half the cake sheared off! It just collapsed.

I shimmed it with extra cake, reinforced it with skewers, and refrigerated it to try to stem the weeping frosting and slumping cake slabs. Alas, the cake was doomed.

Like any overextended mom, I lost my mind. I called my mother, who was also co-hosting the shower, and burst into tears. She's a cool cucumber, my mom, and just offered to pick up something from a local store. She told me to take a deep breath, a shower, and to get myself to the party.

I hung up the phone, and headed upstairs for that shower. I turned around, though, when I realized that I could just up end the cake into a trifle bowl, pack in the remaining cake and frosting, and make the top pretty. Voila! Carrot cake trifle! Voila! Happy cousin!

Upon reflection, I think the structural collapse had to do with the soft, moist consistency of my carrot cake recipe, the thin layers, and the lack of structural integrity inherent in cream cheese frosting, even when it's a 1:2 ratio of butter to cream cheese and made with an Italian meringue base. I will adjust my methods next time. I leave you with this image of my lovely cousin, resplendent in her ribbon and bow finery, pretending to throw the "bouquet."

Chocolate Cashew Mousse Torte

Drat that Felix! Again with the distractions from the noble art of blogging...

June 22, 2008

Before I get into the Torte, let me say a few words about culinary content here on MoMP. A few kind people have commented asking for the Cupcake Alligator recipe, and while I'm flattered, I can't comply. I don't feel I can publish or distribute a recipe out here on the interwebs unless it's my own in some way. (In the case of the cupcake alligator, I followed the instructions from Ladies Home Journal article to the letter.) If I can find an active link to something I've written about, then I will post that. If I've tweaked a recipe into something new, I'll publish it. Otherwise, I'm respectfully leaving other people's culinary business to themselves.

So, two weekends ago was Fabulous T's birthday, and we didn't get to see her until this past Saturday night for our opening deck evening of the season. In honor of her birthday, I elected to make her a cake. So, I grabbed some pages from Martha Stewart Living, February 2008, and wrote up a shopping list for the Cake of the Month.

Let me say this, I always love the concept of MS's recipes, but I seldom agree with the application of techniques. This one was refreshingly almost without technical "huh?" moments, except for the salt. Salted cashews, and an ill advised amount of added salt in pretty much every step. There's the salt that's necessary in baked goods, for flavor balance and whatnot, and then there's the lust appeal for salty-sweet (come here, you Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, you!), and then, there was this cake. I found it only marginally edible, once I imagined the salty flavor before actually taking a bite. Being prepared for the saltiness made it more palatable.

So, should you ever consider this cake, consider the salt beforehand.

Cupcake Alligator

O's preschool class picnic was this afternoon, and since I'm the one who signed us up for the food list last week, I picked dessert (you gotta play to your strengths). The very next day, I saw my mom, and she gave me some pages from a recent Ladies Home Journal, which included instructions to make an alligator from cupcakes.

I was so all over that!

First, you gotta bake cupcakes. Normally, I eschew commercial cake mixes, but when baking with the assistance of a three year old and a six month old, sometimes you just have to cut a corner or two. Don't tell my pastry instructor, but I even used the Betty Crocker frosting in a can! The kids are food heathens like it better, anyway. Here are the cupcakes, baked and awaiting decoration:

O asked a million questions, wandered around, and occasionally did something useful helped, and Felix whinged around in his high chair, generally stressing me out, but in the end, I got it done:

I practically had to bend time to get myself, and Felix, and the alligator, and the big kids to the party, but in the end we all got there unscathed. Fortuna even smiled upon me and gave a resident parking spot right across from school. Some days, this job is the best job I could ever imagine.

With the cake installed at the party, we got down to the serious business of having some fun. Felix might be too little for cupcakes, but he still knows how to have a good time.

Pre-Memorial Day Hodgepodge

La Famille MoMP has been very busy of late. Mark has been running wiring and installing ceiling lighting for the new rooms in the house, while I have been catching up on four months worth of filth laziness not cleaning the bedrooms (save Felix's room, which is pristine except for the patina of dust on his floor - I know I'm a terrible mother, so shove off). As I sit in the Bosses house, cleaner than my house will ever be due to a weekly once over by a talented, if crazy, housekeeper, typing away, my house is in decent shape. The dishes are in he dishwasher, the laundry is folded, the clutter is at near minimum, and the bathrooms are clean enough not to make any of us sick. I feel, all in all, that this is a successful week. Especially when you put it in the context of the massive remodel going on in half the downstairs, the fact that between us, we work 110 hours a week, the full-time parenting, and the three animals; then it's definitely a success.

At the Bosses house, things are also busy. Big Brother J is in the gnarly clutches of Little League Season, which never rests in it's quest to harry me. It's the end of the school year for the three Boss children, and there are extra requirements for all of us, not the least of which being the cupcake alligator I'll be assembling tomorrow morning for O's preschool class picnic.

Mark's cousin and younger brother both have graduations this month (BU, and medical tech school, respectively), and we get to celebrate in June the fact that his youngest brother is being discharged from the army for health reasons, four weeks before he was supposed to be shipped to Baghdad to train the Iraqi police force. My cousin came home from his third tour driving convoys in the desert, and has completed his service to the Air Force, so he's out of overseas danger, too.

I've been sewing, which is an entirely different post.

Felix moved up from a bucket style infant seat to a proper car seat, so now the Bosses SUV looks like a car seat showroom.

Time to go back to being busy. Look for posts about my wicked needle skillz, cupcake alligators, and pig as the month rolls to a close.

Birthday!

O turned three yesterday, and what a day it was.

He met with his speech therapist, and they sang "Happy Birthday," counted birthday candles, and she gave him a firetruck as a present.

Mrs. Boss's mother took him to the Science Museum and out for a snack at his favorite watering hole, Starbucks (Yes, it's true. He asks everyday to go there.).

He and I decorated his birthday cake. I supervised the frosting, we split sprinkles duties, and he placed all the decorations on top. I am particularly fond of the random firefighter duckie. He and I also baked the actual cakes on Tuesday (O is quite skilled at dumping ingredients into a bowl, stirring, and egg breaking!), so this cake is authentically the work of a guy who just turned three. Not too shabby. Maybe this is the start of a boutique business?

Felix celebrated by wearing his party clothes, and doesn't he just look like a tiny old man?

And then, Happy Birthday to Me, I got the day off today, since Grandma and Grandpa are taking O for the day!

A Quickie (cause sometimes you just need one)

Here we go:

~I'm knitting a sock to alleviate the repetition of knitting another giant afghan.

~I got to see LB, Dasein668, Fibby, and of course, my birthday godson G over the weekend, when I attended his fourth birthday party in Portland. I brought with me perhaps my ugliest cake yet, a 3-D rendition of an angler fish (pictures when someone kind emails me some JPEGS).

~I had round two of my Endodontic Adventure last night, so my tooth is sore from being drilled and picked at.

~We have a third ultrasound today, and a follow up at the OB/GYN.

~I still have a very nasty cold, and I wish NyQuil could come over and play...

Look Ma! No Walls!

It's been an exciting weekend here at the Falling Down House. Mark has been tearing the third side off the old part of the house, re-sheathing it and installing the new windows for what will be the bathroom and office/library. I spent yesterday taking care of some things, like getting Amelie's stitches from her spay surgery taken out, visiting my parents, taking the dogs to Callahan for a few hours, grocery shopping, and baking off cakes for Miss E and GGS.

Miss E's cake came out beautifully, if I do say so myself. I used the white cake recipe from the Better Homes & Garden's cookbook (an oldy, but a goody), Rose Levy Berenbaum's Stabilized Whipped Cream along with some crushed Oreos for a mousse-y filling, and Kaye Hanson's Buttercream, which is an adaptation on classic Italian Mousseline Buttercream - yum!

Today, I spent up to my ears in buttercream, making the 2 dozen hibiscus flowers for the top border, and icing the "grass skirt" onto the sides. It went fairly smoothly, except for a small hiccup over the green icing...

Amelie has been wearing the gentle leader for two full days now, and the difference in her behavior is amazing. Her jumping is almost gone, and she doesn't pull on her leash anymore. She's not psyched about wearing it, but we're all so much happier with her, that I hope she feels the difference... Of course, Friday night she at two corners off our coffee table in the twenty minutes it took Mark to shower. Bad dog! If only we'd started her training before yesterday...

My old iPod finally came back, and oddly enough, while it won't interface with my computer, Mark reformatted it to his PC, and it's working fine, though ipodmechanic.com had one thing right, the screen doesn't work anymore. In fact, it's cracked, and the lcd stain has spread, but Mark figures he'll use it as an oversized Shuffle for his truck.

Among the things I haven't done this weekend: laundry, housekeeping, or staying off my ridiculously swollen feet. Oh, well...

Law Review

Yesterday was LB's graduation party, so Mark and I packed up a cake and headed 150 miles up the coast to Falmouth, ME. I heart the PYC.

I promised her a review of her behavior at the party in recognition of her being the Grand Poohbah of the Law Review, and here it is: She was charming, gracious, just a little bit goofy, and was altogether the LB we all know and love. She wore a pretty dress and heels, and her hair was all stylish and chic. We here at MoMP, who are feeling frumpalicious and pregnant, were most envious. Her husband and son, both in attendance, did her credit. Her family and in-laws provided a tasty spread, and her dear friend, Me, made a scrumptious lemon and raspberry cake (if I do say so myself). Maine was at best neutral, providing neither sunshine, nor outright foul weather, but occasionally the fog on the harbor rolled out enough to allow for excellent views of boats already moored. All in all, we give LB's graduation party a vigorous two thumbs up.

Now all she has to do is graduate!

The Dog Ate My iPod...

Call me Alexander, because yesterday started off as one terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day. It ended rather well, but I'll get to that later. I woke to Mark shouting at the dog, wandered downstairs and found my husband and my dog, both looking like they were anticipating sleeping in the dog house. Turns out, while Mark was out for a few minutes, the dog got onto to the kitchen table, and pulled my purse over. He decided my iPod looked tasty and chewed on the screen to confirm his suspicions. Mmmmm, neoprene skin and yummy iPod lcd screen...

It still works, and is now sporting a fabulous "giant-wind-storm-on-Jupiter" motif. Everyone will want one when word of this gets out, and, as Fibby pointed out later, at least it wasn't a Video iPod!

After two tries, I finally had a passable birthday cake for my brother-in-law, who was coming over to join our Stupidbowl posse. I burned/undercooked the first cake, broke the buttercream, and then didn't have the right proportions for my whipped ganache. Boo. Reviews were fine on the final product, but let me tell you, I seriously considered winging a Delonghi mixer out my kitchen window at least once.

Though the Fabulous L&T bailed just before game time, due to overindulgence and air travel over the weekend, it was ok that we were a small party for the game; just Mark & I, Jason, and Fibby, who brought her knitting for the game! We feasted on oysters, chips and salsa, and cake. We cheered for the Bears and cried over the Colts' victory, and remarked that while Prince's halftime performance was, in fact, better that the last few Stupidbowl shows, it was a rather unremarkable offering. Take me back to the year U2 played halftime. As well as continuing with the Banff sweater (see below), I also got all of our wedding photos sorted and into albums. Organization, here I come!

Saturday was s'posed to be a quiet day; lunch with my friend AM, an afternoon of cooking and homey chores, and then a night of babysitting in Beacon Hill, but we ended up heading to Rhode Island to visit Mark's aunt in the hospital. She was failing pretty severely then, but since we've heard that she's improved a little, and has been awake and even spoken a little. All we can do is hope and pray in our own way.


I did babysit on Saturday, and the kids and I had a nice evening, and I got started on my Banff sweater. I had to swatch a bunch of times before I got close to the right gauge, and I still am a little off on the row gauge, so I'm going to have to proceed with caution. Right now I'm just loving the colorway and hand of this yarn. Happy Me!

Back at work this morning, I was tired... apparently 11pm is too late for my almost 30 year old bones. I was also cold! Drafty old houses here in Beacon Hill. Luckily the sweater knitting is keeping my hands warm.

Green Cake and Flowers

Nine days since my last posting. It's been a hairy 9 days. Good, overall, but I think I'm still tired from the weekend.

Last Friday I had one of those days where you look at the stack of bills and think, "How did this happen?" Then you realize that there is a light at the end of tunnel and that you're actually OK, and the headache starts to fade. Then you spend the weeked getting two of your close friends all married off and it's just fabulous.

L&T got married on Sunday, cake by Cameron's Cakes, ceremony performed by the Reverend Mark. He did beautifully and the cake was yummy - and green. Sadly, the cake had to be assembled on site, and the Museum of Transportation doesn't allow flash photography, so all the pictures are a litle dim. Maybe the photographer got a good one? The ceremony itself was lovely, on a hillside, under a big old oak tree, with the sun setting behind the newlyweds... ::sigh:: Yay weddings!

The week has been good. I think I'm finally caught up on sleep - we had a few late nights what with the wedding and all. The kids have been tired from school, and Owen's been crankier than usual, but it's kept me really busy, and I can't complain - when I'm busy the work day passes quickly.

Just about time to get the big kids from the bus... I'm staying late tonight, since Mom&Dad have a meeting at their school tonight, so I've got to get some foolishness out of their systems early...

Belated Showing Off

Here's the Megasaurus Cake I made for my godson's birthday:

Pretty scary, hmmm?

I Heart Someday

My husband begins the long and arduous process of remodeling the rest of the downstairs tomorrow. Step one: Major demolition.

I will take the Megasaurus birthday cake I spent the day making, and haul it and myself off to Portland.

Someday, our stuff will decompress and no longer be smashed into two rooms upstairs. Someday, we will have a sparkly new bathroom/laundry room, and a home office, and a front parlor. Until then, I type in a room with the desk, the office supplies, a bed, bookshelf, CD rack, piano, and cat box in it. And those are just the items you can see to identify.

I heart Someday.

Let them eat...

... CAKE!

My friend Alex and his fiancee, Kara, were married yesterday in gorgeous Waitsfield, VT. It was like a storybook - late afternoon ceremony by the pond, frogs gulping from the water, local, artisan food, a historic round barn on a mountain farm... ::sigh::

And a wedding cake by Cameron's Cakes! (the specimen above was a creative choice by the married couple: my Perisan Genoise sponge cake with chocolate creme patissiere and fresh strawberry filling and Italian mousseline buttercream. Special thanks to the folks at The Blue Toad for coming through with a last minute flower order!)

Mark and I stayed up the road "a fer piece" at the The Wilder Farm Inn which was cozy and charming, and had the largest pancakes I've ever seen (Bickford's Big Apple excepted).

New Hampshire: Boring?

I feel horrible. I have a niggling pain in my belly... crampy, achey, upset-ey. I tossed and turned until 4AM last night - very refreshing. And O's had teething fevers, and isn't napping or eating, and he's basically a wreck. Perhaps we're feeding off of one another?

I also have a wedding cake to finish for my friend Al's wedding tomorrow, and since we have to the drive the cake to Waitsfield, VT in the morning, it really needs to be mostly done before I go to bed tonight. Fun.

Do you ever have the fear, after a sleepless night, that this might be the end of good night's sleeps for you? It's totally irrational, but I know that, as I brush my teeth, exfoliate and moiturize my face, and crawl into bed tonight, I'll be wondering if I can just go to sleep like a normal person, instead of lying there, wide awake and miserable for god knows what reason. Awful.

Lucky for Captain Crabby-O, the big kids have been in NH with their grandparents since Wednesday morning (I should know, I drove them there!). They have this big ol' shingle style lake house with a beach and a dock, and boating and a huge play structure - that's a jungle gym for those of you born before 1985. I'd rather be there than in Beacon Hill any day of the week.I took this shot of the house, and toyed with the tint to see what original pictures of the house might have looked like. Pretty nice, huh?

Now, anyone who's familiar with my travels to and from the great Republic of Vermont between 1995 and 1999 knows that I harbor a less-than-secret hatred for the Granite State. First off, "Live Free or Die?" I won't start. But this from a state that hasn't legalized seatbelts for adults? Or helmets on motorcylists? More like, "Live Free and Die." Regardless of safety standards, it stands between me and my heart's home state. Well, I'm spending my anniversary trip there, so I'd better get over that, hmmm?

Easier said than done, when you see this statement on the side of a truck:
Now, I know it's referring to the work done by this company, but what PR wizard came up with this slogan? I have visions of someone from the state tourism board having a fit when they saw this.... But perhaps my analysis is biased by my dislike?