Forty years and counting…

I’m back with another digi-page on this cloudy, lazy Sunday. After all, what better way to continue the ongoing project of flattening and broadening my butt than to sit at the computer for a few more hours documenting memories.

This past February (wow, was it 5 months ago?!!) my dad and stepmom celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. It is such a blessing to see how much they love each other, how they take care of each other, and just how silly they still are with each other after all these years. Aren’t they adorable?

Credits: Template from Stand Out template pack by Meagan’s Creations; papers & elements from Catching My Breath kit by Down This Road Designs.

While we’re at it, I’m not sure I showed you the cake I made for the occasion. It was my first attempt (and probably my last) at brushstroke embroidery on fondant, so please be kind. I don’t even remember what kind of cake or filling it was.

OK, I need to get up and move around a little now before my feet fall asleep. Enjoy what’s left of the weekend!

Good stuff!

It’s been a busy baking weekend. I know lots of my friends were busy baking holiday cookies, but my baking was for other purposes.

This afternoon we threw my daughter-in-law a virtual baby shower. She’s out in Michigan, and the rest of us, well, aren’t. So a few family and friends had gifts shipped to my son’s office so he could sneak them into the house, and we all gathered via Skype and surprised her. Gotta love modern technology! The bulk of us were at my sister’s apartment, so of course there had to be food involved! And of course I had to bake something…

You may know that my son is married to a fabulously talented (and sweet and lovely) children’s book illustrator who goes by the nickname “Chicken Girl.” They’ve been referring to the baby (due anytime in the next few weeks) as Chicken Nugget. Hence:Can you think of a more fitting goodie for this particular baby shower?

And more baking. Tomorrow is my friend/co-worker’s birthday. Something yummy is in order:
Chocolate cupcakes with a mini Reese’s cup baked into the center. Topped with the most incredible vanilla buttercream, which I swirled with some peanut butter. And in order to NOT eat the rest of the candies, I cut them in half and topped the cupcakes with them.

Now I have to mention this buttercream again. I thought I had tasted great buttercream before. Then, a week ago or so, my daughter’s sister-in-law, Morgan, posted a recipe on her blog for what she calls Fantabulous Vanilla Frosting. The blog entry is linked here, and you MUST check it out, as well as the rest of her blog. First of all, she’s insanely talented. But really, you just have to make this frosting. To. Die. For.

OK, gotta go clean up the mess. And mentally prepare myself for Monday. Ugh.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…Thanksgiving!

Gobble, gobble! Every year in recent memory, I’ve made some kind of table favor for the Thanksgiving table (except for last year, when I made turkey cupcakes for dessert). Usually it was something crafted out of cardstock and filled with some kind of chocolate. This year, since I got a cake pop maker from my son and DIL (♥♥♥) for my birthday, I decided to make special cake pops for the occasion.

These guys (who will be wrapped up in cellophane) will grace each place at the table, and I’m guessing they won’t last until after the meal.

Despite a slight mishap (I dropped a whole tray of finished ones on the floor!), these were a LOT of fun to make! They are not the usual cake pops that are made from mushed up cake and frosting and then formed into balls. These little (chocolate) cakes are baked in balls and then dipped in melted chocolate.

The heads are Sugar Babies candies, the beaks are colored mini chips, and the wattles are little candy hearts. The cake decorating supply store was out of tiny candy eyes, so I had to improvise – these are little white candy confetti circles that I used a black edible marker on. I think they came out cute, if a little deranged-looking!

I had a few left over cake balls, so I decided to make a few sitting turkeys.
They’re just attached to individual candy melt disks with some melted chocolate. The middle one is adorable; the two outer ones look they escaped from the turkey loony bin!

OK, gotta get back to my preparations! Doing a mini-Thanksgiving dinner here tomorrow, and a big one at my dad’s with more of the family on Friday. I will miss having my kids with us this year, but when they’re all grown up, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Maybe next year we’ll all be together!

Wishing all of my readers a wonderful Thanksgiving, with all the trimmings!

Big girls don’t cry

That’s a lie. Sometimes they do – like when their big girl moves out of state with her husband to start a new phase of their lives together.

My baby girl Laila and her husband Roy are moving down to the Virginia Beach area tomorrow so Roy can start his new job as a doctor (I’m so proud of him) at a hospital down there. Don’t they look wonderful and happy?
Roy’s family invited us out to a barbeque in Long Island yesterday to say farewell them. His mom Dottie cooked up a storm – incredibly delicious food that I ate waaay too much of!

I, of course, had to make a cake. It’s what I do.
That is a LOT of buttercream. Underneath it all is a dark chocolate cake filled with alternating layers of chocolate ganache and kirsch-soaked fresh cherries. I must say that it was very yummy, and very rich.

Roy’s sister Morgan made some beautiful (and very delicious) cupcakes. I confess that I was so full that I only tasted the little ones on the right – yummy little high-hats topped with marshmallow creme under chocolate coating. Well done, Morgan!

Anyhow, as I write this they are probably tossing things willy-nilly into cartons at the last minute before the truck comes at noon to pack up their lives and head down to VA first thing in the morning. And I’m sitting here with tears running down my face because I just realized that I never got a picture of us together yesterday. I know they’ll be back for visits, and I’ll go down there to visit, and it’s not forever, and all that stuff that people say, but still…

Baby’s Birthday Weekend

OK, she’s not a baby. But she’ll always be MY baby, no matter how many times she celebrates birthdays! This year my youngest, Annisa, set a goal to move into her own apartment (and out of the one she shared with her sister) by her birthday, and she did it! She found a gorgeous studio apartment in Manhattan, and christened it with a double-header birthday celebration – one for friends and one for family – since it isn’t quite big enough to handle everyone at once. This called for two cakes. And one card. Very clever of me: offer to make cakes for both parties and you get to go to both of them!

Here’s Cake #1:
I tried to tie the colors in with her apartment (the sofa is orange, the rug is black and grey, table is white, chairs are black). This was a 9” chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, raspberry jam and fresh raspberries. Covered in orange and black fondant. Very yummy.

Cake #2 was a 6” carrot cake with cream cheese frosting:
Very yummy as well. I ate altogether too much cake this weekend. And drank too much wine. I think I’m gonna skip my weigh-in tomorrow.

And here’s the birthday card:

Because she is my beautiful, ever-evolving butterfly. Wish BIG, my sweet baby! And fly high. Love you, Annisa!

 

(isn’t she gorgeous?!!)

Look who’s hiding in my refrigerator…

Are these not the cutest little turkey cupcakes you have ever seen? I’ve been working on them since Wednesday, and they’re all tucked away now, chillin’ and waiting for their trip to the Philadelphia area to meet the family today. Too bad their lifespan will be only slightly longer than their poultry counterpart. Gobble gobble! They even look a little apprehensive, don’t they?

A few details for those who are curious: I got the idea here. I used Trader Joe’s Yellow Cake Mix for the cupcakes (first time – I’ll let you know…), and for the frosting, I made a Bittersweet Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Let me tell you folks, this stuff should be against the law. Never have I tasted anything so sinfully silky and deliciously decadent. Trouble with a capital “T”.

The tail feathers and beaks are made of fondant. Hopefully, the food coloring will have worn off my hands by the time you read this. I cheated and bought the eyes already made at NY Cake and Baking Supply, which is conveniently (and dangerously) located about a block and a half from my office.

Have a wonderful day. Catch up with you soon!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Today is my “baby” sister’s birthday, and what a beautiful day it was! The weather here in the northeast is just gorgeous – a little on the hot side, but not oppressively so.

We celebrated with a scrumptious buffet brunch at this awesome place in Westchester called Kittle House, courtesy of my dad and stepmom. 

And because no occasion is complete without cake, I made some cupcakes. These are chocolate cupcakes, topped with a double dip of chocolate ganache and little fondant rosebuds. But the surprise is that there’s a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup in the center of the cupcake! Yup, I baked ‘em right in. I put them in the freezer first, and then pressed them gently into the top of the batter before sticking the pan in the oven. The part of the candy that didn’t get completely swallowed up by the batter is nicely hidden by the topping. What a happy little experiment that was! Although I confess that I haven’t tried one yet. I hope the cake isn’t too dry – I never used this particular recipe before.

Oh, if you’re wondering about the card, I used PTI’s Lily of the Valley set, copying Nichole’s idea of stamping on kraft and filling in with white craft ink. I found that using q-tips like she did didnt’ give me enough control, though. I had a few Fantastix laying around since forever, and that worked much better for me. The leaves are colored with Copic Markers YG95 and YG97. The butterflies (of course there had to be butterflies!) are punched out of one of the patterns in Pink Paislee’s Bayberry Cottage pad. It was a little too bright for the background, so I toned it down with a W3 Copic. Tiny rhinestones adorn them. Of course.

Hmmm. I think I have enough WW points left for a cupcake. Happy Birthday, sweet sister! This year has GOT to be better than the last!

“New Life” Cake

 I know that most of you who visit my blog come expecting to see cards, but once in a while, for special occasions, I take off my paper crafting hat and put on my cake decorating hat.

Now, I am not a professional baker by any means, but I was honored to be asked by my sister to make a cake for the very special party she threw this afternoon celebrating her triumph over a serious health challenge. Throughout this one-year journey she has shown such strength and courage, and she asked for a cake that symbolized rebirth and renewal. After a great deal of thought, butterflies seemed like the perfect choice.
For those of you interested in the details, the tiers are 12” and 9”. The top tier is butter cake filled with chocolate hazelnut buttercream, and the bottom layer is chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, raspberry filling, and fresh raspberries. It’s covered in buttercream flavored fondant. The butterflies are completely edible – edible ink printed on edible wafer paper. I glazed them with a thin coating of piping gel and cut them out, bending them in the center, before they dried completely. They’re attached to the cake with little dabs of piping gel.

By the way, it was an AWESOME party, with a live band, and my super-talented brother jammed with them at the end. And I danced. A lot. And drank a lot of wine. I think I need a hot shower and a nap. OK, maybe a nap first.

Life is good.

Don’t Rock the Boat!

I wanted to show you what’s been keeping me busy this last week or so. It’s a cake I was commissioned to make for the 90th birthday party of a man who made and sailed boats. I was given the specs for the boat, and the sails were made by the daughter of the celebrant. Let me tell you, this is a BIG boat: 20” from stem to stern! The sails are about 30” tall.

Some details: The boat itself is molded of rice krispie treats, but made using only half the butter so it would dry harder. And boy, did it dry hard! I had to use a drill to make the hole for the mast to make sure it didn’t completely shatter by trying to force it through. It’s covered in fondant, and I painted the deck to look like wood. The buoys (which show the 3 names he is known by) and life preserver are also made of fondant.

The cake is a deliciously moist yellow butter cake with lemon filling. I coated it in blue-tinted buttercream, and then in blue-tinted piping gel.

Every time I make one of these novelty cakes I learn a new lesson. This time the lesson was that piping gel WILL soften the fondant and make the colors bleed from anything that is touching it. The underside of the hull looked like a bloody mess, and the buoys look like they were melting into the water!

Anyway, I heard the cake was a big hit, and I’m glad to have had a part in the celebration – 90 years is certainly something to be proud of!

Bittersweet

Tonight I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with a dozen wonderful family and friends. Unfortunately, the occasion was kind of bittersweet; it was the last time we would see my son and daughter-in-law before they move to Michigan next week.

My son has worked long and hard to earn his PhD in Mathematics, and his efforts have finally begun to pay off with a wonderful post-doctorate assignment at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. So over the next 3 years, I expect I’ll become familiar with the airport in Detroit! I’m so happy for him, and happy for them to begin a new life together. But still sad. Kinda weepy right now, as a matter of fact.

Anyhow, all occasions must be appropriately marked with a card and a cake. I made the card using the Clean & Simple Fall To Layout #54. I actually made it last weekend, but couldn’t show it until tonight, because my sweet DIL reads my blog! Again, sorry for the lousy scanned photo, but I waited until there was no natural light to take a picture.

This is a simple one-layer card that uses the stamp set New Home, available on sale right now at i {heart} papers. I rounded the corners of the card, and also rounded the corners of a piece of leftover acrylic packaging to trace around for the border, which I drew with a Copic Multiliner. The image was colored with Copic markers.

Oh, and the cake. I must say that this was my favorite cake I’ve made so far, at least taste-wise. I think this might be my signature cake from now on.

This little beauty is a dark chocolate fudge cake topped with chocolate ganache. It’s filled with seedless raspberry jam and whipped ganache. The swirls on top are more whipped ganache, topped with fresh, big, fat raspberries. And the whole thing is surrounded with more whipped ganache and chocolate-filled wafer cookies. OMG, it was to die for! 6 million calories per serving, but well worth it.

Anyhow, I have an ungodly chocolate mess to clean up in my kitchen right now. And a date with some Pepcid Complete — too much good food and good wine!

Daniela's Shower

My daughters left for Italy last night to attend the wedding of their friend Daniela. Lucky girls (and their "posse") will be spending 2 weeks in a beach town called Sperlonga, making side trips to Rome, Florence, and other places I will hopefully see someday myself (come on, Publishers Clearing House!).

The bridal shower was held earlier this month at a gorgeous restaurant in lower Manhattan, and I was drafted (not unwillingly) to make the cake and help my daughter with the favors, which were cookies shaped like little wedding cakes.

This was the cake. It was a yellow butter cake filled with Cannoli Cream filling. It's covered with buttercream. The pearls around the base of the tiers are made of fondant, and the flowers (detail below) are made from sugar paste. Oh, and this is the last cake I baked in my old oven, if you've seen the post from earlier this month. It was delicious, if I must say so myself!

Some Wine With That Cake?

Well, now I can reveal that THIS is what has been keeping me busy for the last couple of weeks. My youngest brother turns 50 this October, but he lives in California so the whole family won't be able to celebrate with him then. Since he and his family came for a visit east this week, we surprised him with an early birthday party yesterday. Yes, it's very early, and yes, we are kind of a strange family. This is the cake I made for the occasion, and yes, it is 100% edible. Even the wine bottle is made of cake!

The box the the bottle is resting on is the main cake -- butter cake with cannoli cream filling. The drape is fondant, sprayed with an edible pearl finish. The crate was made of fondant (a couple of weeks ago so it could dry hard), and then painted with food coloring to simulate a wood finish.

I created a stencil and used an edible cake decorating marker to get the words on the side of the crate. The grapes and poppies are also made of fondant, or a combination of fondant and gumpaste -- all edible (except for the wires in the flower stems!).

I created a custom label in Photoshop, using a picture of his house, and sent it off to be printed with edible ink on edible paper. I adhered the paper to some thinly rolled white fondant and cut it out before applying it to the bottle. The photo below was taken before I painted the edible gold onto the top of the bottle and placed it in the crate.
It was a lot of fun to make this one, and truly a labor of love!

Chicken Love: The Cake

Strange name for a post, yes? Well to give you a little background, my son Yusuf is now the very happy husband of a very gifted children's book illustrator who goes by the nickname of Chicken Girl. They got married in a private ceremony this past Wednesday on a beach in St. Thomas, and had the reception here in NY yesterday. Jannie, my new daughter-in-law, nicknamed him Math Boy, as he was working for his PhD in Mathematics when they met, although he has since completed it (my son the doctor!).

Anyway, Chicken Girl and Math Boy met almost exactly 5 years ago on the corner of Houston and Mulberry Streets, and on their third anniversary of meeting, she created this illustration as an anniversary card for him. When we were discussing the details for the reception nearly a year ago, she said that the only thing that she really wanted was a chicken cake. Although I had not done any cake decorating in many, many years, and even then just a bit of dabbling, I offered to take on the challenge. I decided to use her own artwork, which I found on her blog, as inspiration for the cake. And so began several months of studying and practicing fondant cake decorating, all self-directed, using books, TV shows, the web, and a terrific DVD. This is the result:

Here's a better look at the chickens. I think if you click on it you can see it bigger:
These are pictures I took while it was still in my apartment, and not very good ones at that. When we set it up at the restaurant, I put some Belgian chocolate seashells on the sand to make it look, well, more beach-y. Here's a picture of them cutting the cake:

I had a lot of fun making this, but the very best part of it was seeing Jannie's face when she saw it for the first time yesterday. She agreed from the start to let me surprise her. She had absolutely no idea what I was doing, except that it involved chickens, and her trust in me touched my heart. I am indeed a very blessed and happy mother, and mother-in-law!

Let them eat cake!

Wow, I've had a very productive weekend — a big change from the sloth-like one I had last week. But then, I knew that the next several weekends would be full of projects and activities, so I was really just resting up (yeah...). This weekend I made a little more than half of the 100 wedding invitations that I'm doing for my daughter's friend. I'll show those to you another time.

But my other project this weekend was this birthday cake for the office. My boss and one of my co-workers have birthdays 2 days apart, so they get to share it. I'm really enjoying my foray into cake decorating, which will culminate in four short weeks with the wedding cake I'm making for my son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law. As a trial recipe run for that cake, this spring-like one is a yellow cake with chocolate hazelnut buttercream filling. It has a light coating of buttercream under the fondant covering. The branches are made of the same chocolate hazelnut filling, just smoothed out with a bit of chocolate syrup, and the flowers are made of gum paste.

Now to go clean up the awful mess in my kitchen. Somehow, no matter how hard I try, I just can't keep ahead of it...