A Rainbow Brite Birthday Celebration

Princess Fierce turned six in September. She's claimed the DragonCon Parade as her own personal birthday parade since it always happens the Saturday before her birthday. Once again this year we headed down to watch. She chose to not dress as Darth Fairy again but instead wore her Julie Newmar Catwoman costume.

I'm not sure if it was the 25th anniversary of Dragon*Con, the 10th anniversary of the DC parade or the fabulous weather but this year the parade route was packed. I snapped this pic looking down Peachtree Street when we still had 45 minutes to wait until the parade started.

The parade met the demands of the large crowd delivering the longest and best Dragon*Con parade yet.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Butter Pecan Pumpkin Cake...The One Fall Cake You Need To Make

If you make no other Fall sweet treat with pumpkin, you need it to be this one. If you're not a baker you can still do this very simple three ingredient cake. I promise. You can even eat it without frosting. It's incredibly moist and delicious. The pumpkin flavor is subtle; it just tastes like you're eating Fall.

Here's all you need for the cake: Betty Crocker Butter Pecan cake mix, canned pumpkin and three eggs.

Read More . . .

Read More...

The Buttercream Kitten

Know what that is? Not shredded cheese or shag carpet. That's a picture of my peanut butter buttercream frosting from my most recent cake, a kitten. I just want to lick my screen. I've loved frosting since I was a wee tot. My mom always made homemade birthday cakes with delicious homemade icing for as long as I can remember. I grew up thinking everyone's mom made their own birthday cakes and all frosting was delicious buttercream. The first time I tasted store bought birthday cake with its whipped, sweet frosting the notion I would make my own cakes was sealed. I've never taken a class to do cakes. Instead the first time I wanted to try my hand at cake baking and decorating I just called my mom. She came over to my house and walked me through her recipe for frosting, baking a cake and then how to pipe on frosting...all for a Darth Vader cake for my coworkers on the eve of the first Star Wars prequel being released. My first cake was so much better than Jar Jar Binks.

My mom gave me her old few Wilton cake pans and I've added to them through the years; I now have over 50 shaped pans. This is just a portion of my stash hanging in the basement.

Read More . . .

Read More...

The Best Steak I Never Ate

Tuesday was my man's birthday. A nice dinner date out plus a babysitter for three kids over multiple hours ran a little steep. Especially when my man knows I'm a vegetarian that can cook a mean steak. This was more affordable option plus it allowed him to eat steak in pajama pants and enjoy a fat slice of the homemade cake...win all around.

Do you want to see the steak? Prepare to drool, carnivores...

That's her, the steak I served my man alongside spicy sweet potato fries and steamed brocolli. This is one of his top ways he likes me to make his filet. It's drizzled with chimichurri and topped with avocado-tomatillo salsa. The sauce and salsa are fabulous. I put them over my fake vegetarian meat and want to lick the plate. I doubled the salsa recipe so there's a heaping bowl left to be scooped up on tortilla chips during the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Here's how you can make the same beautiful steak, the hunky Tyler Florence taught this vegetarian straight off the telly.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Baking Martha's Marble Cake with White Chocolate Glaze

Another baked good off the list from efforts to bake every recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. Number 6 out of 173 was not a random pick from a friend but a custom order. My dad had me bring the book over so he could choose his recipe; he picked two. He wanted Marble Cake with White Chocolate Glaze for his birthday cake and come Christmas I'll be making him Baking Soda Biscuits.

But first came the marble cake and my previously mentioned frustration with the Baking Handbook. A hard to find ingredient not being called out as such. The culprit? Dutch-processed cocoa. This is my third recipe from Martha's book involving cocoa powder. All three specified Dutch-processed cocoa. I used natural unsweetened cocoa in both the One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes and the icing on the Black and White Cookies. For my dad, I decided to see if I could track down the correct cocoa. I could not find it at Kroger, Publix or Ingles. I did track down a box at Whole Foods...for TEN DOLLARS. Yep, this cocoa costs twice as much as natural baking cocoa. 

Not all Dutch-processed cocoas will say such on their label. The ingredients always tell the tale. Natural will only list cocoa. Dutch-process will list cocoa and either say Dutch processed, like above, or simply alkali. That's what your looking for: alkali.

Read More . . .

Read More...

A Death Star Birthday

 We celebrated my middle moppet turning seven this weekend with the feast and cake of his own choosing. I spent the weekend making it happen creating my first ever stacked cake with a Death Star on top along with a buffet of baby back ribs, collard greens, corn, fried okra, mac and cheese, and lima beans. With a BBQ sauce mustache above his gorgeous grin he hugged me and told me it was a beautiful day. Happy Birthday, little man!

Making the Death Star come to life.

Read More . . .

Read More...

I Like Candy, Part One: A Hunger Born

I was going to post about my chocolate creation this past weekend but thought I should do a first post to explain how this whole candy thing started. I've been baking and decorating shaped cakes for years for family and friends. Never for money or request. That makes me nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs since I'm self-taught, my only lessons being watching my mom decorate cakes when I was growing up in the eighties. Fast forward to this past February when my super fab next door neighbor asked if I'd bake a cake for her son's fourth birthday party. She said she'd pay. Oh my. I told her I'd do it for just the cost of ingredients and still felt trepidation. The theme was Lego; the design left to me. 

Originally I thought I'd do a giant Lego brick cake. Have you seen them? Basically a sheet cake with cupcakes on top all iced a solid color. Effective but I thought maybe I could do better. I did have a silicone cake mold of a Lego Man I had purchased at Lego Land. Maybe I could use that. I did a test bake in the mold and realized it would not work with cake. Cute as a brownie. But with added buttercream icing, because I do not, will not do fondant, the details would be lost. 

Then an idea occurred to me. CANDY! I'd always seen the bag of Wilton Candy Melts on the cake aisle at Michael's. Maybe I could make a candy man from the mold. And I did. And it was easy. And it was awesome! Then I made candy Lego bricks from a Lego ice cube mold. 

The cake was a big hit. And a candy love was born.

Read More . . .

Read More...

Baking Martha's Heavenly Angel Food Cake

I grew up eating the most fabulous yellow cakes with buttercream frosting made by my mom. She spoiled me to ever enjoying a grocery store cake. Blech! Funny thing is, my mom likes cake but hates frosting...even her own fabulous buttercream. It's a crying shame. But what my mother does like is cake with berries and cream. In my progress toward baking everything Martha, I found a Classic Angel Food Cake recipe in the Baking Handbook. That settled it, she would get a homemade angel food cake with homemade vanilla whip cream and fresh macerated berries. She was excited; she'd never had homemade angel food cake. I was trepidatious but determined. *whispers* I did buy a box of Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake mix just in case. But hold on for a photo adventure and see why that box is still in my pantry and what I learned along the way.

Read More . . .

Read More...