My favorite kind of favor

My friend asked me some time ago to teach her to make the white chocolate raspberry cordial. He daughter practically demanded one for her birthday. OK, I can handle an enthusiastic fan.

We baked the cake as soon as they got there, then watched some Bill Engvall waiting for the cake to cool. Instead of making a no-cook jam version by hitting the puree button on my food processor, we decided to just mash the raspberries with the back side of a rubber spatula.Here is the birthday girl with her cake. I threatened to keep the cake if she didn't pose for a picture with it... apparently cake is very persuasive. I'm told she sniffed the cake the entire way home, and then rationed thin slices to the members of her family.

Family Birthday Cakes

Hubby and I took a vacation to NY to visit his family, see some church history sites, and camp on Lake Ontario. While we were up there, we celebrated his parents' birthdays.

For her July birthday, her favorite chocolate indulgence. This time I actually got a picture of the inside of the cake.Oooo, pretty slice. Tim was concerned that the full-size cake would be too much for the two of them, then I reminded him that we were traveling with friends of ours from church and their 4 hungry boys. When we left Sunday afternoon, there was the equivalent of this much left.This was for his father's March birthday. I know, it is late, but you can't exactly mail a cake like this through the US Postal Service.His first comment was that we got the colors right. For once, being obsessed with details paid off. For this we made yellow cupcakes with coconut milk for just a hint of flavor, white chocolate icing, and a circle of fondant painted to resemble the billiard balls (he's a big fan and plays often).

It was a nice visit; we definitely got to relax. I'm glad to be home. I have more cakes to do. :-)

At the Luao

This is what happens when you sign up to make a pineapple upside-down cake for a church function, and are asked to make extra because some of the others couldn't make cakes. These ferns and flowers all came from plants growing around the house, and the purple butterfly bushes smell heavenly! This was your standard recipe for pineapple upside-down cake, one 9x13 and one 1/2 sheet size. I used 4 5"-pillars and two 3/4" tubes for support of the upper layer, and green florist variety water picks for the flowers. I couldn't see spending a lot of money for the white ones when I could cut the spikes off of the green ones and work just fine for cheaper.

Luscious Lemon

I made our receptionist (at my day job) a cake for her birthday. I brought in the day after on Friday so that she didn't have to share if she didn't want to. After seeing the wedding cake I did for my friends at church and talking about the flavors, she decided on the lemon cake with lemon icing. Mmmm, tasty!

Fireworks? What fireworks???

I don't see any fireworks, just this cake that looks like fireworks. I know we're not supposed to set fireworks off at work!

My day job asked my side job for a cake... go figure. :-)

They wanted something 4th-of-July-ish for a little shindig they were throwing at lunch. Nothing big on the menu, just hot dogs, chips, and soda... and of course cake. They didn't have any special requests, no flavors, no designs. They just let me run free with it. Dangerous, I know, but they have to learn sometime!

I saw a cool idea from Cupcakes Take the Cake (see their post about it here) and thought it might do the trick, but I wanted something that resembled fireworks. This is what I brought to work this morning... I baked one box each of red velvet mini cupcakes, white mini cupcakes, and blue-tinted white mini cupcakes. I followed the directions for the marshmallows and frosting the minis, but I omitted the fruit so that I wouldn't have to refrigerate it. I made the inside out of my favorite green Styrofoam, covered it to make it food safe, and stabbed away. There were 85 kebabs in all in this explosion!

Lessons learned here: 1. Definitely don't do this more in advance than the night before. This was served at lunch (11:30 or so) and by the time I brought the remaining 10 kebabs home, the mini cupcakes were getting a little hard. 2. Weight the base. The first couple yards down my driveway and out of our development were a little harrowing as I saw it teetering. I ended up moving it up behind the driver's seat so that I could hold it while I drove. 3. Don't stick the skewers in so far, Erin! We had a difficult time getting some of them out. On the bright side, the holes are "pre-drilled" so it won't be so hard next time.