Cake # 35 The Polka-Dot Birthday Cake

I think Mother Nature is trying to tell me (and the rest of the East Coast) that August 31st is just too soon to go back to school. Maryland had her first ever large scale earthquake that I can now officially say that I have lived through one, and we are expecting Hurricane Irene to hit Maryland tonight. I have been through my share of Hurricanes, but the not state of emergency, power outages, buy all the bread and batteries you can kind. So, I'd like to think that it is some higher being warning us feeble people that school should not start in the month of August or the world will come to an end. Speaking of coming to an end, another year as gone by for my sister and her birthday is today. Normally, her birthday is another sign of school beginning, so that uneasy feeling creeps upon me, but not this year. Even with the hurricane looming I am more excited for her birthday than ever because I got to make my first ever cake with fondant icing. Talk about pressure.

I was very worried that the icing would not turn out polished or would taste gross, but I am happy to say that neither of these things happened. The cake is a small cutesy little thing, which basically describes my sister perfectly. Besides my first time with the ingredient fondant, the cake also called for milk, butter, eggs, four, baking powder, sugar, vanilla, and some sugar-coated chocolate candies.

Here is the book's picture:

 Here is my cake:

Pretty close- though unfortunately pastel colored M&Ms were all the way in White Marsh, and while I love my sister dearly, I wasn't trucking out there in pre-Hurricane weather. Anyway, tomorrow we are supposed to have crabs up her house, if Irene gives us a break, which is my favorite food- so what is there to not be happy about? Pretty cake, pretty sister, yummy food- yeah school is around the corner, but if you know me at all you know that I am prepared.

Until next week!

Cake # 34 Butterscotch Cupcakes

I went out to eat with a friend this week and while we were driving to Subway we saw the Halloween Store back in our local shopping center. Then, yesterday at my mom's there was a Halloween costume magazine on her coffee table. These signs, among others, give me a nauseous feeling of what is to come. School. Please do not misinterpret. I love teaching and I love my students. Nor is this foreboding feeling have anything to do with the fact that I will have to go back to "work". Most people who talk to me about teaching assume we have off all summer with pay. Wrong Answer. I have worked all summer except for two weeks. I have just felt this way about going back to school since I was a child. I am a naturally nervous person, so the night before school I can't sleep and the weekend before school I try to occupy my mind and body with as many activities as possible. But undoubtedly the morning of my face is burning and something inside of me is jittering right at the top of my left ribcage.

Making the cake this week, knowing it was the last cake before school, did not help this nervousness. However, the good thing that came from making these Butterscotch Cupcakes (besides the end result of gluttony) was that I learned how to make my own butterscotch - and so easy too! Just take two tablespoons of corn syrup, butter, and dark brown sugar and melt them down in a pan, bring to a boil, drizzle over desired consumption item, let it set, and serve! What I am really looking forward to is when Christmas comes, I make homemade peppermint ice cream with candy canes, and now I will have a home made butterscotch topping to go with it!

The actual cake was also an incredibly simple recipe, flour, light brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and butter. 

Here is what my cake and the book's cake look like:

Next weekend it is my big sister's birthday- so I think I will make the "Polka Dot Birthday Cake" next week for her.

Until then, if you could read this blog- thank a teacher.

Cake # 33 White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Trying to type without the full use of both hands is so tedious that I don't understand why people never learned how to type correctly, or why my students use the two finger hunt and peck. However, here I am typing away without full use of my fingers because I am me. Let me explain if you haven't surmised the facts yourself from previous posts. One, I am the clumsiest person I know. Two, if there is a chance or calamity to happen, it will. Three, Ted refuses to let me use a knife unless he is in the same room. As I was finishing up my cake of the week, and getting ready to decorate the top of the cupcakes with melted white chocolate and then sprinkling them with chocolate sprinkles, I burnt one of my fingers severely and two others badly. Fact, melted chocolate burns like a bitch (sorry for the language mom). I had to melt a decorating pouch of white chocolate in the microwave in 15 second intervals, taking it out each time and kneading the chocolate pouch. By the third interval I was howling in pain and dancing around the kitchen in a mess of chocolate sprinkles that I had knocked on the floor in my mad dash around the kitchen. Betty Crocker should warn you that it is a possibility for the pouches of smoldering chocolate to leak flaming holes of chocolate. Of course, I should also probably learn to look at something before I grab it.

Here is the damage after it has been taken care of by yours truly. 

The burns on my fingers were so bad that my husband advocated for a trip to Patient First, but he also was supposed to be at a friend's house to watch a soccer game, so feeling bad I declined. Instead, I had him check online for what to do and to run to CVS to buy burn cream. Before he left, he told me I had to stick my hand in cool water for 15 minutes. As I was sitting there in the kitchen with my hand submerged in a bowl of cool water waiting for the 15 minute mark to come and pass, I began to wonder who decided that 15 minutes was the perfect time to stop the pains from a burn? I mean, did someone actually stand there and time a person with his or her burned hand in water? "Okay, five minutes have past, take your hand out of the water...does it still burn?" Then screaming ensued and they tried again in another minute? But after the ten minute mark hit, and I took my hand out of the water, and I still wanted to scream out in pain, I thought that either this wasn't going to work, or there was some truth to the "wait for 15 minutes" rule.

Needless to say, I had to improvise for the last step of the cupcakes. White chocolate icing was used instead of melted white chocolate and rainbow sprinkles instead of chocolate sprinkles. The rest of the cake called for the usual, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, backing soda, and white chocolate chips.

Here is what the cupcakes should have looked like:

 Here is what my modified cupcakes look like:

Anyway, next week, if I survive until then, I will be making butterscotch cupcakes.

Be safe!

Cake # 32 Honeyed Apple Bars

It is 12:30 am and two and a half hours of siren like explosions from my beautiful daughter's mouth, two and a half hours of trying to contain a thrashing and walloping creature, two and a half hours of tired, angry passengers on the plane later, Ted and I were home. Evalyn finally fell asleep the moment we walked out of the plane and into the terminal to pick up our luggage. Convenient. That was Tuesday morning and yet I still feel like I am recovering from vacation. So a rational person may be confused at my decision to leave again for a smaller trip with my family to Ocean City this Sunday. Apparently, Ted and I enjoy a good challenge. Thankfully we will be back home by next Saturday, so I do not have to worry about making a cake at the ocean. Furthermore, I have just finished this week's Honeyed Apple Bars and we are going to a party in about an hour, so I will not have to worry about this cake going bad while we are away.

If Lucille Ball, my hero and Evalyn's middle namesake, was alive she would be one hundred years old today. So, I donned my Lucy apron and got to work baking. Now, I am not so different from that precarious red-head. If there is a chance for something to break, an accident to happen, or for me to fall down, I have already broke it, found it, and fell down. In fact, while in Florida, I hit my head no less than three times, once on a metal beam, and twice on the metal base of a chandelier. Good times. That is why when my cake turned out perfectly, the process went quickly, and the cleaning was easy, I was shocked that I didn't put too much flour in and have a humongous cake shoot from my stove, or have to shove chocolates in my mouth and down my shirt, or somehow get locked in my freezer.

The cake was flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, apple juice,apples, honey, baking powder, and allspice.   

Our cake is on top and the book's cake is below.

Here's to you Lucy!