Cake # 62 Blueberry Cupcakes with Sour Cream Frosting

This weekend's cake had more to do with convenience than anything else. We had left over blueberries and an orange, some powdered sugar and sour cream- and bazonga we get our blueberry cupcakes.

From swollen feet, chocolate fairs, birthday dinners, and church- I am worn out - and gasp I almost did not make the cake Saturday morning. As Evalyn is flashing her belly because her 2Ts no longer fit her, I am definitely feeling the pressure of her second birthday coming up in eight days. Pressure is not the right word, more like, oh my god, where did my baby go? Who is this girl? And why is she so tall? (Check that- we all know why she is so tall.) So the cake had to be a no-brainer- I made it, baked it, frosted it, and ate it all in thirty minutes, so this cake definitely won out for its speed.

Besides blueberries and orange rind, the cake called for flour, butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and baking powder. The frosting was powdered sugar and sour cream- and the cupcakes were topped off with a single blueberry.

Take a look!
Here are the book's cupcakes:

Here are my cupcakes (I did more powdered sugar than sour cream for the frosting... it just seemed nasty to do too much sour cream).

Off to wrap presents for Evie's birthday!

Cake # 61 Blueberry Orange Streusel Cake

My daughter loves blueberries! She is totally my husband's child - I am much more of a raspberry or strawberry girl, and I don't even like blueberry flavored anything (including candy! - shocking I know). Every Saturday when I bake a cake, Evalyn is my little helper. I normally get her to throw away trash, hold a bowl for me, or taste the batter to ensure its tastiness of course. As I was putting in the orange grind for this cake, Evie could not stop staring at the blueberries. Now, knowing how tart they are, and how much I hated them, I thought to myself no way will she like them. But, Evie was pretty persistent in her "peassseee" so I of course gave in to see what would happen. To my surprise she popped it in and smiled and said "more peease". Six blueberries later, I made Ted go out and buy more because If I can get Evalyn to eat fruit that is not a banana or mixed in a drink or a yogurt- I am a happy momma. So it is not surprising that this Blueberry Orange Streusel Cake is not only a big hit with my husband, but also with my daughter.

Besides the blueberries and orange grind, the cake called for flour, sugar, vanilla, eggs, butter, baking powder, and almonds. I then made a crumble topping of butter, flour, sugar, and orange grind.

Here is my cake:

And the book's:

In other Evie related news, we also got her to tells us where her brain and her heart were, as well as what sound her heart makes. She is growing up so fast - the transition from the crib to the big girl bed was no problem at all she not gotten out of her bed once, and she turns two in 15 days! As all parents say: She is growing up so fast! I am just truly grateful that something as spur of the moment as "Hey Laura, why don't you do a two year challenge cake blog?" has turned into a place where I can capture the sweetness of my cakes unfold with my daughter.

Cake #60 White Chocolate Valentine Cake

What a weekend! After a particularly disappointing work week, I decided to make some changes in my life that I can control – my house. So, this weekend has been the beginning of the “Evie Project,” as we are calling it here at the Childs’s residence, or in other words we are moving Evalyn out of the nursery and into a big girl room. Because Evalyn is turning two in . . . twenty-two days, and we only get weekends to really have enough time to do any significant damage, we realized that we needed to begin the “Evie Project” this extended President’s Day weekend. Now, it would seem that moving our child from one room in the house to the room directly next to her would not need such hyperbolic terms as “Project” and “damage,” but because our house just fits in the bracket of “charming” in its smallness, changing one room means rearranging three.

            Evalyn is getting a Little Mermaid themed room, and the new baby (a boy! Liam Pearse) is going to take over Evie’s current nursery, which actually means no new furniture to buy for the nursery. However, you better believe that I already have a registry for new bedspreads and bumpers and curtains and everything that I can to make it more “boy-like”. So, what basically was an idea of “let’s turn the computer room into Evie’s big girl room” turned into, “let’s get everything down from the attic that is baby stuff and figure out what we need for Liam’s Nursery, move all of the computer room desk, and bookshelves, and crap down stairs, make Evie’s playroom smaller from downstairs and add some upstairs to her new big girl room ,and oh yeah- actually get all of my old furniture from the attic down for Evie’s room. Which then turned into, “Laura you have all your old stuffed animals, and Barbies, and toys, and apparently over fifty TY Beanie Babies in the attic- can we get rid of them all too?” Well you can imagine how the week has been going from there- somehow, I felt it to be an imperative to clean out the hall closest amongst all of this rearranging - and even now as I am typing I am looking at the computer desk (that is now currently downstairs) and am thinking “ the desk and computer need a good cleaning too.”  

Picture of our newest addition!

Liam Pearse Childs

Pictures of our damage during "Project Evie"( I realize I look like I have a belly here...but I am 5 months prego! No judge!)

            So it is shocking to me that I was able to make a cake- a Valentines White Chocolate Heart Cake nonetheless, amongst all of this chaos. This cake called for the standard, sugar, flour baking powder, eggs, butter, and vanilla, but also required white chocolate shavings and chocolate chips. To make things even more interesting, the cake is in the shape of a heart- and I do not own a heart shaped pan, so I make a round cake and then cut it to a heart – I think it turned out well and the dog sure enjoyed the scraps. 

Here is my cake and then the book's picture.

Cake #59 Teatime Cupcakes

What is amazing is that it is 9:19 am and I have finished our Saturday cupcakes in time for breakfast because truly these are a cupcake for breakfast. These "teatime" cupcakes go perfectly with a cup of tea and as one might figure they are made with a strong Earl Grey tea. The rest of the recipe was simple mix the dry ingredients of flour, baking powder, apple pie spice, then stir in the wet ingredients of butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and the tea. Finally, add 1/8 cup of currants and bake for twenty-five minutes at 350 degrees. I also put a couple of currants on top of the cupcakes as well before baking. When they came out I sprinkled some powdered sugar and cinnamon on top, and that was that.They were a perfect breakfast for a snowy Saturday morning with some tea.

In fact, I really have had a perfect weekend so far. Last night Evalyn, Ted, myself, and baby that we will soon know the sex of, went to Babies R Us for some diapers and to check out toddler mattresses for her new big girl Little Mermaid room that will be a surprise for her second birthday, and Evalyn was an angel. Then we went to Italian Sensation for some pizza, and she ate a whole slice of pizza with a fork! Finally, we went food shopping and she was happy the whole time, so much so that when we were on our way for checkout Ted could not resist getting her the Lady and the Tramp blu-ray to watch for when we got home. So Ted put away the groceries, and I gave Evie a bath, and then we all snuggled in mommy and daddy's bed with her two pillow pets, a cup of milk, and a cookie and watched the "dog dogs". She watched a good thirty-five minutes before she started to get tired, so we kissed her goodnight and she went right to sleep. This morning was no different, she slept in until 7:30, woke up happy, and when she saw the snow she hugged the dog and ran to get her "'noman" stuffed animal, which I couldn't believe how smart she was to make that connection. She ate all of her breakfast and has been happily playing ever since. In fact, we even discovered that she loves currants - so yay for another healthy food we can add to the list.

Next weekend should be exciting too. Besides Evie's first Valentine's day that she will be able to enjoy chocolate, we will be one week closer to baby number two!

The book's cake:

My Cake:

So here is to good futures, and to future cakes!

Cake # 58 Peach and Cinnamon Pie

A friend of ours, while observing a once smaller Evie playing in her room, gave her the nickname Tank, because as she watched, Evie bounded from one activity to the next, bouncing off of toys and walls, climbing over obstacles, and ignoring any of the usual toddler-aged melt-downs that accompany real and imagined pains caused by tumbles and falls. As I have watched Evie this weekend, it has occurred to me that this nickname Tank may just stick. My daughter is a whirling dervish of activity, a tornado in size 6 shoes. From the floor she can climb onto our bed, from the bed she can climb onto the floor, on either surface, she regards the established laws of physics as mere theories that are to be applied to lesser mortals. Watching her play, it is hard to believe that she is approaching only her second, and not fifth or sixth birthday; her height, vocabulary, and attitude all fit the temperament of a much older child.

                It was among these reflections that this week’s cake, Peach and Cinnamon Pie , was made. The recipe was easy, calling for a batter of flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, butter, eggs, and vanilla, as well as cut peaches and corn flakes for the crunchy topping. The batter was split in half, with part going on the bottom of the pie, and the other half mixed with cornflakes to go on top of the pie, after the peaches were added. The result was a sweet, crunchy, gooey mixture of peachy goodness. 

Here is my cake:

And the book's cake:

Check in next week to see what Evie the Tank and I have made. Until then!

Cake # 57 Mocha Deserts

This week’s blog is coming to you a day late because last night, directly after finishing the cake and buying new glasses (thank the lord Jesus for vision insurance) Ted and I went to Toby’s Dinner Theater in Columbia to see the King and I. These were the tickets Ted gave me for our anniversary. The food was good, the show was equally good, and we had the added entertainment of watch the staff try to quietly scramble around the actors to get to a patron directly across from us who had fainted in their chair. Not to worry, the patron was okay and the show went on (a must in theater from what I am told)!

This week’s cake called for two of the best ingredients that can ever go into a cake … chocolate cake, and melted chocolate topping. A devastatingly easy cake to make, these Mocha Desserts called for flour, baking powder, unsweetened cocoa, butter, eggs, light brown sugar, little bars of semi-sweet chocolate, and homemade coffee extract. It seems weird to me that no store anywhere in the Harford county are carries coffee extract, but after driving around the county on numerous occasions over the past few weeks, I can attest to the fact that this said extract apparently is a figment of my recipe book’s imagination. Luckily, the extract is so easy to make, that buying seems silly anyway. Basically you just reduce down extra-super strength-bold-strong coffee by boiling it until it is thick goo. The topping called for a cup of light cream, more coffee extract, and melted semisweet chocolate, all gently melted down in a saucepan.

Here are my cakes:

Here is the book's picture

Until next week's delicious creation!!

Cake # 56 Edgewood RED and WHITE Checkerboard Cake

A later post is better than no post at all and in addition to posting on a Monday, I also spent this weekend creating a cake and cupcakes for the EHS bake- off. My cake ended up winning third place! Monday and Tuesday of this week are in-service days for Harford County, and at last year's in-service we had a Chili cook-off and this year we decided to have round two of the Chili cook-off and add a bake-off. Ted competed in the Chili cook-off and made his own special Tiwana Chili with Tequelia, Lime juice, beer, bacon, beef, cumin, onion powder, peppers, red pepper, black pepper, salt, and onions. We all ate a practice round of Ted's chili for the Ravens game on Sunday - and for all the Baltimore fans out there - as Forrest Gump would say: "That's all I have to say about that."

My cake proved to be more disastrous (insert shock here) because I had attempted to do a marbled red and white fondant over the checkerboard three layer cake. I have made some really nice fondant cakes before, but never over a cake this high. Problem one: in attempting to make the bottom not ripple, I cracked the top of the cake. Problem two: Once fondant is cracked it's whacked. So, instead I opted for a traditional homemade butter-cream icing and had to ditch the fantastic marbled swirled fondant icing I had dyed. Note to self- take a class on fondant icing so it looks pretty for large cakes too! The cake was a checkerboard pattern (thanks to Ted's mom I was able to make it because I do not have the proper tools to make a checkerboard cake) of red velvet and a white cake- our EHS colors. The cake consisted of the standards: flour, sugar, baking soda, eggs, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil. It also had some twists to the cake as I choose to create a southern style recipe: cocoa powder, salt, buttermilk, and vinegar. Obviously, being red velvet cake, I added 2 table spoons of red food dye. The white cake consisted of butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, egg whites, milk, and vanilla extract.

Here is my cake:

Because I had left over cake batter, and I never like to make things easy for myself, I also decided to make cupcakes as well. The cupcakes were white cake or red velvet cake with butter-cream icing, chocolate graham cracker "chalkboards" with white icing, a sugared school related candy, and a piece of chalk- made out of a cut - in - half white good - n- plenty. They were actually a lot of fun to decorate - though they did not receive any placing in the contest like my cake did.

Here were my cupcakes:  

Next week I will go back to the cakes in my cake-book. So for now, you only get the pictures of my cakes and my word that they tasted as good as they looked. But, hey, third place out of top five isn't too shabby!