Cake # 86 Mango & Coconut Brulee Cake

Ted Childs knows his way around a grocery store. This is just a basic fact of life. As a small child, I watched countless hours of Supermarket Sweep, the mid 90’s game show that pitted three teams of contestants in a race around a fake supermarket to rack up the largest possible grocery bill, all while answering trivia questions related to supermarket products, and all I could think was … “damn, when I get older I am going to run this show.” I could be the Ken Jennings of buying expensive frozen turkey and fresh chorizo.

Sadly though, in the quest to make this week’s cake, I was defeated by the local Safeway. Walking casually through the aisles this week, I quickly worked my way down the grocery list until there was one solitary item left; an item so basic and inconspicuous that it seems still so surreal that it stumped me. That item was: Mango (insert crazy montage of SNL’s Mango the Dancer skit from a decade ago here).  You may be saying to yourself, “But Ted, mango is such a normal ingredient. How could you not find it? What is your problem? Are you stupid?” If you are saying this, you are not a nice person. I know what mango is, I know the flavor, I know the color… I just have never seen a full on, skin and all mango.  As it turns out, a Mango looks like smaller, seasick football that is slightly shriveled at the end. Who knew? Not me!

Anyway, this week’s cake, the Mango & Coconut Brulee Cake, called for the following ingredients:  Flour, Sugar, Baking Powder, Eggs, Butter, Lime Juice, Lime Rind, Shredded Coconut, and Mango. Once the cake was finished baking, more sugar and coconut was added  to the top, and the cake was put into the broiler to brown the top (Laura did this for me!). In terms of the visual, I think this was one of my closest cakes to the book in appearance:

My Cake:

The Book’s Cake:

Make sure to check back next week, as school starts on Wednesday and I am sure to have had five nervous breakdowns by then. Just don’t ask me to go to the store for a full mango!

Cake # 85 Orange and Almond cake

Only 15 more cakes to go until I have completed my challenge of 100 cakes- one a week! This week, as the last two weeks has been as hectic as ever with trying to make It'sTulleTime my small at home business run successfully. Right now things are looking up! I am going to have 9 items of my products in a local botqiue the first week of September, and I am going to my first vendor show in Cockeysville. I just ordered my first set of business cards, and I bought my first items wholesale. (Which means I can eventually lower prices for all!)  I have also completed my 10th order and soon (hopefully sooner rather than later) I will be making an actual profit!

Currently, on the family front - Liam is getting more chunky everyday and Evie more fussy. Terrible twos are well terrible. In fact, as I am typing this she is screaming her head off that she wants bubbles - after we have told her "no" four times. Her new thing is poking people (in a rude way) when she is mad and stomping her feet. Please let this pass soon! As far as Ted and I go, we are on a diet - ( I am trying to loose my last 10 lbs gained from baby Liam, and Ted is trying to loose the weight he gained when I was preggers too!. So making a cake a week is really hard! We tried to make this week's cake with less fat (so you will certainly notice the difference in the color) we added less flour, less butter, and more orange juice.  Besides all of those ingredients the cake called for almonds, sugar, vanilla, baking powder, and oranges.

Quick pictures and then off to silence my still screaming daughter!

My fat free version:

The book's cake:

Evie is ... uh calling to put it politely!

Cake #84 Apple and Blackberry Sponge Cake

A special congratulation must go out to my sister-in-law Katie’s boyfriend Ron on successfully moving down to Baltimore from Philadelphia and starting his new job today. In the almost eleven years that I have known Katie, I do not know if I can remember a time when she was as happy as she is now, and that happiness is directly attributed to Ron. He is such a wonderful guy, especially with Evie, who idolizes him, and I am so glad that he now has moved closer to be an even greater part of her life. This week’s cake is for him.

This week I made an Apple and Blackberry sponge cake, a novel cake simply for that fact that I had never eaten blackberries before. Something about their general shape (think grape that spent one day too many in a leper colony or sunburned raspberry) that makes me uneasy.  Just the same though, I made the cake, tried the berries, and was happy on both accounts. This cake called for Flour, Baking Powder, Butter, Eggs, Sugar, Apple Juice, and Apple Chunk, and the topping (which coincidentally went on the bottom of the pan as this was an upside down type cake) was made of diced apples, blackberries, and Raw Brown Sugar.  A cake filled with warmth and happiness … two traits I will always associate with Ron.

My cake:

The Book's Cake (with a nice rip on the page courtesy of Evie):

Check back next week to see what delectable desert I have in store … only a few more recipes to go before I reach the goal of 100 cakes in 100weeks. Until then, happy baking!

Cake # 83 Blueberry Cake

Today is July 31^st. This fact is significant for two reasons. For one, it is almost August and therefore the summer is almost over. Secondly, it is a Tuesday, which is really no big deal for most people, but for a blog that is regularly published on Saturday, a three day lapse is kind of a big deal. Oops! It has been a busy week. So busy in fact, that this is not even Laura writing; it isn’t Evie, Liam, or Shakespeare either, so if you still do not know who is typing you might as well stop, as your abysmal ignorance about our family probably signifies that you are creeper who just likes to spy on a cake baking family. Or you are a cake pervert. I’m not sure which is worse, but either way you should probably go back to scamming soccer moms on Craigslist because your kind is not welcome.

The reason our cake for this week is late is because Laura has started a new business venture and has dedicated numerous hours to developing products, securing a Justin Bieber endorsement deal (yes he is every bit the douche he seems like in interviews- yet that Selena Gomez is a fox) , and starting a facebook site (like It’s Tulle Time Crafts on facebook  or be forever a loser – follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/ItsTulleTimeGifts  ) It all started when Evie was inspired to make a tutu for Evie. The tutu was so successful, Laura began looking around the internet and her swap sites for new craft ideas. She discovered how to make wreathes out of the same tulle that tutus are made from and bam! A business was born. Since last Friday, Laura has been busy setting up the site, practicing her wreath-making, and setting up orders, that she and I (the cheese to her macaroni) completely forgot about the cake of the week blog. Thus, it is now Tuesday, and the cake has just been completed.

This week I made a Blueberry Swirl Gateau, which apparently is a fancy French term for normal white cake with white icing and blueberries. The cake was made with flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, eggs, and orange juice, and the icing was cream cheese, powdered sugar, and fresh blueberries. I made the cake itself, and Evie and Laura made the icing. It was truly family effort.

Our cake:

So remember. If you need a wreath to commemorate the start of the Raven’s season, the first watchable Orioles August in fifteen years, or just a festive reminder of your Mother’s timely release on parole, think of It’s Tulle Time Crafts. And don’t do it because I said so, do it because Justin Bieber says so (and he’s a teen idol, so how misguided could he possibly be?)

Check in next week to see if Leif Garrett and David Cassidy agree to duet on our TV jingle!

Cake #82 Orange Cheesecake Gateau

With each cake I make I actually get more upset that another week as passed by! Another week where Evalyn is showcasing her independence, another week where Liam is getting bigger and now out of newborn diapers, another week less of summer. But as I know now being a mom more than ever I did before I was a mom, like naps, bedtime, potty, routine is good -- so another cake was made. This time, Ted actually made the majority of the cake as I was trying to get Evalyn ready for a birthday party. He told me that it was a really simple cake to make, just baking powder, flour, sugar, eggs, butter, and orange juice to get two crispy round cakes. The icing was easy to make, but Ted was shocked that you would put cheese, in this case, mascarpone, in an icing. The icing was also made with powdered sugar, orange juice, and orange rind. He was licking his fingers by the time he had finished making the icing.

Here is Ted's cake (with some help from me):

Here is the book's cake:

However, there will no cake eating for Evalyn tonight as she had cake, a cookie, and some ice-cream at the birthday party today -- girlfriend was on a sugar high and had a very hard time leaving her friends. She gave a good fight about her nap, almost convinced herself that she wasn't tired, but the warmth of her covers beat her in the end.

Tomorrow we have another birthday party to go to, my dad's, and so Evalyn will have more cake and ice-cream to eat and another chance to get hyper in "nanny's pool." I am aching for a vacation to the beach, I know that I am not going to any beach this summer, but I did not realize I would miss it this much! So for now I will have to pretend that I can smell the saltiness of the ocean and vingear of Thrashers.

Cake 81 Apricot and Syrup Cake

Making a cake this morning was supposed to be the easiest and least hectic thing that The Children have done this week. Big things happened for me on Tuesday, as I was asked to be the department chair at C. Milton Wright. Being a department chair is something that I have wanted for the past three years; I would be great at this job. Although I love Edgewood High School with all of me, I was ready to take the job and on Wednesday I went to the school to accept. Well a friend of mine, and my sister, always tells me to "look at the signs," and on my drive to CMW, "Call Me Maybe" came on the radio - which was the song that myself and a few other teachers parodied in a video for the students' last day of school. So, between that sign, and the want to stay home for my complete maternity leave I chose to stay at Edgewood -- I just could not give up this time with Liam.

So I guess this decision put the mothering instinct in full gear because I have been crazy with cleaning and organizing and trying to sell some of the stuff in the house to make money for two possible vacations next year. Since we cannot go on vacation this year because Liam is too new and money is tight - we decided to plan for next year. A group of Social Studies teachers at EHS want to go to the Outer Banks next year and we would also like to go to Florida with my parents -- so we started a vacation jar and I started cleaning out the attic to see what we could sell. Apparently there are a ton of groups on facebook for Harford County residents to sell and swap stuff- so I joined a couple of them and in 24 hours I made 100.00 selling some old items that we have had up in the attic for years. Good stuff!

All week Evalyn has been super pleasant to be around, so we have done trips to the library, the park, Panera, and Tasti-d-Lite all for Evalyn. She has been to "Mrs. Headdy's" twice this week to for Daycare, where she went to her first movie Puss and Boots ! Apparently she did excellently. So I figured let's finish Evalyn's week with something calm, a cake. And the moment the words came out of my mouth, "Evie you have been such a good girl this week! Are you ready to make a cake?" I have regretted them! In the past four hours Evie has been to time-out four times, for hitting me with her toy phone, taking a toy hammer and smashing it on my laptop, throwing the bowl of flour on the ground, spilling water and throwing her milk on the floor, taking her "potty chart" of the wall and eating (yes eating) the stickers off of it, and currently as I type this Ted his telling her to stop taking all of the dishes out of the dishwasher. YIKES! Well after six perfectly good days I think we forgot that she was a two-year old, and not a perfect child :)

Anyway, here is the cake that FINALLY got made:

Here is the book's cake:

Hopefully next week will be six days of awesomeness with Evie and only one day of crazy Evalyn like we have today!

Cake # 80 Kiwi Cake with Lemon Frosting

Cake number 80 and twenty more cakes to go!I am very thankful that Ted and I have wonderful friends and family. In the past three days alone all of "The Children" have been visited by friends bringing food, or presents, or both for our family -- the kindness and love that they give to us, just because we had a baby-- is truly astounding. Three teacher friends stopped by to meet Liam and to see how we were doing. What is even more amazing is how these people are not family and yet they also thought about my other daughter too and brought her presents to deal with her new adjustment of Liam -- she has been so happy and pleasant this past week because of all of the love and attention our friends are bestowing upon her. Her biggest thing right now is reading Library books. She absolutely loves the library and these books Martha Doesn't Say Sorry and Martha Doesn't Share by Samantha Berger. I chose those books for Evie because she is struggling with these two issues. She loves these books and I can see her learning as she reads them.

Fortunately, Evalyn has no problem saying please and thank you, which she has realized that these two words hold power into achieving things like eating cookies, fruit snacks, or cake. This morning the whole family made a kiwi cake with lemon frosting, and Evie said "Please can I have some." By some she meant the icing of course, which was a mixture of cream cheese, powdered sugar, and lemon rind -- her whole face was white by the time she was finished. The cake is made with flour, sugar, vanilla, baking powder, butter, eggs, and of course kiwi. It is a good thing that kiwi is made of 97 percent water because it is HOT out today. I went out at 10:00 a.m. with Evalyn to get the kiwi, cream cheese, and a lemon and by the time we made it from the car to the store we both were sweating! I guess today will have to be a play day inside for Miss Evie and Mister Liam, because 102 degrees isn't working for "The Children".

Here is our cake:

Here is the book's cake:

Thankfully because of great friends, Evalyn has had a lot of company to keep her busy the past few days, and she certainly was spoiled- so today is a perfect day to stay in and play with all of her new "big sister" presents.

Hopefully next weekend we will be able to go outside and eat cake!