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!

Cake # 55 Individual Golden Raisin Syrup Sponge Cakes

January 14th 2012 and six years of marriage to the one and only Theodore Childs. As tradition on our anniversaries we go to The Melting Pot for dinner. So I knew whatever cake I was going to make had to be light and healthy because the gluttony we were about to put our bodies through was (as my students like to say) epic.

And it was epic! The Big Feast four course fondue meal was out of this world. Starting with a Wisconsin three cheese blend with apples, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli,  pumpernickel, white, and wheat bread dippers. Next we moved on to salads where I got the House salad (which has eggs and an amazing peppercorn ranch dressing) and Ted got the Caesar salad that has a  slightly louder anchovy taste than most I have eaten. Course three, and possibly Ted's favorite course, the meat. Because the theme of the month at Melting Pot is All American the meats were pretty amazing, Old Bay Shrimp, New York Strip Steak, Buffalo Chicken, and some kind of pork and some kind of ravioli. Since I do not like pork or ravioli, I couldn't tell you how they were prepared... Ted ate all of them himself. While the steak was amazing, my favorite part of course three is the potatoes and The Melting Pot's heavenly goddess dressing, a mixture of chives and sour cream and cream cheese and who knows what else. Finally on to my favorite part of the night, the chocolate. We opted for the Big Night Out special which was a play on PB & J- chocolate, peanut butter, and a puree of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries - definitely not my favorite chocolate that I have had there, but it is melted chocolate, you can't really go wrong. However, for the first time, Ted and I couldn't finish all of the dessert- we actually left half a cheese cake and some strawberries -- and I thought being pregnant I would be able to stuff my face like no other! The night ended with Ted giving me his present- a dinner and a show (The King and I) at Toby's and a box of chocolate covered strawberries that The Melting Pot gave us for free for our anniversary. It was a wonderful night of eating and laughing and spending time remembering all of the things we have been through together and all of the things we wish for our future. But we still cannot decide on a name for the new child!

Evalyn was being watched by my sister while we were eating, and I think both had a great time -- she did not want to leave! She had a princess cake to eat!

The cake itself we did not actually get time to eat until this morning and that was because we were too afraid to spoil our stomachs for our dinner, so the family had it for breakfast this morning. It was a perfect size cake for breakfast- an upside down muffin drenched in syrup and raisins. The cake was put together with butter, dark corn syrup, whole wheat flour, regular flour, vanilla, baking powder, allspice, sugar, eggs, and raisins. It tasted like a spongy raisin cookie with syrup on it- pretty tasty.


Here is the book's picture:

And here is my cake:

Until next week!