Cake # 70 Saffron Orange Mini Cupcakes

I am officially thirty weeks preggers! Ten weeks left to go before we get to meet little Liam, who Evie has fondly nicknamed “eep” because she has trouble saying “Liam.” Ted and I are trying to tell her daily how much we love her (not hard at all) and how when the new baby comes she will still always be our little girl (again not hard, but hard for her to understand). I have no doubt that she will be an amazing big sister, as daily she helps me put dirty laundry in the laundry basket and every Saturday she helps me bake the cake of the week.

This week our cake was splendidly easy to make, but also very expensive because of one ingredient, saffron.  For one jar of the bargain brand saffron threads at Safeway the price was twenty-three dollars. Which caused a mild panic, but then I realized I had a fifteen dollar off purchase at Safeway, and I did not have to buy any other ingredients for this cake- so I splurged to see what was so amazing about this spice. When I went home I of course had to research saffron’s history to figure out what was so amazing about this spice. I found out a lot of interesting facts about saffron, but mainly that it is the most expensive spice in the world and that it can be used for a lot of purposes, such as perfumes, hair dyes, and medicines. I was worried about cooking with saffron because I also read that it can be very bitter, and that a little saffron can go a long way. Because I had to heat the saffron threads with two tablespoons of orange juice, I thought that the majority of any bitterness would be diluted with the sweetness of the orange juice. As it turns out, the saffron mixed with the orange juice tasted a lot more like honey to me than anything bitter, and the color was beautiful. The rest of the cake called for pretty standard ingredients, a grated orange rind, three eggs, flour, butter, sugar, and baking soda.  With a homemade icing of orange juice, powdered sugar, and grated orange rinds to top it off, our Mini Orange Saffron Cupcakes were complete.

Here is the book’s picture:

Here are my mini cupcakes:

Evie ate four of them. Yes, she takes after her father.

Tomorrow my sister is throwing me and Liam a “Sprinkle”, a mini baby shower, since this is my second child. I am very excited, especially because we are eating Mexican food.

Next week will be hectic, I am a co-sponsor for our Junior class, which means Prom – and that is what is happening next Saturday- wish me luck . . . better yet, sanity!

Cake #69 Birthday Number Cake

With my Birthday approaching this Monday- I decided to make the "Birthday Number Cake" but with a twist. See the "Birthday Number Cake" is a huge cake that represents the number age you are turning. Now, I am turning twenty-eight - thirty is creeping its ugly head out of its hiding place - and there was no way I was going to make or eat a cake that was as large as the number twenty-eight. So, I decided to make the cake regardless so I could learn the skill- but instead of the number twenty-eight, I made the letter 'A'. The whole purpose of the cake is to learn how to make a sheet cake and cut it and frost it in a way that it looks like a certain shape. So I made the cake as the recipe called for- eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla, butter, baking powder, and some milk, and I made the icing that the recipe called for - powdered sugar, orange juice, and vanilla. But, instead of cutting the cake into a number I cut the cake into the letter 'A' to represent the 'A'-side.

My friend and I both have our Birthdays a day a part from each other, so I said that we would share in the eating of Birthday cake and I would make a cake to represent "us". See both my friend, Dawn, and myself work at the same High School. We are both English Teachers, and we are both located on what is referred to as the "A-side" of the school. I figured that keeping the cake itself the same, but altering the design would not be a big deal - and instead of decorating the top of the cake with candied orange slices like the book's cake calls for - I decided to top it with red sprinkles because our school colors are red and white.

Here is a picture of the book's number cake:

Here is much smaller Edgewood "A-Side" cake:

On Sunday, I get to participate in my favorite Maryland tradition - eating crabs! For my birthday, Ted is getting a bushel of crabs for me and his family to eat - we are extremely excited because they will be our first crabs of the season - I wonder what Evie will think of the taste, and if she will let me enjoy some of my crabs in peace or if she will be her crazy, but lovable self.

I believe there will be more cake on Sunday as well- but this time it will be ice-cream cake and I will not be making it! Thank goodness for that!

Until next week-

Cake # 68 Almond Spice Cupcakes

Contractions! Yikes - seven months preggers and contractions are happening. Last night I had irregular contractions from 7:30 to 10:30 -- what bothers me is that because with Evie I never even felt Braxton Hicks contractions - in fact I never felt the real contractions until right before I gave birth - when I have Braxton Hicks now, I feel like I am going into labor! It is certainly a scary feeling. Possibly all of these contractions are a result of a busy Saturday. It began with Ted bleaching one of my only two pregnancy T-shirts, and became a whirlwind of activities after that. We left our house at 11:30 and did not come back home until 8:00pm that night, which if you have a two-year old, you know how hard that can be. We had to run some errands at Walmart, which we bought Simalac nursettes to start preparing for little Liam's arrival, and with my sister's five dollar manufacturer coupon, we only spent 1.88 per box of nursettes. Then we had to rush home and decorate the cupcakes that I made earlier in the morning.

Next, we went to a friend's house warming party that began in a part where they played beer kickball and Evie and I and our friend and her sons played in the park. This was probably the hardest part of my day - even more uncomfortable than the contractions because when you put your kid next to your friend's kids, you cannot help but to want them to be well behaved. Her boys sat when she asked them to, listened when she asked them to, and generally seemed far less crazy than my spitfire.  Now, I completely understand that all kids have off days, but it doesn't make it any less embarrassing - or make you wonder what you could be doing to be a better mother.

After that Evalyn fell asleep in the car as we rushed over to Ted's sister's Tastefully Simple party. I started off feeling okay but by the time 7:30 hit I was having contractions and feeling nauseated. These symptoms are so new to me because with my first baby I was on the go all of the time and felt nothing - so I felt terrible that I wasn't more energetic for Katie's party and that I looked miserable. Also, I really wanted to eat the food - but I couldn't get anything in.

I cannot even tell you how my cupcakes went - because all I know is that my daughter ate two without even blinking - so I am guessing they were good.

Here is the book's picture (with the added bonus of my daughter's ripping of some of the page):

Here are my Almond Spice Cupcakes:

Even though I haven't been feeling too great- because of recent tragic events in our friend's life, Ted and I are reminded yet again how lucky we are to have our family, our kid(s!), and friends.

Cake # 67 Cherry Filled with Whipped Cream Frosting Cupcakes

While I know that the Childs's family is certainly getting sick of cake (gasp Ted sick of food?) I know that he will ultimately be sad when this challenge is over. In fact, he has been hinting at doing a cookie challenge next - which I laughed at first - and then I realized he was serious. On the up side, I do love cookies so at least I could help him eat more of weekly "challenges" if it were cookies.

This week Ted and I have been off of school because of spring break. We have had a lot of time this break to think about our next steps. Like everyone else in living in this economy right now, we are a paycheck to paycheck family, (which was why we choose these particular cupcakes for this week - because I already had all of the ingredients!) and with both of of us being teachers in Harford County we see no pay increase anytime in our near future. Since we have already refinanced once, we are wondering what is our next step because we cannot maintain where we are and have all of the new costs of baby number two. Do we refinance again? Do we try to sell and move into a cheaper area? (Curse us for being dumb first time home buyers and buying in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Harford County). At the very least we are looking for a part time job to do on the weekends and/ or nights - so if anyone out there has any good prospects, hook us up!

Nonetheless, we were able to find incredibly cheap and fun things to do with Evie this break like: Dollar Store Easter crafts, parks, bikes, basketball, walks, My Little Pony, and bubbles. Today we also dyed Easter eggs and made the cupcakes. We are loving the little bits of extra time we get to spend with her, and we cannot wait until Easter Sunday when the Easter bunny comes and gives her an Easter basket - somebunny told me that My Little Pony might be in her basket-  just sayin'.

The cupcakes we made today are for the Easter party on Saturday with Ted's family. Evie was incredibly upset that she couldn't eat one before hand, but I let her have some of the homemade whipped icing and the batter of the cupcakes, which she took gratefully. The cupcakes called for candied cherries, flour, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, eggs, milk, and butter.

Here is a picture of the book's cupcakes:

Here are my cupcakes:

I hope everyone likes them at the party this year (anything has to be better than last year's cake!) Evie just woke up from her nap, so it is time to see what other mess we can get ourselves into!

Cake #66 Rich Pecan Square Cakes

Miss Evalyn Lucille woke Mommy and Daddy up at 6:30 am this morning, considering we get up every day at 5:00am anyway, we were hoping for a little bit of cat eye this weekend. I guess we should be thankful for the extra hour and a half. Fortunately though, our family got to enjoy cake for breakfast because I was able to make it so early. This week I made Rich Pecan Square Cakes. Since we did not win the Megamillions, we figured we would eat our richness in cake. This cake is a warm cake that uses light brown sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, butter, sour cream, coffee extract (which by the way Ted is becoming the expert at making it), and chopped pecans. 

Here is my cake:

Here is the book's picture:

The best part about making this cake was the fact that I got to use my Christmas present, a square bar cake pan, for the first time. The cakes came out perfectly and I topped them off with a sour cream and maple syrup drizzle and a pecan half. Evie enjoyed it so much she ate two pieces! Plus she had a bowl of cereal. I cannot understand how she can eat so much and still have her pants fall down her waist when she walks.

Next week is Easter, and just like Christmas, Halloween, and Evie’s Birthday, this will be the first Easter that Evie will be able to remember. We haven’t decided if we are going to get her picture with the Easter Bunny yet- she didn’t do so well with Santa Claus, but we will see. I am very excited for her to wake up on Easter morning and get her basket from the Easter Bunny! We told her if she was a good girl we would put in a good word with the Easter Bunny and ask him if he would get her a “My Little Pony” as well in her basket – which is her newest love. Fortunately, we have a plethora of dresses to choose from because my sister gave me all of her daughter’s old dresses, which is a big help because as true for everyone, times remain to be tough. However, Ted and I were just talking about how lucky we are to have such an amazing daughter and soon to be a beautiful baby boy. We are so excited and cannot wait to meet him! I am six and half months pregnant now . . . not too much more to go!

So next week ,I will make an Easter cake- but not the disaster of an Easter cake that was last year- something much more tasty that does not involve the flambéing marzipan! 

Cake # 65 Chocolate Cherry Gateau

After an incredibly long work week, we celebrated this end of this week and the end of the Speech and Debate team's winning season with - well what other than cake? My students have been bugging me to let them try my cakes that they hear about. Because at school we have a policy about not bringing homemade food, I have never brought in my cakes for them to try. However, because Wednesday night, and I mean I did not get home until 10:00pm, gotta love 15 hour work days when you only get paid for 6 1/2 hours, was our final tournament for Speech and Debate, my co-coach and I decided that we should celebrate on Friday at the end of the school day. So, I thought this would be a good time to bring in a homemade cake. So Thursday night I made my cake of the week, a Chocolate Cherry Gateau. Gateau is a fancy French word implying a cake with a lot of cream, or icing, and it is often made with almond flour -as my cake was made with. Besides almond flour, the ingredients were eggs, sugar,vanilla, butter, baking soda, heavy whipping cream, unsweetened cocoa, shredded chocolate, powdered sugar, and cherries.

This is the first cake that I have made that Ted did not even get to have a slice - the kids ate the entire two layer cake in less than fifteen minutes! It is a good thing that neither Ted nor I like to eat cherries, because not only was there no cake left for us, but there was none for poor Evie either, though I am sure she will survive with one week without cake.

Here is my cake:

Here is the book's:

So you will notice that my cake uses maraschino cherries and the book's cake calls for real cherries - because real cherries are not in season, I could not find any at the store and had to make it work.

Next Saturday Ted may be going to a hockey game with his friend- so I will have to figure out what kind of cake to make that he can take along!

Cake #64 Banana Whiskey Cupcakes

Saint Patrick's Day is my husband's favorite holiday. He is a part of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick, he works at the Irish Festival every year, and for the majority of his life he walked in an Irish parade. In fact, he showed up to school on Friday in a kelley green blazer. He is Irish through and through and when our daughter was born with red hair, he had recieved his Saint Patrick's day present for years to come. This Saint Patrick's day we are six months pregnant with our first son, and we are naming him Liam, which is another amazing gift for Ted, a boy with an Irish name that is a variation of Ted's own middle name, William.

So, it should not have come to a surprise to me that when I went to make my cake of the week, a simple banana cupcake, that he would want to made some adjustments, like dying the batter green and adding a bit of Michael Collins to the batter as well as to the glaze on the top. The cupcake itself was simple, eggs, flour, sugar, cornstarch, butter, vanilla, baking powder, and bananas. Then we add a shot of whiskey to the batter and for the glaze we mixed honey and whiskey, topped with a sliced piece a banana and viola we have Irish Banana Whiskey Cupcakes, or as Ted called them, the "Michael Collin's favorite".

Here is the book's original Banana Cupcakes with a passionfruit glaze:

Here is our Irish modified cupcakes:

In a couple more months our Irish boy will be born and I can only hope he loves my cupcakes as much as our Irish princess...