Happy Birthday Nana!

Today my friend's mom is 75 and I am very lucky to have been asked to make a cake for this special occasion.  Happy Birthday Nana Underwood!

Preparing for the Bake Sale!

Life seems to always be hectic, but among all the craziness I am preparing for a bake sale.  What better way to celebrate fall than with pumpkin bread.  I finally had the opportunity to clean and cook my pumpkin and all I have to say is, using fresh pumpkin is always the way to go.  No fancy recipe, I used my mom's recipe and it is my favorite.  Raisins, walnuts in this fabulous moist pumpkin bread.

My second addition for the bake sale was one of my all time favorite recipes.  Sour cream blue berry coffee cake.  This is probably very unhealthy but if you love coffee cake and blue berries this is the recipe to have.  I am not sure if it is the sour cream or the cinnamon and brown sugar bottom, but it is heavenly.

Finally I thought I would bake another round of almond biscotti.  Easy ingredients and easy to bake.  Same as one of my last blogs, I can't get enough of these. 

The Perfect Coffee Dessert

This weekend I had my kitchen again and I totally took advantage of it.  My husband's birthday is this week and if you know him you know he is not one for desserts.  I wanted to make him a birthday cake, but I knew he would not eat it so I remembered one of his favorite treats, almond biscotti.  This traditional Italian treat is simple and delicious (and even better when dunked in your coffee). 

Biscotti are twice baked and the history behind them is that they were intended to have a long shelf life.  The ingredients are simple, eggs, sugar, flour, toasted almonds, almond extract, baking powder, and salt.

So much to learn

I have discovered that I still have so much to learn about decorating cakes, but I will only get better by practicing.  What you see below is my practice.  A coworker retired and she happens to be the biggest Red Sox fan I know (and that says a lot because you would think everyone in Boston was, but she is truly the biggest fan).  So what better way to practice decorating then to attempt a version of Fenway Park while also giving something special to a friend. 

Attempt is the key word.  I made a sheet cake covered in fondant.  I did not use the fondant from Michael's or AC Moore, I found Satin Ice online and in some local cake stores and it is a big difference.  It does not taste bad at all.  I then attempted a scaled down version of the Green Monster made out of rice treats.  Next was attempting a hat which was made out of rice treats and covered in fondant as well.  I really need to do a lot of practice covering cakes with fondant, that is all I have to say.  The cake part was easy, but let's just say I was very sad when the Green Monster fell over.  But there was recovery and a sad attempt at making it all work.  So here it is, not the best, but I am happy with it and happy I got the practice.  Most importantly, my friend loved it.

Ways to keep your house warm

What a beautiful day today.  The windows were open and the house was nice and cool.  Only problem was that I haven't been apple picking yet so no pies to make and I was not up to baking a cake because that will be next weeks project (and I mean project). So I decided to warm things up with some good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies.  When I make chocolate chip cookies I like to use the Ghiradelli semi sweet chocolate chips and I use dark brown sugar.  Using dark brown sugar will make the cookies chewy.  Finally, I only use the mixer to combine the sugars, butter, eggs, vanilla, salt and baking soda.  For the flour and chips I use my hands with a spatula to combine.  Baked at 325 for only 10 minutes makes them nice and chewy.

Here are a couple of pictures and stay tuned because next week I will be making a cake for a friend who is retiring and I'll give you a hint, she's from Boston and likes baseball.

The flowers completed

In my last blog I posted a picture of the flowers I made and that the cupcakes were in the oven.  Well, here they are complete on the cupcake.

Flower practice

Whether you call her a hurricane or a tropical storm, it's ugly out there and I am stuck in the house.  So what better thing to do then to practice on my decorating.  I am really trying to improve on my flowers so you will probably see repetitive posts on flower practice.  In the oven now are some cupcakes for me to decorate using these flowers, but I just wanted to post what I had so far.  I was so excited to use my edible pollen, this stuff is fantastic.  I picked it up at a cake supply store which is heaven to me.  The only problem is that as I keep practicing I find more tools that I want and it can become an expensive hobby, but it is a really fun hobby.