Happy Birthday Marissa!

It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I start it off with something awesome. A friend of a friend saw a cake I made and asked me about making her soon-to-be two-year-old daughter a Toy Story birthday cake. Yay!

Since it was for a girl, she wanted something feminine added to it and suggested Jessie. Now I hadn't seen the second Toy Story (or even the third) so I borrowed the DVD from my particularly attractive friends Melinda and Erik. Can I admit something? Didn't think it was very good. Yes, I said it. It was just not... the first one.



The cake is Sylvia Weistock's Yellow Cake recipe with fresh strawberries between the layers and vanilla buttercream.



But I got a picture of a cake that the MOBG (mom of the birthday girl) liked and ran with it. Fondant models all the way! The hard part is that these characters are so well known, that I couldn't mess it up. People would know it looked...off. The faces of Jessie, Woody, and Buzz were the worst and I wasn't happy at all with them. But the other details that were added hopefully saved them. Without further ado:

The alien- Because he's one of my favorite characters from the original. This is a blurry picture because it's from my phone, but it's such a great shot that I can't help but share.

Mr. Potatohead- I love him too, he was actually a really fun one to make, but the arms were a pain.

And check out the details on his little blue shoes:

Hamm- The picture is a little blurry, but I was enchanted by this little guy.

And look at the perfect little squiggly tail!

I tried to put all the details I could, so check out Jessie's braid:

And Woody's handkerchief:

And pay attention to the hats these two have on. I seriously thought these things were going to be the death of me.

And Buzz's suit:

I wanted to do something nice with the base and thought wood floors would fit the theme. I marbled two colors of brown together, then used a knife to make the boards, a toothpick to make more wood grain texture, and the end of a piping tip for the nails.

Happy Birthday Marissa!



A Thanksgiving Injury

So this isn't about anything I made, other than an ass of myself. I'm a total clutz, particularly in the kitchen and I've managed to burn myself in all sorts of strange and weird places. Have you seen the title of the blog?! I thought I'd share this one. This one is due to me reaching into the oven to get a sweet potato wonton and hitting my hand on the top burner. It was totally worth it though.



(Like four days post actually burning myself)

There's at least cake in the name

I realize that there hasn't been just a whole lot of cakes here lately, but this is sorta close. The hubbin's boss at TCTMNBN had a birthday a while back and I got word that she's a big cheesecake fan. So I made her a chocolate cheesecake. Bittersweet chocolate, real Oreo crust (couldn't find the ready-made crumbs at the store so I ended up separating and crushing the cookies myself), and white chocolate topping. I think this may be the recipe I used, but honestly, it's been a while. I heard it went over well.

I even requested a piece of the cheesecake make its way back home so I could have some.

The food that made my momma puke

So yes, she totally did puke after eating these, but I ate half of them and ended up fine so I don't know what her issue was. I thought they were good.



I've toyed with the idea of scones in the past, but it sounded scary. But then I finally looked at a recipe and found out that this is probably the easiest thing to bake ever created. In honor of the holidays I opted for White Chocolate and Cranberry Scones. My little brother and I added some melted white chocolate to the top of the scones. I'll definately make them again (even though the hubbin turned his nose up at them because he "doesn't like cranberries").



And yes, this is a terrible photo. It happens. We've talked before about my photo abilities and my lack of a real camera over Thanksgiving anyway.

More Deep Fried Food

The sopapillas weren't the only deep fried food I made over Thanksgiving. My little brother is an idiot savant when it comes to cooking. He comes up with all sorts of ideas, but this time he had me there to actually carry them out. His bright idea? Sweet potato wontons.



Now I know this sounds strange, but they were SO DANG GOOD! Of course I can't just link to a recipe this time, but we were just winging it as we went anyway. Baked a couple sweet potatoes and toasted some pecan pieces. Then mixed the sweet potatoes with cream cheese, cinnamon, salt, the pecans, and a hit of cayenne pepper. Then we put the sweet potato mixture and a mini marshmallow into a wonton wrapper. Of course the HEB (one of only two grocery stores in town and my mother has announced quite loudly her reasons for not shopping at Wal-Mart) was out of wontons, but they did have egg roll wrappers so we just cut those into smaller squares. Seal up the sides of the wrapper and deep fry until golden brown. Then dust with cinnamon and sugar.



HOLY CRAP!!! These were totally amazing and addicting and even reheated the next day pretty easily. The only shot I got of them (again, with the cell phone):

A Texan Thanksgiving

The hubbin and I got to go home this year for Thanksgiving and unlike 90% of the rest of the U.S., I didn't eat a bit of Turkey. Which is just fine with me. My Mom's family had fajitas and my in-laws had barbque. A real Texas Thanksgiving.



I have to share one of my favorite parts of the holidays. This is why we love my Aunt Linda:

Disclaimer: I didn't take a camera back home with me, so all the pictures from Thanksgiving are taken with my cell phone.

I ended up not baking for this meal, but I did supply the quintessential Tex-Mex dessert: Sopapillas! Is there anything better than deep-fried, dusted with cinnamon and sugar, and then filled with butter and honey goodness?

 These are actually surprisingly easy to make. All it takes is a few easy baking ingredients and a big pot of some HOT oil. And honey, of course. There are lots of recipes that call for yeast, but that's too fussy in my book. Just some Crisco and baking powder are really all that is needed. I used this one. The secret is the oil must be really hot to get them to puff up just right so that you have a big hole to fill with honey.

Or just dump the honey on top. That works too.

Ben Roethlisberger is allegedly a terrible person

I just thought I'd get that out of the way right off the bat. The cake design should not be miscontrued as approval of any king of Mr. Roethisberger's alleged actions. But the cake turned out pretty cute. :)



My hubbin's co-worker at TCTMNBN is a big Pittsburg fan. (It's much easier than being a Cardinals fan.) So in honor of his birthday, he got a Steelers cake. Flavors are chocolate cake, peanut butter filling, chocolate ganache frosting, and fondant. I bought the black fondant since I've always heard that it is really hard to get the right color otherwise. It stained my countertop pink. Thanks bathroom cleaner with bleach, you got it out pretty good.



So the pics:

 The circles around the cake have the symbols for the six SuperBowls the Steelers have won. The most recent was against the Cardinals. It should be noted that in SuperBowl XXX, the Steelers lost to the Cowboys.

Check out these awesme layers to this cake. How pretty even inside.