Apple Pie...Cake

Ok - so it's been a while since my last post.  It's been a wonderful and wacky and crazy busy time, adjusting to life as a mother and full-time lawyer.  So, while I still bake, sew and craft, what has fallen to the wayside is time to put together the blog posts to show the baked, sewn and crafted goods.

However, I had a small number of pre-made posts that I failed to upload and maybe, just maybe, if I start by posting these ones, I will be "hooked" once again (because Lord knows I have lots of stuff that I can post about if I make the time - like the motorcycle diaper cake I recently made for two friends who are expecting).

So, here goes ... Blogging attempt take 2 ... Action ...

My husband loves cake and I love making it, but I seldom have time to make a cake from scratch.  Even back when I was on maternity leave, I came to grips with the fact that boxed cake mixes are faster, still taste good and I'm okay with that.  It leaves more time for me to come up with fun combinations.  Recently I made an "apple pie cake", mostly because the hubby was having a cake hankering and the apple pie filling in the cupboard caught my eye when I was grabbing ingredients.

Ingredients

Golden Yellow cake mix (and additional water, oil and eggs according to package)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Can apple pie filling

Mix the cake mix according to the directions on the box and stir in cinnamon.  Bake according to directions.  Make either two 9 inch round cakes or, as I did, a 13x9 slab cake and cut it into two equal pieces.

Cinnamon Buttercream

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
3 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp half and half
1 teaspoon vanilla

According to my husband, this is his favourite icing.  I have to admit, it is pretty good and is a great accompaniment to autumn flavours, such as apple, pumpkin, etc.

When the cake is cooled, create a border of icing around the edges of the bottom layer and fill the centre with 2/3 of the apple pie filling.  Place the second cake on top and ice as you normally would (crumb coat (if you're into that sort of thing), chill, finishing layer).

I topped this with a few apple slices from the filling.

I didn't take too many pictures but here are a couple shots of the final product.

What fun! What fun! E is one!

This year flew by.  I mean at Mach 3 speed.  I can't believe E's First Birthday has come and gone.  I'm a little ashamed to admit it but I started planning his party as early as December!  (I have issues, I know!)

The party was Dr. Seuss themed.  I ordered decorations from Birthday Express - they sell great Dr. Seuss party sets, with plates, cups, cutlery and table clothes.  They also sell adorable window decals and wall cut outs. 

E's Dr. Seuss collection is quite respectable and made for easy décor.  I placed several of his books around the living room.

I couldn't find a banner that I liked, so I used the basic Paint application on the computer and created a banner saying Happy Birthday, spelled out on Cat in the Hat hats, sewn together with bias tape.  I made a similar banner for E's highchair saying "I am 1".

Food-wise, I kept it simple.  I made:
fruit salad - called "Beezle Nut Fruit Salad";

• potato salad - lamely called "Tangy Pangy Potato Salad";
• green eggs;
• ham (and turkey) sandwiches;
• "cat"prese skewers;
• doughnuts - because "D is for doughnuts";
• cheese trees; and
• Birthday Cake with Jerry Jordan's Jelly!

For the cake, I tried to style it like the birthday cake from "Happy Birthday to You"!  The cake itself was a plain white cake, with raspberry jam filling and lemon frosting:

Lemon Frosting

1 box lemon pudding
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 cup milk
1/2 tub thawed cool whip

Mix pudding, icing sugar and milk with electric mixer for 2 minutes at medium or high speed.  Allow mixture to sit for 1 minute.  Fold in cool whip until frosting is consistently mixed. 

I also ordered custom "green egg" cookies from a local baker.  They were AMAZING!!!  Cake Expectations totally exceeded my expectations.

All-in-all, it was a good day!

Two posts in a month...what?!?!?

I might as well try to stick with the blogging again for a little while, especially since I have so much on the go right now.  With E's First Birthday approaching, I went through the mounds of onesies and sleepers he has grown out of over the course of a year.  It is mindboggling (a) how quickly he has grown and (b) just how much stuff a baby can have.

Both my husband and I are a little sentimental about some of the onesies.  Rather than donate them or hand them down, I selected between 50 and 60 of our favourites and made a quilt.  Admittedly, not my finest quilt job (there is definitely a reason I prefer the "rustic" nature of rag quilts to traditional quilts), but it means a lot to us and it is something that we can hang on to for years to come, without starting down the dangerous path towards hoarding.

Holy crap, its been a while

To say its been a while is probably the understatement of the year.  Between finishing maternity leave and returning to work after only five months, working full-time and coming home to an infant, I evidently let my blogging slip.  When I logged in, I didn't even remember preparing several draft posts that I should post in the coming days weeks.

The inspiration for this post, however, is a cake that I recently made for my BFF's daughter's First Birthday.  (Yes, I think First Birthdays are worthy of all caps!)  That and I have been crafting and baking up a storm recently in anticipation of E's First Birthday and a baby shower that I am co-hosting for two colleagues.  Hopefully I can make time to post about those events but it is probably wiser if I don't make any promises.

The theme for B's party this weekend was pink and black zebra.  Naturally, my BFF wanted the cake to match and zebra cakes are particularly trendy lately (one need only Google zebra cake and many posts explaining the technique are readily found, such as here and here).

We did a trial run and its actually much easier to make than I expected.  Just time consuming.  If I had to do it again, I likely would have used smaller amounts to create thinner stripes.  That said, I think it turned out amazing and it got rave reviews.

Due to my fondant aversion, I tried my hand at Wilton sugar sheets for the first time so that it could have a zebra exterior.  Talk about easy to use!  I applied some piping gel and they held up really well.

All in all, I was very pleased if I say so myself.

Chicken Pot Pies and Pear Upside Down Cake

I have been on a pastry experiment kick as I had been trying out several pastry recipes in advance of Thanksgiving this weekend (I offered to make the pumpkin pie but haven't make pastry in years).  While my husband has been a very willing guinea pig, there is only so much pumpkin pie I can make.  So, I found a recipe for chicken pot pie and set about to make a batch of pie pastry using the traditional Tenderflake lard recipe (found here).  I had already done shortening and butter based crusts, but thought I should go back to my childhood and try the recipe that I first learned when baking pies for family holiday dinners (or watching anyways).

I followed most of the instructions for the pot pie, except I used pre-cooked chicken (cut into cubes) and used frozen peas and carrots rather than fresh carrots.  I also cut the amount of liquid to 3 cups of broth and 1 cup of milk.

This was too die for!  I don't know if I could go back to store bought pot pie!

[As an aside, for my pumpkin pies, I decided to use this pastry recipe.]

I also made a cake for the husband.  When we were grocery shopping, he asked if I could make a cake with pears, which he loves.  After some searching, I found a recipe at Kraft.  It called for cranberries, which I omitted in order to ensure that my husband would try the cake rather than run away (he is definitely not a fan).  I also used canned pears rather than fresh.  Otherwise, it was made according to the recipe.

To put it briefly, this has already been asked to be made again (like, he already went and bought the ingredients again).

Painted Pumpkins - Fall Edition

Oh I have so many posts to get around to.  I have been baking up a storm during my maternity leave and have tried a variety of recipes I found on (or as a result of) Pinterest.  But I will start with the painted pumpkins I did for the front porch.  I wanted something quick and simple to distract from the hideous excuse for my garden, which I have not attended to this year for rather obvious reasons.  Previously, I have made more than a dozen painted pumpkins for Hallowe'en.  This year, I decided to paint a few for fall decor.

I wasn't sure how much crafting or baking I would get done during maternity leave.  Honestly, I find it easier to bake or cook because it naturally fits into most days.  However, painted pumpkins take very little time and with the baby wrap I was able to have little E with me for most of it (being very careful not to get paint on him, of course).  (Apparently he was camera shy here.)

I wanted rough lines for a more rustic look.  I only used tape on one of the smaller pumpkins but otherwise this was all free-hand.  I used gold and dark red for a nice autumn feel.  Here is a shot of the pumpkins after they were dry.

Here are a couple shots out on the front porch.  The floral arrangement is something I threw together last year with faux flowers from the dollar store and Michaels.

I should probably also show a close up of our current centrepiece on the kitchen table.  I switched it up for fall and used two types of dry beans to fill three square/angular vases of differing heights and finished it off with candles and a little bit of twine on the two smaller vases.

 

My next post will be the first to get on the with business of updating on the baking (chocolate cake, apple cake, pear cake, pumpkin pie, pudding cookies) and cooking (Philly Chicken Cheese Sandwiches, Chicken Pot Pie) that I have been doing lately.

Donuts - Baked not Fried

Who doesn't love donuts?  Thankfully, baked donuts are all the rage right now.  I had been thinking about making some for a while when the Grandparents Day brunch became the perfect excuse.

For the brunch, I made a dozen of the vanilla donuts below.  A couple days later I also made the chocolate donuts based on the recipe found here. (The only thing I would change in the chocolate recipe is to add 1/4 cup sugar.)

Ingredients
2 cup cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 large egg
1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
4 Tbsp. 2% milk
3 Tbsp. butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Vanilla Bean Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. 2% milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Spray donut pan with cooking spray and wipe off any excess.

In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon) until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk all wet ingredients (eggs, yogurt, milk, butter, vanilla bean paste) together until smooth.

Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Pour batter into large ziploc bag (or pastry bag if you want to have to clean it up afterwards), cut a corner of the bag off and pipe into donut tray.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until donuts spring back to the touch.

 

When I made the chocolate donuts a couple days later, I made both a chocolate glaze and a vanilla glaze.  As a result, I had four different types of donuts.  Apparently, the hubby is a fan.