Girly girly purse cakes

When I started this crazy hobby I never envisioned that I'd be making such girly cakes. But when the Relief Society called and said they needed a purse cake for their next meeting I was happy to get the practice.

My first problem was how to make the purse shape. I thought I'd have to stack a few small cakes on each other and basically cut the cake to shape. I hate wasting this much cake, though, so I got the idea to bake some cake in small, medium, and large loaf pans. When the cakes were baked I leveled them off, inverted them, and stacked them on each other to make an angled purse shape. I had to shave off some cake on a couple of sides, but I was really surprised how well it all fit together.

I wasn't sure how to get those zebra stripes on the cake so I just mixed a little black food coloring with some almond extract and painted the pattern on. The rest of the decor is just rolled fodant pierced with a fork to make the "stitched" pattern.

The base of the cake I decorated to resemble a hat box. I'm completely useless with ribbons, so thanks to Becky for helping me with the hatbox ribbon. Looking at the result, I must conclude that there may be a small bit of girly girl left in me after all these years.

Vampire Kitty

What does every Korean exchange student want for her 21st birthday? Why a Hello Kitty cake, of course!


And what does every teenage Mormon girl want for her birthday? That's right, a Twilight cake.

It was a sad reality that these two cakes could not somehow be combined into a blood-sucking, scarf wearing, chess-playing, fanged little kitty.

(I am still holding out and have not read any books from the Twilight series. Who's with me? We must be strong!)

Harry Freaking Potter

A few weeks ago a friend mentioned that she needed some cake ideas for her son's Harry Potter-themed birthday party. I enthusiastically volunteered, not fully realizing at the time that executing a Harry Potter cake is not as easy as, say, a round cake with cute polka dots. I got a few ideas online and off I went on my maiden voyage of making COUS (cakes of unusual shapes).
I saw some cute ideas of cakes online that were all beyond my current abilities, but here's what I came up with. A stack of books, a Gryffindor scarf and some store-bought detailing. (I'm not, sadly, up to speed on making gum-paste Harry Potter glasses.) I learned also that covering cakes partially in fondant is much more difficult that fully covering them, especially of your covering the bottom and top but not the sides.

I also was grateful that it didn't matter if the "books" looked old and wrinkly because they're supposed to be old and wrinkly. I had some extra cake batter so I made a little stand for the sorting hat and painted on wording with a small paintbrush and a little gel coloring mixed with almond extract.

There were plenty of mistakes (a brush gone awry was turned into a snake) but all in all I learned a lot and am excited for my next project. Perhaps I'll look back on this cake and think of my salad days of cake baking, where the steep 2 a.m. learning curve ruled the day.

In other news, another year of holiday baking is in the books. There was a new record: 12 dozen cinnamon rolls. I gotta get me a Hobart.

So, all of you that are dieting or doing that crazy Nutrisystem (sheer insanity, I tell you, but that's a post for another day), just take a long look at the cinnamon rolls, take a deep breath, and go eat some celery. Or just make the rolls.

Cake Dreams

This past month I've been a volunteer several fondant cake classes at Orson Gygi. Christina Miller taught the class and did a great job. Although I was just the "help", I learned a lot and now am very excited about making and decorating cakes. This has been a strange departure from my normal range of baking. I have always been more of a pie & pastry enthusiast than a cake one, but decorating cakes has allowed me to tap into any creative artistry that has more or less lain dormant all these years.

I now lay in bed at night and think of cake. I think of excuses to make them, and how to decorate them. I dream of fondant. I peruse the classifieds for used bakery equipment. I think I'm making my family crazy.

This is a cake I did for my sister-in-law Jerrea's parents' 50th wedding anniversary. It was my first "tiered" cake and was a lot of fun to do.

This cake was for Jessica's birthday. She served an LDS mission to Hong Kong, so I wanted to do something Chinese-themed.

This was a last minute birthday cake for Emily. I had a leftover tier from another cake I dried to replicate her cute wedding colors of green and pink.

This was my very first fondant cake made for my sister Laura's birthday. Go Utes!

A Place for Pears

Two 36-lb cases of Bartlett pears layed out on my basement floor to ripen: $18Extra lids, rings, and lemon juice: $8
Washing and sanitizing 33 quart jars: 2 hours of hard work for my dishwasher

About 8 gallons of light sugar syrup: $2

Peeling, coring, slicing 72 pounds of pears: 6 hours

Finishing 33 quarts of pears: priceless

Spending the afternoon doing pears with my mom: even more priceless
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"I'm coming over to help you do pears," my mom said, upon hearing me worry outloud that I wouldn't get to the over 70 lbs of rapidly ripening pears on my basement floor. I knew she'd come over. She loves to do pears.

There is a quietness to doing pears. The silence of peeling the fruit as its juice runs down your wrists. The whisper of a spash as the pears get a lemon juice bath. There is no frantic chopping as for salsa, no whine of the food processor, no vinegary sharpness in the air from chili sauce. Just the warm mellow smell of the pears, the simmer of the sugar syrup and the the distant click of a sealing jar.

My mother's hands can no longer quilt, and her mind struggles with the complications of daily life. Standing is hard. Walking is harder. But we can sit at my table and do pears, her tremoring hand now firm and steady as the peels fall from the fruit.

Key Lime Cheesecake

I don't have much to say about this one, other than it is smooth, creamy, tangy, rich, and just magically delicious. Okay, I'll say a little more: you start with a generously thick, buttery, sweet, graham cracker crust, then add some tart and tangy lime custard. Then comes the cheesecake layer, spiked with lime juice. Top it off with a smooth, rich layer of sweetened sour cream. Oh yeah.
I lay awake at night thinking of variations. Cranberry/orange? Raspberry/lemon?

key lime cheesecake from Epicurious.com.

Pumpkin Bread

It must be time for pumpkin bread because the first two stores were fresh out of canned pumpkin. Not to be deterred, I soldiered on and found one of those giant 29-oz cans. Looks like we're going to be making a lot of pumpkin bread.

Okay, so I love pumpkin bread but I feel that many recipes really use too much oil and sugar, and that results in a bread lacks texture and complexity. This pumpkin bread is different. It contains chocolate chips (yay!), golden raisins (huh?), and nuts (but only if you want your kids not to eat it). It also uses part whole wheat flour, and that lends a nice sturdiness to the bread without being dry. And you raisin snobs of the world, stop freaking out - they added a nice contrast to the bread. Just try it!

I had to eat some right out of the oven, but to be honest, this bread is better the next day. It "sets up", doesn't crumble as much, and the flavors have had time to develop. Oh, and I really don't know how many loaves it makes. I just got out 6-7 pans of varying sizes and filled them up halfway.

This recipe is adapted from CIA's Baking at Home. This is not the beauty shot I was hoping for, but trust me - it's good.

Pumpkin Bread

1 c. golden raisins

1 c. hot water

4 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

3 3/4 c. whole wheat flour

1 T baking powder

2 t. baking soda

1 1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 t. cinnamon

3/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 t. ground cloves

3 1/2 c. canned pumpkin puree (about 1 29 oz can)

2 1/4 c. sugar

6 lg. eggs, room temp

1 1/2 c. vegetable oil

2 c. mini chocolate chips (optional)

1 1/2 c. walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (If you're not at high altitude, you may want to do 375). Grease and flour your pans. Pour 1 c. hot water over raisins and let plump for at least 10 minutes.

Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves and set aside. Reserving soaking liquid, remove raisins and chop roughly (this step is optional). Combine the raisins and soaking liquid, pumpkin, sugar, eggs, and oil in a large bowl and mix well.

Pour the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in walnuts and chocolate chips if using. Pour the batter into prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the bread comes out with a few moist crumbs and sides are light golden, 25-45 minutes. (Smaller loaves will be done quicker, so keep a close eye.) Let loaves cool in the pans on wire racks for 10-15 minutes. Turn them out and continue cooling on racks before serving. Wrap in foil and give to your neighbors.