Pepperoni Pizza Puffs and Dessert Kabobs

Geez, well, the days leading up to my party were completely a blur.  I was going back and forth from Stater Brothers to Target and back over and over again.  My oldest had soccer practice and then I had a meeting for my other soccer player the next day.  The day after that, my girls had auditions at their dance studio, and getting all their stuff ready that they needed was a bit nerve-wracking.  All the while, I was trying to shop for, and finalize the menu for, and prep for, the meal that I was going to make for my family when we celebrated my birthday.

First off, I actually got a card from my husband for my birthday!  It was unexpected, and I am a sucker for them, so that made it awesome.  Of course, the gift he got me didn’t come till the next day but I loved it because I picked it out and it was something that I needed and wanted.  An apron!  An Anthropologie apron!  The price was comparable to others I had looked at and shipping was free plus they have a really nice selection so hopefully this won’t be the last.  It really came in handy making this big meal.  I do feel a bit bad, my husband didn’t get to celebrate with us.  He had to work, but usually my birthday isn’t a big deal.  My family and I go out to eat and that is it.  I just wanted to cook this year.

Spice Cake with Banana Cream Filling and Caramel Buttercream

Finally!  Here is my 34th birthday cake.  There were a few minor glitches, a few things I might change, but overall, it had the flavor profile that I was going for.  Spice cake with banana cream filling was one of the layers of my wedding cake and it was wonderful.  The problem was, I haven’t had it again since then.  That was almost 13 years ago and that is a long time to suppress a craving.  I almost went for it last year, but I knew certain people in my family (ahem, my sister) don’t necessarily like to try new flavors and I was worried that no one would eat it.  This year, I didn’t really care (however, I did have my 8 year old put together another dessert for her and other party poopers) and went for it.  I wanted to add another element besides a plain vanilla buttercream and narrowed it down to cinnamon or caramel buttercream.  Obviously, the caramel won.

Let’s talk about my issues with the cake.  First, the cake ended up just a little dry.  The comments in the original post all call to add an extra egg, which I did.  One comment suggested using buttermilk instead of sour cream, which I considered, but lately I have been having great success with sour cream in my cakes.  I think I will give that a try next time.  Also, I was adapting from a 9 inch springform pan to two 9 inch cake pans so there is the possibility that I simply baked it too long.  Second, the filling was a bit difficult.  I had to do it twice because you are cooking egg yolks, and if you don’t separate them well you will get bits of cooked egg whites in it so, really, just separate the eggs well.  I also think I should have halved the whipped cream I added to it, I could have used the rest to decorate it.  It made the filling less stable but I wanted it in there as well as extra banana slices.  It tasted great though.  Lastly, the frosting.  I had to attempt this one twice as well.  I just am not great with caramel.  Both times, it seized up on me (after heating your water and sugar you are adding cooler cream and vanilla and if you don’t keep stirring and if your cream and vanilla aren’t room temperature, your sugar WILL get hard) but the second time I was able to heat it up the hard sugar enough in the cream that didn’t get incorporated for me to melt it back into a caramel consistency.  The moment that you add the cream and vanilla to your sugar is one of those moments in baking where you wish you had three hands so you just have to make the best of it.  Also, I think doubling the caramel mixture would have been a plus.

So I finished the cake Friday night, and even with all my issues, it still tasted fabulous on Saturday evening.

Hungrier Games

No food to blog about today.  Yesterday was my 34th birthday and the 13th anniversary of my wedding shower.  On my birthday, I couldn’t get my printer to print everything I needed it to (even though I was cleaning nozzles and fixing alignments for what felt like FOREVER), I had to take my daughter to soccer practice, and I ate Chili Mac for dinner and Lucky Charms for dessert.  Don’t feel bad, I never would have eaten the Lucky Charms if it wasn’t my birthday so I feel like I came out ahead.  Besides, I am just gearing up for Saturday when my family will come over and celebrate with me!  When my cake is done, you will hear about it first, hopefully, by Saturday morning.  Until then, time to do some cleaning and some shopping, and I WILL get that printer to work.  

In the meantime, I just found out that on Sunday, during the MTV Video Music Awards we are going to get a sneak peak of the ‘Hunger Games’!  Also, with only three days left till the new Dr. Who, I thought I would share a spoiler about the title of the last episode for this season.  Check out Blogtor Who to find out.  It is pretty awesome!  One last thing, I just wanted to whine that although I did manage to win early access into Pottermore, a great birthday present would have been my email saying I could enter, but alas, I am still waiting.

Vanilla Peach Cupcakes with Whipped Cream and Torchwood

I am kinda bummed out that this next venture was not a complete success.  It was the whipped cream.  I love eating it.  I hate working with it.  But we will get to that later.  It looks great, right?That is always half the battle (although, I don’t have anything against food that looks like a mess and tastes awesome).  I had seen this recipe Week of Menus: Peach Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake with Peach Soaking Syrup: Sometimes it is too fast about a week ago and had been thinking about it ever since.  The problem was, I wasn’t in the mood for a bundtcake.  Also, if you look at all the pictures in that post, you can see that the layer of peaches almost wants to break away from the cake.  If I had made it that way, I am sure for me it would have.  I wanted to go another way.  So I thought, cupcakes.  I was just hoping the recipe would work out alright since I was changing it up.  Of course, the thought of frosting didn’t even enter into my head till after I was already on my way to the store with no way to look up a frosting recipe.  I just thought “peaches and creme”.  We did have some success, the cupcakes were awesome!  I was worried that mixing in the peaches altogether instead of layering it in the cup was going to be a mistake and I was worried about the amount of peaches I was supposed to put in it, I was wrong on both counts.  Mixing them in entirely was the right thing to do (pat myself on the back) and I should have put in about a half cup more of peaches because I went about 1/4 cup shy of what the recipe stated (o well).  Biting into them and getting a peach nugget was the best part!  The soaking syrup was great and there was plenty.  I should have stopped there.

Check out the vanilla flecks and peachy bits!

Here we go….Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

• Sooo, here we go!  My first post is unfortunately an old recipe (which is what happens when you start a blog in the middle of the night and don’t plan a thing out) but it is one of my favorites.  I got the idea from Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes — Joy the Baker.  My chocolate cake however, is from a box.  What?!  You say.  How could you?!  You say.  Well, to be honest, so far I haven’t found THAT chocolate cake yet.  I did find THAT vanilla cake just recently but that is another post.  I used the Cake Mix Doctor :.  I LOVE that chocolate cake. You have to use buttermilk (but if you don’t have any, there are always The Best Buttermilk Substitutions — Joy the Baker.) more cocoa powder and yes, vanilla.  This cake always comes out perfect, round edges with a flat top, beautiful!  For the filling I halved the peanut butter buttercream in Joy’s cupcake recipe, then I added a chocolate ganache frosting. Lastly, was a sprinkle of cut up peanut butter cups.  Here is another shot of it.

Yummy, right?  Here is the recipe…

But wait, before we get there, here is where the nerdy comes in.  I have decided that I am going to post what I am going to call a GeekyLink on every post.  It was going to be a nice Hunger Games picture but I just got this Geek out / Globe.Faustus.2498.jpg (450×676) on Pinterest and I couldn’t resist.  So yes, my first GeekyLink is inevitably a Dr. Who reference.  It is Arthur Darville, AKA Rory Williams, AKA Rory Pond, AKA The Last Centurion.  Amy is a lucky lady!

Just Jump In

I was dead tired. I had just put my two youngest to bed (the oldest had been out for awhile, she has school in the morning). I was just going to plug in my iPod touch for a minute so that I could use the alarm to wake up in the morning. Well, here I am almost three hours later and I am starting a blog…

I am obsessed with food blogs, kind of get irritated with mommy blogs, inhale info in all kinds of formats about movies, and just recently (wholly) embraced my inner nerd with the help of some podcasts.  I hope to post some recipes, talk about life events, and amuse you with anything I think is cool related to movies or things like Dr. Who.  That is all for now.  I have about four hours till I have to help someone get ready for school.  See you all soon!