Making the cake

I was determined to do something special this year for the Little Guy's birthday cake. Despite my better judgement and a serious lack of experience, I decided to do a decorated cake using a shaped pan of Big Bird holding a balloon. The cake pan is a Wilton design from 1983, back when I was watching Sesame Street myself.

I found it at a yard sale, and it came with the original directions. Just to be on the safe side, I printed out a back-up copy from Wilton.


I made a basic chocolate cake. Notice the San Andreas fault in the middle--this sometimes happens when the oven temperature is too high.

The top of the cake was cut off to make a fairly even bottom. With the odds stacked against me, I figured the least I could do for myself was to make sure the cake didn't wobble all over..

Here's the cake pan. Isn't it fun?

And here it is, the pre-frosted cake. It came out of the pan without any major problems, and it's ready to be frosted.

And it's at this point that I began to have serious doubts about getting this done in a Martha-like fashion. The only other time I've attempted a cake like this was an absolute, yet tasty, disaster. So I did the only thing I could do: I lowered my standards. As long as people could look at the cake and figure out that it's Big Bird, I'd be fine. Right?!

Stay tuned...

Martha Monday!

I spent a decent chunk of my weekend working on the Little Guy's cake for the first of his three birthday parties. One cake, six different frosting colors. To get the frosting into the decorating bags with minimal mess, I relied on a Martha kitchen tip I've been using for years:


Put the decorating bag in a tall glass to create a liner, and shove the frosting in. Of course, Martha doesn't shove the frosting in--she gently reasons with it--but shoving worked just fine for me.

It's an easy way to get the icing in the bag and keep your hands relatively free of the sugary goodness. Isn't that a helpful hint? It's a good thing!

This week's goals...

First and foremost is to recover from the first birthday party we just had for the Little Guy.

It was fun, but absolutely exhausting. Note to self: do not give children birthday cake within 90 minutes of bedtime. No good can come from this!

Now that one party is done, I need to prepare for the next two.

Monday
Relax. Recover. Write some thank you notes.

Tuesday
Make sugar cookies. Try not to eat too many.

Wednesday
Decorate sugar cookies.

Thursday
Bake cake and cupcakes.

Friday
Decorate cake and cupcakes.

Saturday
Grocery shop. Cook like a madwoman. Party at 3pm.

My mantra for the week? Be like Martha, be like Martha, be like Martha...

Happy birthday to me

No, it's not today, it was last week, though I'm still feeling the birthday love. Plus, I turned 25 for the upteenth time, and I really enjoy being 25.

I am grateful from all the birthday wishes from friends and family. Remember my friend Ellyn? She made this beautiful card:


And the Big Guy had these wonderful earrings made for me. Insider info: we have a very talented jeweler in the family who does custom work and one-of-a-kind pieces. The earrings have a wavy leafy pattern and are made with white, rose and yellow gold. They are gorgeous!

This card just really melts my butter. It's from the Little Guy, obviously, and picked out by the Big Guy, obviously. One-year-old children just don't do well in the card store, you know? Anyways, the card features a mother and child decorating a cake together. This is really fitting, since the Little Guy enjoys "helping" me in the kitchen.

The inside shows a picture of the finished cake. Isn't that adorable?

Now, though, the focus is entirely on the Little Guy's upcoming birthday. That puts me right in the Entertainer/Hostess position, which thrills me to the core. That, and turning 25 again.

Rich coffee cake

A good coffee cake is worth it's weight in gold--I truly believe that. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to come across a recipe for a totally delicious coffee cake from Taste of Home. They call it Rich Coffee Cake, and they aren't kidding.


The ingredients are simple: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, etc. The assembly, as listed on ToH, is not. You'll notice that the original recipe calls for a layer of topping, a layer of cake, another layer of topping and another layer of cake, all baked in a tube pan. That seemed a bit much for me, so I modified the recipe a bit.

I made my version in a 9x13 cake pan, and just sprinkled the topping on top. One layer of cake, one layer of topping. This allowed me to decrease the baking time by half, which is always a good thing. I did keep with the original directions to spray the pan, and then sprinkle a layer of cinnamon-sugar on the bottom. Mmmmm...cinnamon-sugar.

As you can see, the rich coffee cake was a hit. This is what the pan looked like within 24 hours of baking it. The Big Guy and I had eaten half, and the Little Guy got a few bites, too.

Make this coffee cake today so it's ready in the morning. And then don't plan on eating anything other than this for tomorrow. Trust me, one bite and this is all you'll want to eat! Enjoy!