Happy Birthday, Janelle!

Janelle attended Wyatt's birtday party last fall and loved his cake. Her birthday was shortly after his and she wanted something similar. Since her favorite color is pink and she loves the Disney princesses, I created this cake for her.

Happy Birthday, Wyatt!

Wyatt turned 3 this month. Amy asked for a cake...no specifications. I love that!
I'd wanted to do a rainbow cake for a while and it seemed like the perfect thing for a 3-year-old. I had no idea that the party was going to be a carnival. Amy had no idea that the cake was going to be colorful. It made for a great surprise when they cut into it.

May Food Fun

I missed the Daring Bakers challenge in May, but I have a very good excuse.

Josh was home on leave and thought it would be a good idea to hit the road...and the water...and the air. We'd been dreaming of a trip to Croatia for months, and this was the right time.

Josh came to visit my school on his first Friday in town. We were talking with another teacher after dismissal about what we would be doing while he was on leave. His response to her questions was, "We are going to elope to Croatia...start the rumor." Little did I know that we were really going to go. One desperate phone call explaining the change in plans to my mother and a quick online search later, and we had ourselves 2 tickets to Split. WOW!
Only half of the rumor is true, though. We did go to Croatia, but we didn't get married.

Yes, we did consider it.

Here are some of the highlights from that trip...you'll notice a theme in all these pictures...we like to eat.

Our first night in Split. Josh ordered a seafood plate and I ordered scampi. I got a kabob. Not wanting to be rude, I kept it and we worked our way through both dishes. As we were finishing, the waiter came by and said, "Your scampi will be right out." Wait a minute!!?? What? Yes, I got the scampi after the kabob. We were confused and stuffed after that dinner.
 
 
The mountaintop winery: 
* Prosciutto with sheep's cheese
* Lentils and lamb 
* 'Pancake' with walnut spread
  

During our drive down to Dubrovnik we stopped at a roadside stand and found strawberries! They were small and juicy and quite possibly better than any strawberries I've had in Wisconsin. We also bought a bag of oranges, and after much prodding by the eager saleslady, a bottle of blackberry brandy. We also tried the olive oil…on our skin. :)
 
 
Dinner in Marina: 


Gelato in Trogir:

 
Eating pistachio and tiramisu gelato...or was it kiwi and coffee gelato? We went twice that night.

Lunch at Luna Cafe (right next to Pink Cafe) 
 
* scampi
* mussels in white wine
* Bitter Lemon
* brochette with fresh mozzarella

We saved the best for last. This was our final dinner in Croatia, at a little roadside restaurant on the way back to Split.



 

 

Daring Bakers ~ Cheesecake

April's Daring Bakers challenge presented a fun treat and an opportunity to be creative with flavor. Jenny from Jenny Bakes chose Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake. I decided to make my cheesecake in cupcake cups for easier sharing, and then I picked two fun flavors. Since Tony (of Tony's Bistro) makes lunch and dinner for me on a regular basis, I made key lime cheesecakes for him. I'm not a key lime fan, but Tony said they were great. Josh chose the other flavor. He suggested a bourbon dark chocolate cheesecake. I'm also not a bourbon fan, so I substituted amaretto. I used amaretti cookies for the crust and Hershey's dark cocoa for the chocolate. These were wonderful!


The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Mason's First Birthday

It's Mason's first birthday. Wendi asked for a monkey cake for the party since Mason is her Little Monkey.


Stats:

• Yellow cake
• Lyda Snow buttercream icing
• Hershey's dark chocolate monkey

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today is Mom's birthday. Crystal is down here for a visit and we decided to make and mail Mom a birthday treat. Since Mom is a HUGE Hello Kitty fan and we are Bakerella fans, the decision was an easy one. We made Hello Kitty Cupcake Pops.

Here are some pics of the process:

White cake mixed with vanilla buttercream. We formed the heads by hand and placed each on a stick. Then we used white chocolate chips for the ears. Next we froze the pops.



















Pops waiting to be dipped.

Freshly-dipped pop.

Pops were dipped in white candy melts.








Hellos are getting bows.

Which bows are on the wrong side?

Bows were made with mini M&Ms and large heart-shaped sprinkles.








Adding fine details. We tried Wilton and Kopykake food-writing markers and neither worked well. We are on the hunt for Americolor pens now.











The final product.





Idea from: http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2009/02/here-kitty-kitty.html

Daring Bakers - Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

Post editing to come...until then, here are some notes and pictures. Yummy!










The recipe we’ve chosen this month is Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992).








The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.