Let's Talk Cake Shall We?

Again, this is what I want for Isabels 1st birthday cake. I am going to make this cake if I have to re-do it 10 times, I will. Obviously, it will have it's differences. I am no fan of fondant - it tastes terrible.

So I searched and searched and searched online for butterflies that looked real, and found these. Considering they're going on a cake, these cost me a small fortune. I have 24, in various different sizes, mostly shades of pink with a few that are much lighter in color - it will create the perfect contrast. I am so excited! Now to buy new round cake pans and get back to finding the perfect white cake.

I have decided, since I mentioned that dirty little phrase "white cake", that if I can't find the perfect recipe - I will make carrot cake. That I know I can do because I have the perfect recipe for that. Or there's lemon cake...

Comfort Food

Chicken & Dumplings. I have mixed feelings about the way this turned out. The whole thing took 3 hours. I had to slow cook my chicken and vegetables with just salt and pepper to make a good broth. Although it looked and smelled great, I felt it lacked in strong flavors. Next time I will either use a different recipe or add a bit of chicken stock - like maybe 3 cups of water and 1 cup of stock, and throw in some other herbs.

Thickening it with Bisquick. I then dropped the bisquick dough on top of this once it was nice n' thick. It was suppose to cook 10 minutes with the lid on, and then another 10 minutes without the lid. The recipe said to not let the dough be submerged in the soup. How was that possible? The weight factor alone made that impossible. They didn't cook very well, and you had to spoon some of the dumpling off to the side. Most people would wonder why I just didn't cook it any longer. Well, the parts that were cooked would have then been overcooked and then we would be eating an odd type of soup. Plus, I just spent 3 hours on this dinner and this household is on a tight schedule, so I just didn't have time.

In the end, it wasn't bad, but just needed some tweeking, and maybe next time add an additional 30 minutes of cook time to be safe and ensure that the dumplings are cooked properly. I fell asleep reading my Fast Food cookbook by Chef Gordon Ramsay. I can't wait to start really cooking again, so many yummy things to try!

P.S.

Apparently it is time for new round cake pans. I did some reading on cake pans, and my pans are no longer shiny therefor no longer reflecting resulting in cakes browning too fast and drying out. There's a bit more to it, but in the end, I have round cake pans on my grocery list so I'll get some next time I go out grocery shopping. Maybe it's time anyways. Haven't been to Gretchens in a while so this will be fun!

Electrical Specticle With A Pot Of What?

A plug. LOL, that's funny. I took a picture of this plug because it's the first plug I've ever changed and I didn't electrocute myself! I've made it my goal to know this house through and through. One thing I realized I hadn't bothered with, was the electrical - which might I add - was a mess! So to replace each of these plugs takes time. Your dealing with stiff copper wiring and to make it more interesting, as my husband says "this house is not normal", we never know what kind of wiring we are going to find until we pull the whole plug out. Some are wired with stuff from the 20's, then the next one is new and properly installed, then the next one is updated, but backwards. Changing these requires about 10 minutes of time per plug, and that's if it's done properly from the beginning. So he taught me how to do this, and again, if it's done right to begin with, I can do it. I have to say I was proud of myself.

Part of kitchen. Ready to be finished with a high gloss paint and new knobs.

This is another corner of the kitchen and a view of the storage in the small hallway. All ready for paint and new knobs.

I finally painted one of the bedrooms today. All the plugs and switches have been replaced (after they were fixed), windows and trim all primered and ready for paint and then my favorite part - the new floor. This "color" is called Classic Khaki - a good color for a rental house. Not plain ol' white, but something everyone can work with no matter their style.

I'm in the mood to cook today, but am craving spaghetti. I'll do a slow cook I think and bake some fresh bread. My husband is at the house doing electrical, so I'm enjoying a bit of quite time with Mia. I always enjoy having time to set the table without any kind of rush. Been a good Friday so far!

Sore Like An Old Lady

I'm sore. My whole body hurts and the worst part? I MISSED my massage yesturday thinking it was today! I just about died when I went to check what time it was at to see that it was 7 hours earlier! Awful.

I didn't cook at all yesturday because I was at the other house doing some work. Primer, primer, primer. It took me 8 hours to do a handful of small, tedious things that require time; like windows, door frames, a door etc; It's comin' along well although we are having a problem with the electrical. Some is still from the 20's and whomever was paid to come in and update it, cut a lot of corners. In the beginning, there were live wires hanging all over the place in the attic and it's a wonder the house didn't burn to the ground decades ago! That part has since been fixed but also, it's as if 2 different people did the wiring because at one plug, black is live and white is ground. The next plug over will be opposite - and all in the same room. It's definitly been a pain in the ass for my husband to change the plugs, but in the end the house will no longer be a sitting fire trap.

Oh ya, I did make someone something yesturday - my daughter told me her bunny needed a cup of hot coffee and brought me a tea cup to fill - so I did, and she sat at the table and ate her breakfast while bunny enjoyed hot coffee.

How To Eat Upside Down & Crumbling Cake...Sigh.

My "moist white cake" going into the oven.

A new recipe for chocolate frosting. First, it only made enough frosting to frost in between layers or do maybe 10 cupcakes, if that. Second, it was too sweet. So I modified the recipe by quadrupling the ingredients, but cutting out a lot of sugar. By doing so, I not only got enough to frost a 2 layer cake, but it actually tasted like chocolate frosting, not brown powdered sugar frosting. Score!

First time I've ever had a cake spill or overflow in the oven. Once I saw the huge mess on the bottom, I quickly threw some tin foil in there to help with the mess.

Here I added more melted down chocolate and butter into the small amount of already mixed frosting.

Carefully plotting out how much sugar to NOT use. One bit at a time and numerous taste tests later, success!

So here's the thing. These cakes would not come out of the pans...at all! Instead I had a pile of warm, crumbled, piled up white cake - that was nice n' moist. I didn't care too much because this was all an experiment for my daughter's birthday cake in August anyways. I have had some pretty bad results with white cake in the past and I'm determined to fix it. I greased and floured the pans pretty well, and I even added a bit of powdered sugar to the pan. Don't know what this was about, I just gave up thinking about it and moved on.

So when I tried to do the second one, I got the same thing. Now I'm just annoyed AND I have a messy kitchen. Is it too early for a shot of Kahlua?

So this is what you do; you spoon or fork a bit of frosting, then...

You grab a bit of cake...

And you take a bite and call it good.

In the end, with eyes closed, it's a good cake. But what went wrong with trying to get them out of the pans, I don't know that I will ever know. The frosting was just a bonus really. I plan on having cream cheese frosting for the birthday cake, a recipe I spent a long time working on and after about a year, I finally had the perfect mixture of sugar and cream cheese.

So do I add this to my white cake list of disaster? Do I make chocolate, devils food or german chocolate cake for Miss Bel or do I continue to be brave and hope one day I can come up with a cake I can actually present to other people? Gosh, life is tough isn't it? LOL

Roast Me A Roast For The Sunshine

And into the oven we go. Served over mashed potatoes and bread. This roast cooked a bit faster than I wanted it too. I had to turn the over down to 300 after 45 minutes. It still cooked fast and I ended up keeping it warm til' we were ready for dinner. I picked up his grandmother Martha for dinner and we thoroughly enjoyed yesturdays beautiful weather. It sure was nice for a change to not have anything I had to do, or anywhere I needed to go. Save that for the rainy day, right? Today is that rainy day. Go figure!

I'm thinking a big pot of pasta for dinner maybe?