Woodland Creature?

What is that in the path up ahead?


Is it a gift from the forest fairies?






If so, those forest fairies just gave us the Cutest. Baby. Ever.

Swinging

So a couple of weekends ago we spent the afternoon at the park. I kept saying, why haven't we been doing this all summer???

Then I remember that I'm a working Mom and most weekends are spent full of family events, grocery shopping, laundry and other homemaker obligations.

We had a great time at the park. I got a chance to snapped some pics with my new hand-me-down camera, or as my photography benfactor would say, Ca-mah-rah.


Please note the hat. This hat was the FIRST baby gift we recieved. It is for a newborn. We had not yet purchased appropriatly sized winter accesories and it was chilly. In lui of her being cold, we shoved her into a newborn hat. Once we had the hat on securely, we both assesed that she looked like the cutest little burgler.




This photo is evidence that our burgler had a partner in crime

Birthday Cake - Rainbow edition

One thing I love to do for birthdays is make a just-what-the-birthday-girl/boy-wants cake. Biscuit reminded me that this all started three years ago.  She sent me this a link to a Martha Stewart crepe cake and said she wanted it for her birthday. Well I know a challenge when I hear one. You can read all about that messy attempt here.

From then on, I took it as my responsibility, no obligation to ensure my family members had the birthday cake of their desires. For example when I asked Momma T (AKA Bubby) what she wanted last year, she told me “LEMON”. It was up to me to make the delicious and oh so moist cake that I can't find one single mention or picture of. It must have been too good to document.
The second year Biscuit told me she wanted something rich, decadent and salty. A little internet searching and I found this beauty. I’m not sure which sold me on this recipe, the ingredients or the write up from the author. I think it was the words on the page that sold me. I do love this blog now, the combination of words and food – swoon.

The resulting cake has made several repeat appearances, including the recent birthdays celebrated on the lake, because my family has dubbed it THE MOST AWESOME!


This year’s challenge biscuit actually sent me long ago, maybe even right after her birthday last year. As a diligent sister I bookmarked the link to be sure I remembered come September. So last week I dove into making this:




I was actually surprised at how simple it was. The most difficult part was only baking two of the cakes at a time, because I only have two cake pans. I used all the food coloring in my cabinet. The orange and purple layers took more time because the food coloring had to be mixed. Purple started out a little brown, more blue helped. The orange was more red until I added enough yellow to balance it out.

I made the cakes ahead of time and wrapped them for fridge storage. I am a busy Mom too, remember?

When it came time to do the icing, the author, Whisk Kid, had some AWESOME tips on problem solving and best practices for buttercream icing. These tips INCLUDED PICTURES. What did people DO before the internet???

One step I always thought was dumb and a waste of time is the crumb coating. Many recipes call for this step of a think layer of icing to catch all the crumbs and seal the cake prior to frosting. Well I decided this time with all these strong colors, I need to follow the directions like a good girl. Wouldn’t you know, it actually helped the finished product turn out smooth, crisp and white.

Crumb coating

Finished product





I showed up for desert at the restaurant to present this year’s answer to the birthday cake challenge.
CAVEAT: Sorry for the bad pictures. I had my baking hat on that day which means I left my photographer hat at home.

The big reveal







One of biscuits friends said “Who’s six years old today?” Biscuit proudly raised her hand.