Easter Cake

Last night I had a Pampered Chef party at my place and I decided to make a cake! Now, to be honest, I thought Easter was next Sunday not this Sunday for the longest time. Seriously. Kind of pathetic how long I thought this. Hence why I scheduled my party for last night because when I scheduled it I thought 'oh I don't want to do it the Thursday before Easter because people will be busy and nobody will come, so let's do it the 21st...' but the 21st (last night) was the Thursday before Easter and everybody was busy so hardly anybody came! Lol! Oh my brain... it's a work in progress! Oh, and also, this is why we're not going to have any of the super good Easter candy in our baskets because I got to the store too late to get any... bummer!

Anyway.

Ahem.

So, since it was so close to Easter I made an Easter cake (I even colored the inside to make it festive, there were blue, green, pink and yellow layers! But, you can't see it here of course =D ).

So ya'll have a great Easter this Sunday!!!

Easter Eggs

On Wednesday night we colored Easter eggs!!! Gabriel was beyond excited. He loves to help me cook eggs normally and will just stand their holding the eggs until I need to put them in the pan or whatever recipe I'm making. So for him to get to color eggs was very special. Last year he was a little too young to enjoy coloring Easter eggs but this year he was literally jumping up and down (much to the dismay I'm sure of our downstairs neighbor) with excitement!

Very, very excited!

Even Eli was excited!

Oh how long can it really take to boil a big pot of eggs?

Then we got to start the whole process...

Yes, Gabriel wanted to make sure his milk was in the picture :) Every time I moved it out of the way he put it right back!

Eli hung out in his high chair and ate cheddar goldfish the whole time :)

Makin' eggs just makin' eggs...

And the finished project?

And all Eli wanted to do was eat the eggs which Gabriel thought extremely hilarious and kept trying to take them away from little Eli...

Now I can't wait to see their faces when they find their Easter baskets!

Otiki Otiki Aye

Back when Josh and I lived in South Korea we used to make fun of their commercials a lot. Seriously, go you tube Korean commercials and you will probably understand why. This particular commercial drove Josh nuts, just because of the girl and the way she talked... and because I used to mimic her which made it so much more annoying :)

In the commercial the girl says something along the lines of 'otiki otiki aye' which when I asked a Korean what it meant they told me it's like saying 'oh no! what should I do?' But it's come a little joke that we say it to each other when the other is whining about something.

So. Yesterday Gabriel peed in his underwear twice in twenty minutes and the second time I was slightly annoyed because Eli was crying in his high chair and I was trying to clean up Gabriel while he wasn't really holding still. I sighed and said something along the lines of 'Gabriel you need to stop doing this, you pee in the potty, not in your underwear.' His response under his breathe? "Otiki otiki eye, otiki otiki eye...."

Finally get to run outside!

Josh and I have been getting into running lately. Josh more so then I (he's going to run Grandma's Marathon! The WHOLE DANG THING!) but I still enjoy it. Problem is, running on the treadmill drives me nuts. I do it, but it drives me insane. I would much prefer to run outside. Now that the weather is finally getting slightly warmer here in Minnesota running outside is finally an option.

We got a single jogging stroller last year at a garage sale. It was only $20 and in pretty good shape. But now we needed a double, or another single as long as Josh and I went together. So i've been keeping an eye out on craigslist for strollers but finding nothing.

So the other day I was walking back from the post office and I decided to stop at a little store by our apartment building called Lots for Tots and I came across a very nice double jogging stroller. I was super excited about it! I got it for an amazing deal. Amazing.

Now we can finally run outside and get off the dreaded treadmill!!!

Can you tell which of my children hates getting their picture taken and which turns into a complete ham when the camera is pointed anywhere near his directions?

Yeah... it's pretty hard to tell who is who...  ;P

Precious Moments

I never get to hold Eli while he is sleeping anymore. It's sad. I absolutely love holding sleeping babies! Eli just needs to fall asleep on his own and wakes up when moved, except for the other day that is!

We came home from the store and Eli was asleep in his car seat and he actually stayed asleep while I carried him into the house so I decided to soak it all up and hold him for as long as he stayed asleep. I ended up having 15 minutes of blissful baby sleeping holding-ness with my beautiful little boy!

Eli the cheeky musician!

What a mess!

Eli's new favorite hobby?

Emptying the entire contents of my cupboards! What a mess!

Butterfly Cakes!!!

This past week I got to make a cake for a very good friend of mines daughter who was turning two! We were invited to her party on Thursday night so I tried to start prepping for this cake on Monday night. This was my first fondant free cake too (at least, for decorating).

See, making things like butterflies can take awhile and I've never made them before and they take time to dry. So I wanted to give myself a little extra time just in case of any mishaps. And I am sooo glad I did!

My friend pretty much gave me free rein on how to decorate the cake, she just said as long as there were butterflies on it. So my mind started reeling on how to make butterflies and flowers and make a cake cute enough for a two year old.

I read up on how to make butterflies using royal icing and then flooding it with flooding icing. I made all these outlines for butterflies and filled them all, let them dry and then they all broke when I tried to take them off the paper. I then figured that I made them too thin, so I redid it and made them thicker. They all broke again. I kept joking to Josh that butterflies were going to be the end of me :) Now I didn't mind that I was learning what worked and didn't. What was making me nervous was that it took forever for these butterflies to dry in the first place so by the time I found out that they were not going to work it was the morning of the party. Yeah, I was freaking out a little bit.

So I sat there in the kitchen on Thursday morning trying to think of a place I could go buy fake butterflies to put on the cake (even though I so badly wanted them to be edible!) when I remember that I had some sugar paste (gum paste) in the fridge. I figured, what the hay, I'll try it! So I colored it a few different colors with petal dust and rolled it out and then cut out wings for the butterflies. Then while they were drying I painted little designs on them with edible paint. And you know what? THEY WORKED!!! And, they were so much cuter then the royal icing things that all the books and websites told me to do (and took far less time! Seriously, the royal icing ones were taking 24 hours to just dry).

Here is the finished cake! The birthday girl loved it and I happened to think they were pretty cute too :)

Chocolate Truffle Torte

A little over a week ago I decided that I wanted to try something new with the cakes I make. I found this recipe for a chocolate truffle torte and I then topped it with chocolate ganache and a chocolate glaze.

This cake was the most unhealthy, expensive, rich, yummy cake I've ever made. Seriously. If you want to indulge, if you want something different and delicious then regular cake, make (or order from me!) this cake. 

This is the top of the cake before I frosted it...

See, it's got a different, brownie type texture to it rather then normal fluffy cake. 

I also decided to try my hand at making sugar craft flowers. I needed something for the top of the cake so I made three white roses. 

Then I decided to add a little color, just around the edges to make them pop a little.

This cake was strictly experimental... new cake, new frosting, new glaze, new flowers... new everything!

Then I took the cake to my parents house to spread around the millions of calories floating around in the cake. Unfortunately, they do not have the best lighting for taking pictures...

Me and my cake :)

Gabriel and I pretending to take a bite out of the cake! 

Yummmmmm!!!!