Mmm, cake

I'm part of what's called the enrichment committee at my church. We plan quarterly activities for the Relief Society, the LDS (Mormon) women's organization. This month, we held an activity entitled, "A Night in Seussville," and everything had a Dr. Seuss theme. I was in charge of posters and decorating the cakes that would be served as refreshments. We had talks about three Dr. Seuss books, so three of the cakes represented those books. Here's "The Cat in the Hat Came Back":And "The Sneetches":And this one is supposed to be like the nest from "Horton Hatches the Egg":And then we decided we just needed a couple cakes that had colors found in Seuss books and were just fun looking (although the first one is a bit like "Oh the Places You'll Go" because of the stripes):
All the cakes together. The night was a blast and the cakes turned out great. We used marshmallow fondant to decorate, which tastes much better than regular fondant. The cakes were yellow cakes (except for the hat, which was red velvet) and I used triple berry ice cream topping for the filling and homemade vanilla frosting as the 'glue' keeping the fondant on.
Such a blast. I forsee a lot more marshmallow fondant in my future.

Hey, I baked a cake!

My son's birthday was this week. I made him a cake using marshmallow fondant.
I'm in love. With the fondant.
It tastes good! And is not evil to work with!
Here's a couple pics:
We did cupcakes number 1-8 and the cake was, of course, number 9. My sister-in-law pointed out that the cake was the letter b upside down. B for Benson! Of course I meant to do that.
One thing I learned from this was to always sift your powdered sugar! It left little dents in the fondant that annoyed me, but otherwise was great stuff. The cake inside was red velvet with vanilla frosting to adhere the fondant. It was a very colorful cake when it was cut!

What to do after Husband saves your pan

B had to attack the bottom of my pan with a putty knife, metal spoon and lots of steel wool to save it. It was a lot of work that I'm pretty sure he didn't want to have to repeat so I tried to destroy it again by making peach butter!
Wait, I mean I was super careful making more peach butter.
Yes, I bought another box of peaches. Blasted farmer's market (Hi, Farmer John!)
I had two pans going to make four batches of butter. It went very well, but it's not a fast process. You have to make peach pulp first and then cook that with sugar, which takes about an hour per batch. Add in the initial peeling and cutting and the canning times and it takes quite a while!I had a helper for the first batch of butter, but he lost interest after stirring for about 1o minutes (I do like his two fisted method). After that it was all me. Until 1:30 in the morning. It's worth it, though. Benson wants to sell some of the half pint jars to our neighbors, which could be entertaining. He wants to be a neighborhood entrepreneur just like a girl down the road who makes and sells whole wheat bread. It's really good, especially with peach butter!
Haven't exactly figured out the price yet for the half pints, but I might let him take a couple jars around tomorrow.
So, any takers?

Millions of peaches

When I visited the farm stand to pick up our CSA share last Friday, I was sorely tempted by the peaches.
And ... came home with 22 pounds.
And I had to do something with them that night because Saturday was CRAZY and I didn't think they would last terribly long.
Out came the canning equipment!
I decided to can some quarts and make peach butter, which I kept calling pear butter, because I'm easily confused. And that confused my husband and then annoyed him.
BECAUSE I KEPT DOING IT ALL EVENING.
Very annoying.
We did six quarts of peaches and two pints and some number of half pints that I can't remember and I'm too lazy to go check on. I say we because B was dragged into helping. Fun for him! He is an awesome kitchen helper, so maybe he should start slacking so I stop asking for his help. And man, can he chop potatoes! Just don't ask him to do onions. It's his only weakness.The peaches and the first batch of peach butter (seriously, I almost typed pear) went fine. Then I put the second batch on the stove and ...
Went to the bathroom.
STUPID IDEA.
Should have just crossed my legs because this happened: I don't think the pan is salvageable. The bottom is covered in black, burnt on peaches and sugar. It doesn't look much different from the above picture, taken before I broke out the heavy artillery. I tried scrubbing it with baking soda. Then soaking it in vinegar overnight. And then I attacked it with a Brillo pad. And boiled vinegar in it. B has offered to use his palm sander with really gritty sandpaper to try to save it, and I'm seriously considering it. So if anyone can give me any tips short of attacking it with power tools, let me know.
At least the first batch of peach butter tastes good! And I'm pretty sure I'll try again. As long as I use the restroom first.

Beautiful Day

It's very sunny, although still cold. A day not to go outside, but to stay in and look out through the window.
I had some organic blueberries in the fridge that I needed to use. So I needed to make blueberry muffins. NEEDED.I used my favorite recipe from here. I didn't feel like going to the store, so I used powdered buttermilk for the first time and it worked great.We added some orange zest, which made them taste even better, in my opinion.
My messy faced, blurry helper likes to cook, but he didn't like to eat the finished product. Instead he took my camera and snapped a couple pictures:
It's interesting to see things from his perspective. I guess sometimes I forget that he's short and sees the world in a different way.

Oh, and I may have been making muffins to avoid dealing with this: