Cake Sampling

One of my mini cakes for the wedding cake sampling.  Chocolate and red velvet with fondant 

Both mini cakes together.  The yellow one is a vanilla and lemon cake with a lemon buttercream icing.

It's been a while, I know, but honestly not a whole lot has happened. I had a cupcake order and a wedding cake sampling though. The sampling went really well and I was my first time having one. I still haven't had a chance to make those Golden eggs or the caramel popcorn I keep saying I'll make. It seems every time I plan to make it, something gets in the way, or I realize I ran out of butter. Don't you hate that? Oh and I also found this really cool recipe for red velvet brownie cheese cake that I've been dying to try cause it sounds like a mythical creature and how could I not give that a try.

On a non-baking note I've started on my Christmas gifts. I will not mention what they are in case the people I am making them for are reading this right now. But I've also started making a giant advent calender made of felt. Got the idea from the blog homemade by jill. So far I've got my little felt squares cut out and that's about it. I'm a little behind. Then it occurred to me that my mom made a similar one when she was young so I asked her to pull that out to compare. It's so neat and I'll have to take a picture of both when I'm done.

Also I've started pulling out a few Christmas decorations cause I guess its about that time already. The tree isn't up yet though, it seemed a little early for that. But it won't be long until that's up too.

I've got a couple of orders coming up soon, two birthday cakes so far. I'm hoping for a few more orders though. Then it's holiday baking and cooking with family and I can't wait!

Elmo cupcakes

The elmo cupcakes were a great success!  The customer was pleased and my son kept trying to steal one.  Here's what they looked like.

And now for a family birthday dinner of shawarmas with baskin robbins ice cream cake!

Pictures!

I finally got the pictures from Emily Murphy Non-Profit Housing's 20th Anniversary.  I never found it in any papers but someone from Emily Murphy sent them to me so I thought I would share them.

cutting the cake with two local politicians running for city councilor.

It seems this week has gone by so fast and it seems like I got absolutely nothing done.  I'm going to blame it on my birthday which was yesterday.  I did not make my own cake but a good friend of mine too me out for cupcakes at the flour Shoppe.   I had a delicious peanut butter cupcake with a berry buttercream icing on top.

Tonight I will be getting ready to make Elmo face cupcakes for an order of mine.  I will post pictures when they're done.  I never got a chance to make my caramel popcorn so I'm hoping to do that in the next few days. Oh and I am dying to try these golden eggs that I read about in Gesine Bullock's book "My Life From Scratch".  You can visit her blog here.  They sounds amazing.  So off to bake some cupcakes I go.

Happy Belated Halloween?

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've had a blog post but in my defence I have a really good excuse. First of all, I may have mentioned this before, I don't have internet at home so to be able to post an entry I need to go somewhere with internet.

Secondly my son has pneumonia again! Third time this year. I don't know how he keeps getting it and why our family doctor chooses to not look further into it. I am this close to getting a new family doctor. The cihldren's hospital here in Ottawa wasn't any better. I had to insist multiple times to get a chest Xray. They forget that this is the third time in a year and that maybe I might have an idea of what to look for. Besides I didn't want to have to go back in a few days when he got worse. Normally the hospital here is amazing, they've done wonders for Fionn. He was born with club feet and has had to have multiple casts on both legs to correct his feet and all were done by the amazing Orthopaedic surgeon at Cheo (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario). So I don't know where we would be without it. But the ER is another thing. So finally they did Xray him and the results were early pneumonia. HA I was right. Not that I wanted to be but I know my kid. So here we are with more antibiotics. One more pneumonia and I'm insisting on seeing a specialist.

So all that to say that I've been pretty tied up. But I've still managed to get some baking in there. And now halloween has come and gone. So what have I been up to, well I had an order for 3 one year olds birthday cakes for a friend of mine so each baby had their own cake. Twins and their cousin. So one girl and 2 boys. I made a vanilla cake with white vanilla buttercream and pink accents for the little girl, chocolate with white vanilla buttercream and brown accents for one of the boys and red velvet with cream cheese icing and yellow accents for the other little boy. I had a lot of nice comments from the party goers.

Next I tried making baked stuffed apples from a recipe I found in a Jewish holiday cookbook. They turned out alright. I might add a scoop of ice cream on the side next time but they were pretty good by themselves too. Kind of like a lighter version of apple crisp stuffed in an apple.

I also made some shortbread cookies in all sorts of Halloween shapes and decorated them with royal icing. I will be making more to send to my son's daycare for the kids to decorate. He wasn't the only one sick so their Halloween party got postponed.

I think I'm all updated now. I was planning on making caramel popcorn last night after trick or treating but we were too full from the duck roast and roasted vegetables I made at my sister's new home. So I might make that some time this week.

Hope everyone had a fabulous and safe Halloween! Now get ready to be bombarded with Christmas!

Baking Tangent

First of all, is there anything better then warm bread and butter? I don't think so. I love fresh backed bread or biscuits still warm out of the oven, spreading buttery love all over and watching it melt. And it tastes as good as it smells.

My mom made buttermilk biscuits(a Martha Stewart recipe)  a few days ago while the baby's napped. We spent the day there since Fionn slept over the night before. The boys love waking up knowing the other cousin is here already. They are a pretty silly bunch. They had a blast playing in they're play kitchen and watching a movie and painting. The painting quickly turned into body painting, which then led to a mid-day bath, then nap. Which brings us back to the biscuits. I was just browsing through my favourite blogs while my mom made delicious biscuits. My mom asks me to make things for her all the time and I tell her no because I know she can make it. Where does she think I learned to bake in the first place, the neighbour? Well that's not too far off because I use to bake cupcakes with a good friend of mine, who happened to be my neighbour, all the time! But I got the baking gene from my mamma.

So these biscuits were so nice and crumbly and warm and awesome! With butter and a little bit of jam it was like a bite of heaven.

I made two Apple Tart Tatins this week. I got the recipe from Joy the Baker.  They were so easy to make and very delicious. Not quite apple crisp but a lighter more caramelly version. The other night I also went on a tangent when I made my second apple tart. I also made bark that night and chocolate chip cookies. All easy but sooooo good. Then I had to invite people to eat them so my sister and cousin stopped by for a snack.

I've got 3 cakes to make for this sunday for a birthday party so that will keep me busy. Also I might have my first wedding cake order! More details to come when I have them.

Rainy day to end the week

So I guess Epic cupcakes was just too good to be true and it needed to be counter balanced by some bad luck. Too much of a good thing can't be good.  Yesterday evening I tripped over my puppy, Chinook, in the middle of the parking lot on our way home from a walk and did a triple axle type flip and fall.  It was bad.  I ended up scraped and bruised something fierce and of course so did my ego too.  Let's hope no one saw that graceful moment.  The silver lining is I somehow did NOT rip any clothing, yet I got all scratched up, weird huh?  I was totally wearing my favorite jeans too so that's awesome that they didn't rip.  Then today I had to go for my yearly physical which is never fun when you're a woman.  AND get blood taken out of me.  'Nough said.

And if all that wasn't enough, I banged my elbow in the doorway, knocked my scrapped knee, couldn't find a stupid parking lot while running errands today, AND had to listen to Katy Perry's stupid new song 'teenage dream' like a hundred thousand times on the radio because apparently there isn't anything else to play.

Anyway, the weekend is here and my sister and I are taking the boys to the mall to see Toupi Binou.  I must face my fear of over sized stuffed mascot people for the sake of my 2 year old.  Oh the things we do for our kids.  After that I'm thinking of making homemade hummus.  Mmm hummus.

Epic Cupcakes

I texted my sister last night and told her to expect some epic cupcakes when she picked up her son(I was babysitting).  She told me later that she underestimated my 'epic' comment and that these better be EPIC if I were to use that term.  Well she underestimated me and my EPIC cupcakes.  I made the peanut butter chocolate cupcakes from made with pink and they were AMAZING.  I almost went in to a diabetic shock they were so rich and delicious.  My mom thought it was too much but she loved the peanut butter buttercream icing.  I say she's crazy but that's cause I can't resist reese's pieces buttercups!  But other then my mother(who is one of my best critics), everyone I gave them to absolutely loved them, which makes me happy!  So I would say they were a great success.

As for tonight I will not bake anything but instead do a workout.  Yes folks, that's right, I said workout.  I said I would make a change and I'm doing my darnedest to do it.  So tonight is the first workout of this week(I realize its already Thursday), and that means I'll have to squeeze in two more workouts by Sunday.  FML  I will learn to love the pain!  Damn you cupcakes!