7th Heaven

Tuesday
Sis was too excited to sleep on her birthday eve, almost like it were Christmas. Of course, by the time birthday eve had rolled around, the kids had already received and opened a few cards and gifts in the mail.    We also let them exchange presents early.  Sis gave Bud a Phineas and Ferb playset and Bud gave Sis a perler bead kit and some clothes for her AG doll.  Hugs and squeals and tackles and "awesomes!" abounded.  So by Tuesday, excitement was at a high.  She knew we were downstairs wrapping presents--earlier in the day when Mama Teacher told me there were boxes on the porch and I said they were presents, Sis piped up from another room, "Those are presents?!"--and desperately wanted to check on us.

Wednesday
They were both awake by 5:15 a.m.  Though we informed them they weren't actually seven for a few more hours, they were ready to celebrate and so we opened presents, all in one rush, the exact opposite of Christmas.  Paper flew, squeals sounded, hugs tackled us.  Legos (Ninjago, Friends, and a Kingdoms chess set), electric circuit boards, "Phineas and Ferb" dvd, a mandala maker, and a woodland critter village.  They raced downstairs and played hard for the 1 1/2 hours before Bud headed to camp.  They liked our presents almost as much as the ones they'd exchanged between them.

While Bud was at camp (after a birthday pancake breakfast), Sis and I visited our church friend, Miss M, who is undergoing treatment for cancer.  We had a great time talking to her and especially exploring her garden.  Sis liked her "money plant" and another that made little "purses" containing a seed similar to ground cherries.  After lunch, Sis played with young babysitter M while I had an appointment.  M brought each child a dessert kit mimicking flower pots--one even had dirt and gummy worms--as well as markers and glow sticks and such.

Thursday
Mostly, a break from birthday fever.

Friday
On Friday, Goo came up early for the birthday party.  He helped us shop for last-minute food, birthday girl/boy badges, and thank-you cards.  More importantly, he also helped us pick up not one but two birthday cakes, chocolate-frosted chocolate and vanilla-frosted with strawberry (yes, I buy them from the bakery frosted but undecorated--I can't bake, torte, frost, and decorate two cakes the day before so opt for decorating over baking).  We spent part of the afternoon decorating the cakes.  Using a toothpick, Sis drew her standard bunny and then we outlined and filled it with white.  Sis also added grass, flowers, and the sun.  Later, in the day, we helped Bud do a facial portrait of his stuffed penguin, "Mr. Big" (aka Mumble from Happy Feet).  Because it was a portrait, Bud asked for more help but was similarly  pleased with the results.  

Then we all went to dinner at the local Tex-Mex place, which we chose because we knew they make a big deal about the birthdays.  After shrimp fajitas, chicken mole enchiladas, fish tacos, vegetarian quesadillas . . . and chicken fingers, plus chips and salsa the staff brought out apple burritos, flan, and sopapillas, along with giant sombreros.  With candles aglow, they sang first in Spanish and then in English.  The kids were thrilled.  Mind you, this was the third birthday meal for each--they both went for individual meals with Mama (sushi for one, pancakes for the other) and then a big Italian lunch with us after seeing Brave, almost all with singing and desserts (not free ones, though; no one does that anymore, it seems, which is fine).

Saturday 
The kids woke not-as-early-as-we-expected and headed straight to Goo's room, where he had tucked his presents--Legos for both of them.  They put together and played with those until the three adults got into the kitchen and started breakfast.  Goo made homemade scallion pancakes with dipping sauce a la Alton Brown and I made sourdough biscuits.

Soon Ma and Gong arrived and we packed the car to head to their party at the Eli Whitney Museum, where they would make wooden toys with their friends.  I'd say about 10 kids were there, neighbors and classmates, plus their parents, Ma, Gong, Goo, and Babysitter.  They separated into two tables--one for the dragon toy that moved head and tail in sync (Sis's choice) and one for the Frankenstein's Cat toy that had a motot that made it wiggle (Bud's choice).  Wearing safety goggles, they sanded, colored, and constructed their toys, with the careful, double-sided coloring taking by far the most time.  Then everyone ate pizza and cakes, which I think were much appreciated for their decoration--all the kids knew how much Sis and Bud like penguins and bunnies, strawberries and chocolate.  After taking a picture of the group, we wandered the park outside the museum (the museum seems pretty disorganized during the summer--marble run is broken, no exhibitions) and particularly played in the water tables.

We got home midday and spent the heat of the day in the house opening their horde of presents.  Mercy, such great games (Headbandz, Apples to Apples, Blink), books, arts and crafts (beads, bracelets, vases, bird house, snow globes), make-a-story book, books, doll clothes, dress, Legos.  I still think it's odd to open presents at home--sure, there never seems to be enough time at destination parties and parents are uncomfortable with the inherent greediness of opening piles of presents (plus the fear of ungrateful or untactful kids)--but I'm not sure it's less greedy to disassociate gifts from the gift-giver and prevent kids from practicing the fundamental skill of receiving gracefully and gratefully (also, the art and joy of giving, when they're on the other end--it's so odd to deposit a gift like a toll and only know later that they got it when you get a generic thank-you note, if you get one).  Still, I haven't bucked suburban tradition.  Yet.  Maybe next year if there are fewer kids or if we have the party at home.  Especially because I'd like people to know how much the kids really enjoyed and appreciated all the presents.  There were squeals, exclamations, and then the opening of practically every kit and game . . . .

We went for an early dinner altogether, at a Japanese place.  But we didn't get the birthday dessert--Bud had been there for birthday sushi and gotten one 10 days earlier.

Yep, that's a lot of celebrating.  so, we tucked them into bed tonight, wished them "happy birthday" one more time and called the fete over, as great as it was.

"And I Helped!"

The kids decorated their own cakes this year (one with more help than the other; both started by drawing with toothpicks and then using my Wilton cake decorating arsenal--note the fancy "grass" tip--and pre-tubed icings.  And, of course, bakery cakes purchased frosted but undecorated).

Can you guess which is whose?!

Crafty Mommy

I have signed up for weaving classes again this fall in order to best learn how to use my new loom--I can use my own and the teacher has promised to help me learn the quirks of my "machine." I'm excited. And have asked Mama to think of what colors she'd like her scarf in . . . .

And I'm hoping to sew the pillowcases I have planned, the fabric for which I bought more than a month ago, thinking I'd get to it before school started. Oh, well. . . .

But I'll need to remember to be careful. Because I suffered a crochet injury this weekend! I was working diligently on the prayer shawl for my friend's mom, but not sitting in a good position. Which must have strained my neck! Ouch. I'm fine now, of course, but I've got to watch those craft ergonomics! Especially because I have that shawl, another, plus the pink fringe on a blanket for a good friend who had a girl last week (lucky the white part is finished, but I was waiting to be sure it was a girl!). Then it's a break until the next baby blanket in the spring . . . .

At least I've put cake decorating on hold for a bit--I can't go to the October classes because we'll be gone 3 of the 4 weekends. Maybe in November!!!

Making Cake and Eating It Too

We had baked a cake earlier last week in my new Topsy-Turvy cake pan (see example above), my very first shaped cake pan. Sis had wanted to make something chocolate and I had some chocolate cake mix leftover from a set of vanilla and chocolate mixes I'd bought at the warehouse store when I was in cake class. So, with the new pan, we made a chocolate cake. Which was great practice for me because I'd never made a shaped cake before (and it worked perfectly, perhaps because I used shortening for the greasing not spray). And then we didn't eat it! Sis had a smidgen of the leftovers from when I leveled the cake and then ran off to play (typical, they never seem to eat much of what we eat; no complaints, since we can take it to church). I made chocolate buttercream and frosted and deocrated the cake with rainbow sprinkles (so imagine those pictures above all chocolate but with sprinkles on "top" of each "layer," i.e. where the white frosting is).

So, I froze the cake and we took it to church today. Remembering that they didn't even get a bite of the cookies we took last time before they were inhaled by fellow congregants, I cut them slices as soon as coffeehour started and saved them for when Sunday School let out (I couldn't bear another teary ride home empty-bellied). And this time they were much more interested in eating the cake, inhaling their own pieces. I'm sure we'll be making more cakes as the summer progresses . . . especially because I also now have a new cupcake pan and lots of ideas for decorating it!

-=-=-=-=-

Chocolate Buttercream

6 tablespoons butter, softened

6 tablespoons shortening

2 tablespoons milk

5-6 tablespoons cocoa (or more to taste)

3 cups powdered sugar

Cream butters in mixer. Add cocoa and milk until mixed. Add sugar in small batches to combine. Mix until smooth.

adapted from Wilton's chocolate buttercream for the American Celebration Cake

Easy as Cake

After Class #1 Practice:  My Mother's Day Cake (with help from the kids)

Class #2:  My rainbow cake.

Class #3:  One of my clown cupcakes.

Class #4:  My "graduation" cake

After a four-week cake-deocorating class that finished today, I have learned a few things from my instructor and the course materials, as well as a little experience and a few early lessons from Miss T:

• Want to keep your cake moist?  A simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar, boiled and cooled) does the trick.  Just poke some holes in the bottom layer of cake and drizzle it on.  Continue as planned.
  
• One jar of jelly is a bit too much for the filling layer, even though it's tempting to use the whole jar.
• Is your cake slipping off your turntable or cake carrier?  Place a rubber jar opener under the foil-covered cardboard disc your cake is sitting on.
• Technique is important, but frosting consistency is key and can make or break your decorating efforts.  If it's too stiff in the bag, just add a bit of water or knead it with your hands a bit.
  
• When cutting the opening for the tip or coupler, put the tip or coupler in the bag and mark it with your fingernail (on the coupler, where the smooth part meets the treads), and then always cut closer to the tip of the bag than your mark--you can always cut more but if you make the hole too big, your tip will pop out under pressure and you'll have to start all over again.
• Keep a tall glass or heavy cup nearby to place your bags in while filling them (you can even fold the bag over the cup to help hold it open).
• Too many crumbs while icing the cake?  Make sure the consistency of the frosting is thin--spreading stiff icing too hard pulls up crumbs.  Remedy?  Just do a crumb layer and make the second frosting layer thinner than the first.
• To smooth out the frosting on a cake, let it first form a crust (about 20 minutes) and then put a sheet of wax paper on it.  Rub with your hand or a spatula to smooth.
  
• How do you keep the fillings inside your cake?  Place a border of buttercream around the edge of the lower cake before spreading the filling or more buttercream.
• Trouble frosting the edge of your cake where the top meets the sides?  I love using the 789 tip to apply the frosting on top while spinning my turntable.  Then just overhang the last round, frost the edges, and gently merge the two.
• Canned frosting out of the ready-made Wilton can is perfect for roses (and tastes better than class buttercream!).
  
• Want to add letters or shapes to your cake design?  Use cookie cutters to impress an outline.  It's easier than piping gel transfers!
• Your rose nail is easier to manage in a paper/styrofoam cup, which frees up your hands to change tips, tighten the icing bag, etc.
• Dipping your finger in cornstarch allows you to flatten peaks on dots, buttons, and other designs.
• Writing on a cake is not like writing with pen and paper: do not retrace parts of your letters as you form them.
• Finally, something I saw at a birthday party just today:  make your royal icing roses on dum-dum sized lollipops and then just stick them in the cake with the stick!  Kids will love to eat them!  Think it would work with buttercream?

I've got lots of cakes in my head now, to make over the next few weeks (including Mama's birthday cake and a 4th of July cake), as preparation for my raison d'etre:  the kiddos' birthday cakes!  (Yep, plural:  one will have bunnies and the other will have dinosaurs.  Because combining them is like some Monty Python or Japanese Godzilla movie).

Send in the Clowns

My cake-decorating class is not for coulrophobics, that's for sure.  I don't like clowns too much myself and so only made two of the six clown cupcakes (there was a red one, too.  Note to Wilton:  you need to make little plastic teddy bearl heads--they would be much cuter!)  Mind you, the body was better proportioned when I made it but had to be squished to fit in my carrier to take home to the eagerly waiting kiddos.  Who promptly had me scrape all the icing off so they could eat the cupcakes.  Upside down.  That'll show the clowns who's boss.

I'm Over the Rainbow

Ignoring my Mother's Day cake, which I made before official decorating instruction began in class, I present here my first fully decorated cake:

I've already learned several valuable lessons about cake decorating.  Here are a few:

1. Don't try to master new cake and frosting recipes on top of learning new cake decorating techniques.  It's just too many dishes.  And no one cares if it's a mediocre box mix if it's pretty.
2. Sometimes, even the recipes in Joy of Cooking don't come out the way you expect, like when your 9" white cake seems half the height it should be.
3. You need a lot of frosting to cover a two-layer 9" cake.  And you can't really fake it. 
4. Half a jar of jelly isn't quite enough for a good layer of filling.
5. When you use a turntable, put a rubber jar opener under the cake circle for friction.  Or your cake WILL SLIDE OFF AND FALL ON THE FLOOR.
6. You can save a cake that has landed facedown on the floor by scraping up all the icing and starting over again (once you stop sobbing in the living room).  With new icing.  Call it a "crumb layer."
7. It takes two spatulas (spatulae?) to masterfully lift said cake off the floor (according to Mama, who did the triage and treatment--see above).
8. No one will know.
9. Unless you tell them.
10. And then your kids and partner will eat it anyway.  Saying all the while that it is "great, just like you, Mommy" and tastes yummy.
11. Because they like cake.
12. And love you.

Cake Talk

This weekend is my second cake-decorating class.  But I'm already have delusions of grandeur for the birthday cake I'll make for the kids this summer.  The theme is animals (yes, again) and I have several possibilities.  Here they are:

• circle cake with 3-D icing-piped animal figures
• shaped cake of animal face(s)
• circle cake with iced sugar cookie animal figures in habitat (green grass?)
• circle cake with flat piped animal figures (based on cookie cutter shapes) in grass
• circle cake with plastic animal figures in grass

I guess it'll depend on how well my meager skills progress in the next few weeks.  You saw the last cake, for my mother's day post, a sad, melting, overly sweet confection that I had lots of "help" with.  I didn't like the cake; I loved the cake.  But I'm doing the next one by myself, with different recipes.

Making My Cake and Eating it Too

I have a friend who makes gorgeous cakes and cookies. She has a real talent for the design and execution of clever and cute cakes. Last year, she did the twins' birthday cake--completely allergen-free and totally edible, I might add--with it's perfect rice krispie barn, lake and field, and little animals. It made the party. And so, inspired by her skill, I've wanted to learn how to decorate cakes and cookies too.

And on Friday I had my first lesson. She came over and let me help with the decoration of a cake for our first annual Groundhog Day Open House. She found the design online--a groundhog coming out of a hole with forest around him--very cute. To prep, I made the cake. It was an easy box mix--with some changes to bulk it up (add an extra egg and double the oil, plus a box of complementary pudding mix)--but, knowing her talents, I was actually nervous about making (and messing up the cake). Luckily, it turned out okay, flat even.

She brought over all the colors, decorating tips, and icing and fondant ingredients. First fondant--1 cup marshmallows and 1 tablespoon water heated in the microwave for 20 seconds--add colors and then stir in 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar until manageable by hand. She made the green tree cones and I made the little fat groundhog. Thank heavens for my polymer clay modeling days--the consistency is the same so I had some experience. And this tasted better! She then became icing the cake. First a crumb coat and then a border of green stars. We opted for "grass" and so she started making little clumps of grass. I was surprised and pleased that I got a chance to try--I wasn't very good, but that only seemed to matter to me. She (and DP who was in the kitchen making chili for the gathering) was very encouraging and only filled in the most glaring gasp. She added facial details to the groundhog and then began putting leaves on the trees. This was harder and I wasn't sure I would manage but I did a whole tree by myself. And then she added a touch of snow, since it isn't quite spring here yet anyway. It was marvelous, both the cake and the lesson. Thanks, T! The cake made the party and I can't wait for my next lesson. Cookies, maybe??

-=-=-=-=

The eating of the cake was one of the highlights of the party. DD and DS had spotted the cake--protected by an upturned clear plastic tub--as soon as they entered the kitchen yesterday morning. And DD could barely contain her enthusiasm for several hours. That and decorating the groundhog cookies we made which were the activity of the party made her little cup runneth over.

The party started late in the afternoon, with tons of food--turkey and vegetarian chili, plus snacks, and rainbow punch--and lots of friends. Just in time for the start of the party, some dear (and big strong) friends moved our sleeper couch downstairs into the playroom, permanently, providing extra seating. There was groundhog decor galore--DP had seen to that with two external flags, a hat with stuffed groundhog and some earrings for me, and a stuffed groundhog that DD co-opted. For awhile, DD was totally absorbed in decorating groundhog cookies with chocolate frosting, chips, sprinkles, and colored sugars. Between gulps of punch, DS decorated some too. But soon she wanted cake.

So we took the cake out to the middle of the room and . . . sang "Happy Birthday" to the groundhog. Because that's what you do when you have cake, right? I'll remember candles next year. Because we want this to be a yearly party. We used to have a Christmas/December open house and have also had a few summer BBQ parties but a). didn't want to compete with all the Christmas festivities anymore and b). much prefer cool weather to hot (and besides we'll always be having their birthdays in the summer). We want to have an annual party, something people will hopefully look forward to, and, since I'm a big fan of groundhogs (I always seem to spot them on the Merritt Parkway), I chose this date. Besides, who else has a groundhog party? Several guests told me they'd never even heard of such a thing. Which explains the lack of themed paper goods and evite invitations.

Mark your calendars for next year . . . the cake will be great!

(DS thought this one was excellent. He spent the rest of the party eating the grass. And that's after trying to devour a tree and my groundhog. It's a wonder we got him to bed).