Someday ~

Someday.  Someday.  I've used the word and feeling a lot in my life.  Someday.  Saving this, saving that, putting things in the back of my mind that whatever I was thinking of doing/using in the moment didn't fit, but it would someday.  Turns out, every day is someday.

If one can hold affection for an aspen tree trunk, I do.  I have been wanting a slice for some time, they are just gorgeous.  I picked one up a few months ago as there was a tree service cutting down two trees near my children's school.  Two other women were also gathered - I had to smile - creative women appreciating beauty, coveting limbs and trunk slices of that beauty.  

I was very happy to have the opportunity to use it for the first time two days ago, at a cozy wedding in a Sunriver home.  There is something nicely intimate about smaller weddings.  This one felt especially warm, evening vows, natural tones and winter. { Someday.}

I wish the pictures were better - I was on my own again, confused and oddly forlorn, not knowing which setting to use with what lighting with what focus, wishing I had someone to call and ask as this was one of the prettiest table settings I have done to date.   The colors of the table complimented the natural accents that were used surrounding the desserts.

Chocolate stout cake, espresso buttercream, ganache covering

Crisp meringue mushrooms, mini pumpkin cupcakes with caramel buttercream

Oh Sweet Mother Earth - these were omg good, I love myself. Lemon tarts with dark chocolate drizzle.

Desserts for 38

Chocolate ganache, peanut-butter ganache dollop.

Buche de Noel 2010

Chocolate peanut butter ganache ~

12 oz. dark chocolate, chopped - semi-sweet is fine.
1 1/3 c. heaving whipping cream.  I use 40%.
Peanut butter of your choice.  I prefer a natural peanut butter.

•  Place chocolate in a bowl.
• Heat cream to almost boiling, pour over chocolate.
• Let sit covered for five minutes.  Stir to smooth.
• Let sit several hours to thicken.
• Add peanut butter to taste.

This makes a lot for home use.  Truffles, anyone?

~ Someday ~ 

Ladybug cake ~ for the sugar and spice crowd

I initiated it, I did.  "Come on, sit here.  Let's look at pictures of ladybug cakes together."  Oy.  Not a can of worms, but page after page after page...after *page* of ladybug cakes thanks to Google Image and a six year old that thinks a long period of looking is fun.  It was.  It didn't end with one session.  There were many requests for looking at cakes.  We saw pink ladybugs, flat ladybug cakes, a green ladybug cake, orange ones, even a large white wedding cake with dozens of itty bitty sugar ladybugs cascading down one side.  In the end, she picked the one she wanted, not the one I wanted.  Have you ever seen a 46 year old pout?  

 I used this cake opportunity to try out a new recipe from a new cookbook I received for Christmas.  If you collect baking books, this is a good one.  I varied the yellow cake recipe just slightly and lemon'd it up.  Sofia's request ~ lemon with cream cheese frosting.  

Later, after the party, as the night was winding down, she asked, "May I please eat an eyeball?"  Then it became a cake mutilation by two girls.  Is this the new Sugar & Spice and everything nice? 

She was absolutely tickled...with the cake, with her party...with her turning seven years old.  There is nothing like having children to know that the saying - How time flies - is so true.  Love of children is absorbed instantly, given quickly...lasting forever.   I love my babies like nothing else I've known ~ being their Mother makes me glow inside ~ as I know other mothers feel about their own...and can understand how vast the love.

How time flies.

xoxo

Simply pictures with Pumpkin pound cake recipe ~

Fall Art Hop dessert table at Thump, October 2nd. Always such a joy to be a participant.

• Pumpkin coconut layer cake dressed in caramel Swiss meringue buttercream - truly yummy.
• Pecan cake dressed in caramel Swiss meringue buttercream - again, truly yummy.
  
• Cocoa-spice cookies
• Nutmeg sugar cookies
• Banana bread
• White spice pound cake
• Pumpkin pound cake
  
• Pumpkin-chocolate tart
  

I don't remember where I picked up the pumpkin pound cake recipe or if it was one that I adjusted to it's current stage. Either way, there are variations galore on the web, give or take an egg, buttermilk or sour cream, butter or oil. It's a good keeper and very easy to put together. Drizzle it with some maple glaze or dust with powdered sugar. Enjoy.




Sour cream pumpkin pound cake

3 cups all-purpose flour (I use unbleached flour)
1 tablespoon pumpkin spice (or a combo of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and hints of clove and allspice)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
4 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• Combine flour, spices, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl.

• Cream granulated sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

• Add pumpkin, sour cream, and vanilla extract; mix well.

• Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Spoon into prepared pan.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10 minutes if using a decorative pan before inverting.





















Toodles ~
xoxo

Simply pictures

I was so happy with this dessert table and the pictures, too.

This was for Art Walk this past Friday - all nibbles were nibbled and gone in a steady stream. Feeding people is so fun!

• Marionberry-lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting
• Hummingbird mini-cupcakes
  
• Brownie bites
• Lemon sables
• Meringue kisses dipped in chocolate

I'll be doing another table during Art Hop, October 2nd. A fall theme consisting of either a festive bright halloween theme or an autumn tone theme - but warm spiced flavors celebrating a cozier few months ahead...come on Fall...I've miss you!!

Toodles!
xoxo















(Well, I had to put this in...two of three people I love the most.)

Pink. Sweets. Pink sweets.

,
I was so happy with the simple way these treats turned out. It was a lesson in make, bake, love, accept and let go. It was Annie's 10th birthday this year, she had not had a party since she was three, but had been asking for several years. Well...I do admit to not being the fun one - this being a blog on my personal baking habits, I won't go into my unfunNESS or how life can be a full plate, blah, blah, blah....moving on to...(briefly)...

...my snobbery at making every little thing myself. There is still the lingering part of me that feels homemade pink marshmallows dusted with sparkly pink-tinted powdered sugar would have been...ummmm....what is a better anyway? One thing I've learned about baking for those that love sweets - it's subjective when it comes to taste preference. For this party, I put away my little drawstring pouch of snobbery that holds my love of all sweets with their name of origin in a language other than English. Back to.....

Marshmallow pops!!!! They were fun and enticing to ten year old girls. I call that a success, especially when they go back for a third helping.

Annabelle helped with the menu and picked the colors. Okay...so it amounted to "I want pink and green" and I ran with the rest. As long as it was pretty in her eyes and sugary, I got the thumbs up. Simple and easy. Marshmallow pops, cake pops, the cake, candy coated pretzels and cheddar bunnies. Yes, I put out some cheese - to assuage the guilt of so much....sugar.

The cake - her choice. Coconut cake with strawberry filling and classic buttercream with tinted white chocolate dots. We sat at the table together talking about placement of dots on her cake and was she okay with this or that dot placed here or there. I did pretty well - after all - I'm in practice to not be the bride's mother from h*ll when it comes to voicing opinions on how things "should" look on a cake.

In my cake world, I think the sun rises and falls on the author of this book. The strawberry filling I made came from her book, it's her strawberry conserve recipe and a darn fine one. Her blog is in my listing. I look forward to the day her new book is released.

When the party was done, I smiled at my auburn-haired baby...that hit double digits in age...and said yes to her question asking for another marshmallow pop.