Barn Cake!

Little friend of food, Naomi turned 4 this week!

I loved the Barn Cake that her Mom and Grandma made.

The Sheep cupcakes went early (young kids are attracted to marshmallows.)

I preferred the ducks.  The coconut feathers and moist cake made a cleveland bar type of flavor was fabulous to taste.

The bakers said they got the recipe and idea from Betty Crocker online, which I did find here.

My only suggestion if you want to try it, is to leave out some of the red food coloring in the barn frosting. Apparently, some red food color has iodine in it which causes a bitter taste, but gives the most vibrant and prettiest results.  There is a no taste food color available, but it may not be very bright red, kosher, or vegetarian.  Check with the ingredients for your needs.

Great job guys, beautiful cake!

The Fever is Spreading

Today I went to a birthday party for young Friend of Food's Daughter (Friend of Food once removed?) and just look at the loving care put into these cat themed goodies.  Friend of Food's Mom made these treats.

For the kids, peanut butter and jelly Cat Sandwiches, with raisins for eyes, pretzel sticks for whiskers, and grape tomato noses.

For everyone, there were chocolate Cat Cupcakes frosted in purple (the Birthday Girl's favorite color) with M&M eyes, marshmallow teeth, licorice whiskers, raisin noses, and tart gummy candy ears.  There was a secret surprise, the paper cups were Hello Kitty, so there was a cat at the bottom of the cup cake. 

Nicely done, Friend of Food's Mom.  It seems the fever for making iconic foods is spreading, maybe in this case it is a cat scratch fever?

Octopus' Garden - Experiments with an 8 Legged Cake

The Twins are two! This glorious event called for a very special cake. If you remember, for their first birthday, I made a Duck Cake. Friends gave us an octopus cake form a few months back, so this time, we went with an under the sea theme giving us the OCTOCAKE.

Like with the Settlers Cake I made for my husband a few weeks ago, I used the Lemon Cake for Lino recipe from Amy Sedaris' Cookbook,I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. The cake baked well with only a small sink hole at the bottom and a few tiny abrasions to the surface. Those small deficiencies did not worry me because the frosting would easily cover any imperfections.

This is where things got a little dicey. I had a lemon buttercream recipe that called for powdered sugar and a white frosting recipe which called for boiling water. I only had regular cane sugar and I was not sure if the other recipe would turn out thick enough for frosting the octopus cake.
Under pressure for time, I made a rash decision. I combined the recipes. I thought maybe the sugar just needed to be lighter so somehow combining it with boiling water would make it work like powdered sugar. I beat the mixture in my Kitchen Aid for several minutes, but as you've probably suspected, no frosting came of it. Instead a thick lemon syrup formed. Feeling I had nothing to lose I added some flour and baking soda and attempted to make a lemon cookie. It was not a crazy idea, either the cookies would come out poorly and I would just be out a little bit of flour or they would be great and we would have an extra batch of cookies for the party. Either way it wasn't much of a risk. Well, it was close but no cigar. The cookies came out pretty tasty, but they wouldn't come off the pan. I was left with a I pile of lemon crumbs and a cookie sheet in need of some sort of solvent to remove the stuck on cookie bits.

It was time to face facts, I needed powdered sugar, but time was tight. I sacrificed a few of the dishes I was going to make and hopped down to the market for the powdered sugar. I left trusty Husband of Food in charge of the wee ones and a few of the cooking related tasks I had left to do other than the cake. He came through for me, like the prince that he is, and I was able to get to making the frosting.

The lemon buttercream (dyed green) came out beautifully. Frosting the octocake was not easy, but I had enough for coverage. I used store bought icing for the face and details, blue icing and coconut for the ocean waves at the base of the cake, Swedish Fish surrounding the bottom, and Hershey's chocolate sauce on the side for the octopus ink. The ink was a big hit. As amateurish as this cake may be, I can say this, it was made with fun, love, and just the right amount of powdered sugar.

Happy New Year!

I hope you have had a delicious holiday.
It is January 2. Let's all wish Father of Food a terrific Happy Birthday!

Birthday Duck

The Babies turned one. I made them a duck shaped cake born out of a pound cake and banana bread recipe combined. It was tasty and duck shaped, what more could a one year old want? What more could two one year olds want? We let them at it unencumbered by spoons, bibs, or reasonable portion sizes. So much mess was never more happily made.



Banana Duck Cake


Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pound (2cups) sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs
3 sticks butter
2 ripe well mashed bananas
1/2 cup milk set out for a half hour with ½ TBSP white vinegar
2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract

Need: One Duck Cake Pan (I got mine at Michaels)

Sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder
into a large mixing bowl.
Stir in sugar and salt with a large spoon.
Next add the butter, melted partially in the microwave or softened at room temperature.
Mix in the mashed bananas.
Add the eggs, one at a time.
Mix with mixer or beater on slow.
Slowly add the vinegar-milk, and then the
vanilla extract.
After it is thoroughly stirred, turn the mixer up to medium for a few minutes,
and then mix on high.
If the mixture is a little thick, add just a touch more milk.
If you don't mix things thoroughly you will have lumps that will
form air bubbles in your mixture and leave holes
in your finished cake

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Take your Duck cake pan and thoroughly oil it with
butter, pam, or shortning. Just make sure it’s greased up in all the nooks and crannies.
Then lightly flour the oiled pan.
Shake the excess flour from the pan.

Pour 5 and ½ cups of cake batter into the bottom half of the Duck pan (the part without the small hole). Fill it to the brim.
Snap the top part of the cake mold on top and tie it to the bottom with cooking twine or string (I used something left over from Thanksgiving). This will keep the mold together when the cake rises.
Put any leftover batter in a greased and floured cupcake pan.
Bake the cake for one hour and twenty minutes.
Check your cake to see if it’s done, especially during the last 20 minutes.
When you think it is done, stick a wooden toothpick into the hole in the top part of the cake mold. If it's dry when you pull it out,
the cake is done.

Allow the cake to cool 5-10 minutes in both sides of the pan.
Gently take the top part of the mold off and set aside.
Let cool another 5-10 minutes and then place the top part of the mold back on and
Turn cake over gently to get it unstuck from the other side.
Let cool thoroughly for about 3-4 hours with both sides of pan on the cake.
Put cake in mold upright on a decorative plate (I just covered a plain plate in foil) and remove each side of the mold carefully.
Hopefully your duck will stand upright.

Decorate with frosting and love.

Birthday Treat

It's been hard catching up, as Daughter of Food is a busy woman, but I had some time to make these cupcakes for my hubby's birthday. The cupcake was not great, but the lemon curd on top was terrific, so I will share the recipe for that here.

Recipe for Lemon Curd
Ingredients
1/3 cup white sugar
one lemon
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter

Make a double boiler by selecting a heat resistant bowl (like a Pyrex bowl) that fits onto a saucepan without touching the base.
Put water into the saucepan and the bowl on top of it and simmer gently.
Grate or zest the rind of your lemon, save the lemon for its juice.
Place the sugar and zest of the lemon in the bowl over the simmering water. The sugar will start to caramelize a bit as you do the next step.
In a different bowl put the lemon juice and the 2 eggs. Beat together.
Add to the bowl on the heat, stir. Cut up the butter into cubes and add to the bowl of lemon mixture.
Stir till it all and let the mixture simmer for 20 mins. until it is pretty thick , stir frequently. Cool and use for cupcakes.
Delicious.

A Marzipan Cake

Father in Law of Food is a lover of Marzipan. In honor of his recent birthday I made him a Marzipan Cake. I searched many food blogs until I found a recipe for this cake and then I added a few touches to make it more personalized to Father in Law of Food's personal tastes. Thank-you to Vanessa Frida for listing the recipe. The original can be found here: http://vanessafrida.livejournal.com/164907.html .

My changes were as follows: I used only 14 Tbsp of Marzipan in the batter. I used some more for the decoration as julienned marzipan. I added slivered almonds, for decoration and additional crunch. Lastly, I trimmed the cake with blackberries, a favorite of Father In Law of Food. If I make the cake in the future, I would add a drizzle of amaretto for moisture and added almond taste. The cake was delicious. The batter might tempt one to lick the blades of the cuisinart, but resist for safety. Wait for this terrific cake to come out of the oven.