Baby Shower Continued

So Sunday, September 25, 2011 finally arrived and I was ready.  I had so much adrenalin pumping through me, I thought I was 20 again......yeah, after going non-stop for 12 hours, my body remembered, I am definitely not 20 anymore. LOL  The day was stunning, just as I order, and it didn't rain, just as I ordered, and there was a breeze, although kicking up just when I was putting the table decorations, wasn't what I had in mind and it was a bit gusty, but all in all it worked out fine. The temperature was rather warm though.....okay, it was down right hot and before the shower was over, all the goodies were melting but that didn't slow anyone down, they all said they were still wonderful. LOL   The Dessert Table was the last "project" that I worked on and the table looked just as I imagined it would.  I was very pleased with it.  Here is a photo of it.

I made the cake pops, the cupcakes, and the iced decorated cookies....there will be better photos of them later....and added gumballs, sixlets and candy sticks all in the shower color scheme......for my first big party....I think it turned out rather well.  The Mom-to be was so excited, she cried and cried....tears of joy of course.....here she is, Vanessa....

I color coordinated the tables as well and at each place setting there was a chocolate covered pretzel rod and a chocolate covered marshmallow on at stick, all color coordinated of course.....here are some of those photos...

I made the floral arrangements on each table as well as the diaper centerpieces.  The centerpieces were three cloth diapers rolled up and then tied together with a ribbon and added a flower and lolly-pop.  The parents-to-be took those home as gifts as they will be needing those for burp towels and such.  ....it's hard to see them, but here is what they looked like before I added the flowers and lolly-pop to them at the site....

The floral arrangements were mason jars wrapped with a bandanna that was in shower colors and tied with a ribbon at the top and then silk flowers were added.  Floral arranging is not my thing....my eldest daughter makes the most beautiful arrangements, but she's in Texas so, I was on my own with this. LOL  They weren't bad considering these were my very first arrangements. :-)

The plastic silver ware was wrapped up nice and neat and tie with a ribbon to just add that extra touch to the entire table decor, I found the paper place mats in coordinating colors at a local Cake Supply store.....they really have everything you could want for a party.  http://www.dandgoccasions.com/  If you're ever in Orlando and you need things to decorate with or supplies to bake stuff with.....this is the place to go!

I will go into the diaper cakes I made and better pictures of the goodies with some step by step photos another day.  In my opinion the shower was a great success.....everyone was smiling and laughing and I even played games that had the men involved.  Several of the men told me later that they'd never attended a shower before but they had a really great time......to me, that was one of the highest compliments I could have gotten.

Vanessa and Wil could not stop thanking me and they said it was the best shower they'd ever seen, so....mission accomplished!  YAY!!!!

The Baby Shower

Now, I realize that my Blog title is the Trials of Baking , but it seems whatever I do, I seem to include baking in some form.  I have been working on the biggest baby shower since April.....hence the reason for no posts.....Oh, I've done some stuff and even taken step by step photos but just have not had the chance to post anything.  The baby shower, although is not a complete surprise, the majority of what's going on with it is a complete surprise to the parents to be.  I love this couple like they are my own children and even before they got married, I knew that when they had a baby, I wanted to do a shower for them.  Now, that being said, I envisioned 10 - 12 ladies at my house having a sweet little baby shower.   Never in the wildest reaches of my mind, did I see a baby shower with almost 100 people!!!  I know, right, what WAS I thinking!!!  LOL  I am happy to do this shower though and have had a lot of fun.  The shower is this Sunday and while I am so excited.....I'm ready for it to be finished. My house looks like party city and my cat is beginning to think we are moving since I have things in boxes to make getting them to the shower easier.  Since the shower morphed into such a large group, I rented a pavilion at a local park and that's where we will have the event.  I have not posted one picture of anything yet as I wanted the whole thing to be a complete surprise to the new parents.....they have no idea even what the color scheme is......and while it may lack some of the cutesy traditional baby shower elements, I think it's going to be a blast.

Last night I started some of what I have been referring to as the "sweet/dessert", as they don't even know what I'm bringing along the lines of sugar creations. LOL  They have tasted my work before and trust me to handle it all.  Well last night, I was VERY frustrated.......one of the projects was just not cooperating.....thank goodness I started early.....but at this rate, between working full time and trying to finish up all the last minute details, I probably won't be able to sleep again until after the shower! LOL  It will be all worth it in the end though.  It's going to be a fun filled day, with their family and friends, good food and lots of fun and games and hopefully they will also get lots of nice things for their little bundle of love, Xavier.

So, I hope you'll all check back in the next couple of weeks as I start posting all the projects that went into this shower.  Lots of crafty stuff and then of course baked goods as well.

I now know.....I CAN throw a huge party.....I forced myself out of my comfort zone and I feel a lot more confident in what I am capable of achieving.....it's been a great year so far!

Lemon Glazed Ginger Cookies

Just finished a batch of Lemon Glazed Ginger Cookies.  The recipe is from the McCormick Spice link on Facebook, http://www.mccormick.com/Recipes/Desserts/Lemon--Glazed-Ginger-Cookies.aspx .  I watched a live demo of these on their site last week and they sounded really good so I decided to give them a try.  I love ginger, not as much as cinnamon, but it's one of my favorites.    This recipe turned out well.  The cookie is very slight harder on the outside without being crunchy and it's very moist and soft on the inside.  I tried the cookie before I glazed it with the lemon glaze and I'd say it's just as good plain as glazed.  The lemon glaze adds that bit of extra sweetness to balance the spice.  I personally will increase the spice a bit next time as I really love spice and to me, it could have used some more.  I realize some folks just like that hint of spice and for you, this recipe is perfect.

I started by gathering all the needed ingredients and had them all measured out.  I find it's east to do this while the butter is getting softened at room temperature.  You'll notice I cut the butter up into chunks.....even after I measured out all the ingredients and cleaned up a bit, it was still not as soft as I wanted it, and cutting it into smaller pieces helps speed this step along.

After the butter was softened enough, I added it along with the sugar and molasses to my mixing bowl.

I mixed until blended and then added the egg and vanilla and when it  was good and blended, I mixed all the dry ingredients into one bowl.

I then took a whisk and blended all these dry ingredients together before adding them to the wet ingredients.  I always do this as I want to make sure the spices are evenly distributed.  Once they everything was blended together, it looked like this:

I then used a small scoop, to make even portions to put on my cookie sheet and lightly flattened them with my hand.  As you can see, my cookie sheets are well used. LOL

When they were baked, I carefully transferred them to a cooling rack.  I made up the lemon glaze but I added more powdered sugar than the recipe stated....I can't tell you how much, but until it looked and felt right to me.  I then put the icing in a ziplock bag and sniped off a tiny corner and drizzled the cooled cookies.

After they were completely dry, I arranged them on a serving tray and ta da, cookies for some folks at work tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and that you find it helpful.  I hope that maybe there's someone out there who will benefit from seeing the process step by step.

Happy Baking!

Bakingmomof4

Holiday Baking

The past few weeks have just flown by, getting ready for a couple visitors over the Christmas holiday!  Last week though, it was my Boss's Birthday, a luncheon at work and just needed to take something to my guys at work so I've been baking a lot this week.

First I made No-Bake cookies for my boss, which I ended up giving him the entire batch as his birthday present but then I made another batch for dessert yesterday evening as we had our friends Jenna and Peter over for dinner.  I made homemade lasagna.....I should have taken a photo of that, but I didn't .....it was really good though. So anyway, the No-Bake cookies are super easy and you never have to turn on the oven.  To me they are like fudge and a cookie rolled into one.....and since they have oatmeal and peanut butter in addition to the chocolate, they have to be sort of healthy....right?  LOL

Kids love these as well as the adults!

My guys at work all love brownies and they kept asking me when I was going to bake them something again. Not only did they ask that, it was followed by, we'd really like caramel brownies!  LOL  So I found a recipe that looked good and tried it out...they turned out beautifully, were not difficult and well, the guys LOVED them.  I never even got one to try one!

The luncheon was a great success.  We have so many that cook so well and we were all stuffed to the brim.  I made a Pumpkin Spice Cake that is a winner every time I make it......is it the perfect blend of spices and it's so moist!  I didn't get a photo of it, but I'll share that recipe with you.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

4 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 ¼ cups vegetable or canola oil
1 can (15oz) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 teaspoon vanilla

In another bowl mix together the following:

2 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves

Heat oven to 350 F. Lightly great bottom and sides of 15”X10”X1” pan you can use a 9” X 13” pan, your cake will just be thicker and you may need to cook slightly longer. I used a 11”X15”X2” pan and baked for 25 minutes.

In large bowl beat eggs, granulated sugar, oil, pumpkin and vanilla until smooth. Stir in flour mixture and mix thoroughly. Spread in pan. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until light brown. Cool completely in pan in cooling rake about 2 hours.

Icing

8 oz cream cheese (I used the light cream cheese and it still tastes good)
1 stick butter ( ½ cup)
4 cups 10X sugar (powdered sugar)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time until smooth and spreadable. Spread icing over cake and sprinkle with chopped walnuts. Store in the refrigerator.

Then today I made some Spritz cookies and used my cookie press but the camera is acting up again and I didn't get any photos, but they literally melt in your mouth.  I found the recipe on The Food Network.
I have about another week before I start more holiday baking.  I love this time of year......I could bake everyday and no one thinks a thing about it. LOL  Apparently as long as it's "holiday baking", it's okay!


Hope all are having a great Christmas Season!


May you all be blessed!


Bakingmomof4 

Pumpkin Scones

I love scones!  I went many years without trying to make them though because just the name intimates me for some reason.  My mind sees a tedious process and a need of a bakery degree to make them come out looking beautiful and tasting wonderful.  I obviously did get over that fear and have made several recipes over the years always looking for the perfect recipe.  I was in the mood for a yummy scone and came upon this recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/starbucks-pumpkin-scones-214051 and decided to give it a try this morning.  I read the reviews on this recipe....I recommend always reading the reviews, you can save yourself trouble a lot of times doing that, but this recipe continued to get rave reviews.  I did double the spices in the actual scone itself and they were WONDERFUL!  The appearance, perfect, the texture, wonderful and the flavor, absolutely delightful!

To me, pictures help so much and those of you who may just be starting on the baking path, I know it's helpful to know, "does this look right:", so I took pictures of each step to help you along.

I put all the dry ingredients in the food processor along with the very cold butter.

just pulse it until it looks all mixed, it doesn't take very long.  Don't over mix, you don't want it becoming clumpy.

I then mixed the wet ingredients together and whisked them together.

Fold in the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until mixed.

Once it's mixed, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it very gently into a disk.

Now cut the pieces.  The recipe said 6 servings, I cut mine into 8 and believe me, one is a nice serving.

You're now ready to place the scones on a parchment lined baking sheet.  If you don't have parchment paper, you can grease the baking sheet instead.  I highly recommend parchment paper.  It helps them cook without sticking and makes clean-up a snap.

Put them into the oven to bake, while you are waiting on them to finish, go ahead and mix together the dry ingredients for the icing.  Now, the recipe shows a plain glaze first and then the spicy glaze.  It's up to you whether you want to do both or not.  I chose to just do the spicy glaze and it was the perfect blend of spicy and sweet to compliment the scone.

This is what the scones look like fresh out of the oven.

Now, add the milk to the dry icing ingredients and mix together and drizzle all over the warm scones.

So, this is what you should end up with, warm, yummy pumpkin scones.

Yay, another recipe that turned out well!

Happy Baking,

Bakingmomof4

Gingerbread House - Finale

I'm finally done!  WOO HOO!  So just to re-cap, here's what it looked like when we left at Part 4.

From here I kept putting tiny pretzels together, I trim off the bottom of each, to form my fence.  This was a slow process as I'd add one and have to let it dry before I could add another.  Slowly but surely, it came together. I added some poinsettia's to the window sill as well....didn't come out exactly like I wanted, but I think it looks okay.   I also lined the walkway with gumdrops.  Once the fence and gumdrops were glued down with the royal icing, I spread a thin layer of the royal icing and sprinkled the pathway with milk chocolate bar that had been put through the mini-chopper.

The next thing I did was attach a small wreath that I had to do in a couple stages to get the layered effect of the leaves but I think it's cute.  To the roof I added a widow's walk.  It's four pieces of piped royal icing that was tinted black and left to dry over-night.  Then I attached them to the roof.....very pleased with how it turned out.

To make the board just a bit more attractive, I attached a piece of ribbon all along the edge of the display board.

The final touch was to make it look like fresh snow had fallen.  This technique was accomplished by putting powdered sugar in a small sieve and gently shaking it all over the entire project.

So here is the finished house.

Dedication:

 I have dedicated this Gingerbread House in memory of my Gramma Elsie.  Several years ago, my youngest daughter and I did a gingerbread house from a kit as my Gramma watched.  She was fascinated with the whole process and we tried to get her to help but her response was, "No, I'm enjoying just watching you two".  I told her someday I'd make one from scratch and she said she would look forward to seeing that.  Well, my Gramma passed away in March and I never made that house from scratch for her to see, so I was determined  I would not put it off any longer.  I feel we need to do things we really want, while you have the chance to do those things, because you may never get another opportunity.  I felt my Gramma with me as I put this house together and I think she really likes how it turned out.

I hope you all enjoyed this journey along with me.  I learned so much and really enjoyed the entire process!

Bakingmomof4

Gingerbread House - Part 4

It's coming together and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this project.  Yesterday I started with working on my trees.  I started with sugar ice cream cones for the base, which I trimmed in various heights.  Then I tinted some of my royal icing green and proceeded to try and create a life-like tree.  It took about 3 hours to do all the trees.....much longer than I thought it would.  Today after the trees had dried over-night I sprinkled some powdered sugar on one to get a feel for how they would look with "snow", all in all I'm happy with how they turned out.

I did take one of the trees and while it was still wet I added mini M&M candies to it.  I took a yellow Starburst candy and flatten it out a bit and cut a star shape for the top of the tree.  I had to hold it there a while so it could dry enough to stay.  I then took more Starburst candies and shaped "presents" out of them to be placed at the tree.  I am really happy with how the gift bags came out.

About 10:00pm last night I started thinking about the two walls with the windows and what I might do to make them look interesting.  My sweetie suggested making a stone look, and I thought that was a great idea, so I took Tootsie Rolls and cut them into small pieces and made stones. I got about 1/2 a wall done and decided I was too tired....so I stopped for the evening. This morning I finished making my stone walls and I knew I'd need a grout of sorts.  I saved the sugar cones pieces that I has trimmed off and I put them into my mini-chopper and ground them finely.  I then added royal icing to them to make a sort of grout.  I started out with a #4 tip, but switched to a # 5 and still, some pieces of the sugar cone got stuck, but I did manage to grout both walls.  I also ended using this technique to the porch steps as well.  This whole process took about 1 1/2 hours.  I think it turned out GREAT!  

Pretty cool,don't you think?

So next on my list was the roof.  The roof is made of fondant.  I rolled it out fairly thin and then cut tiny little circles.  I now have a small callous on my thumb from cutting so many little circles, but I did a little happy dance when the roof was completed.  It turned out exactly as I had imagined it should look.  I can't tell you how happy I am....sometimes you visualize how you want something to look and it doesn't come out that way, but I think I nailed this roof!  It took me 3 hours to cut all the circles and apply them to the roof.

My work this weekend is complete.  I'm in the process of making a pretzel fence and I want to make a walk-way and there are a few other little surprises that will be great if I can get them to work.  Coming up on a long weekend so I'm hoping to complete the house this next weekend so it's ready for display on December 1, 2010.  Wish me luck.

Thanks for following me here and if you have any suggestions or can offer any advice, like how come my windows are leaking?  Let me hear from you.

Bakingmomof4