Thursday, November 24, 2011

Mexican Vanilla Cake with White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Today is Thanksgiving and most of you are in the midst of preparing dinner for our most treasured of American Holidays.  We postponed our celebration for a few days and I am enjoying the calm of the day.  I am thankful for my God, my church, my family, my friends and my co-workers as well as the work I do.

Sometimes people enter our lives almost unnoticed.  We meet, we feel at home with one another and then before you know it, we call them "friend".

It is for such a friend that I baked and decorated this cake....

 Boxed up and ready to go!  An hour drive away!!!!


 A friend celebrated both a birthday and anniversary...BLESSSINGS!!!!


HAPPY THANKSGIVING MY BAKING FREINDS!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Thankfulness is a Sweet Piece of Cake

Am I a thankful baker?  You betcha!  ...and a Mom and a wife and a....well you get the picture.  I haven't been posting a lot lately.  Perhaps it's because my wonderful husband accepted the pastor position at a little church where we used to be about 11 years ago.  My how time does fly!

Anyway, tomorrow will be the annual Thanksgiving church dinner and I have certainly been a busy bee today prepping for our special day.  Before I go to bed I want to post pictures of my two cakes.  One is for a grandson who will be visiting tomorrow with his Mom and sister.  He has a gluten sensitivity as well as some other ailments and we are experimenting with the whole idea.  Tomorrow's cake is a Betty Crocker Gluten Free with homemade chocolate buttercream and well....let me let you take a peek...

 Betty Crocker has recently developed two Gluten Free cake mixes...chocolate and yellow.  This is the yellow cake mix baked in two 6" pans so that we would have two layers.  I used actually used the Wilton buttercream recipe with cocoa.  The turkey is piped with the large round tip and with a No. 3.  The rest is piped in a circle of leaves and shells using Wilton Golden yellow and orange with a touch of Wilton brown.  The eyes were dotted by just dipping the tip of a toothpick in Black gel and placing the dots on the BC whites.  I actually only tinted a small amount of white BC, placed in a tip and used my finger to make the eyes, beak, beard and legs.  Sure saved a lot of unnecessary icing and bags.




This cake is one 10 inch Regular yellow butter cake covered in the same Wilton chocolate BC and piped with reverse shells.  Alternating yellow, green and orange leaves were added to the top.  The pumpkin candies that are out this time of year were cut in half, attached with a dot of icing and finished with vines and leaves.  I have not piped writing in a while and did use the piping jell to help me out...but think I could do with a few practice sessions.  This cake has gluten as well as butter, sugar and cocoa....no slack here.

Did you know that gluten can be dangerous and even deadly to some people?  Check out this Celiac link to read more about the disease. Click HERE to read more about it. 

So to quickly sum up my week I can honestly say I am thankful for the energy, time and supportive family who have cheered me on to bake and decorate more than 5 dozen Thanksgiving related cookies, make a mother-daughter-nurse cruise to Cozumel, work, visit my Mom, have grandchildren over and cook/back for church tomorrow.  I am truly blessed beyond measure!  So yes, thankfulness is a piece of cake when you realize where all blessings come from....our Heavenly Father!