A Twist on a Classic Cane

I love a good twist on a story or a cake. You may have seen the candy cane cake before. It is one of my favorites to bake at the holidays. This time instead of decorating it in the traditional red and white I decorated it with green and white stripes with red pinstripes. Just something a little jazzier this year. The cake itself is a butter fudge cake (I was thinking mint chocolate when I made it). This cake was made for a festive office party for a friend who enjoys a good cake. Looks like the people he works with enjoyed it as well.

Silver Bells?

As you can tell the bells are not exactly silver but they are Christmasy. A friend was throwing an office party for his staff and I helped out with some food. Now I must say I did offer up a cake because what is a party without a cake. I also had selfish reasons for offering this cake. You see this is the first time I have baked this one and I have wanted to try this pan for some time. The cake is a yellow butter cake with my basic decorating icing. It was really golden with golden icing and a red ribbon on top to add to the festivities.

Don't You Love the Smell of Fresh Baked Bread?

Yes, it smells so good in my kitchen right now. I love it. There is nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread, and there is something especially sweet about this loaf. Growing up my father's favorite bread was sourdough. To make it involved a special starter, that is kind of high maintenance, you have to feed it once a week to keep it going. I was under the impression that it required a very special yeast to make this batter so imagine my surprise when I found out with a little effort each day over a week I could create my own sourdough starter. I got the perfect glass container (sourdough starter does not do well in metal) and got started mixing flour and water in proportion until a wonderful sour bacteria started growing (no joke).

I have tried several times going through the steps and I don't know if the temperature was to cold or if the batter was just not quite right but I had several failed attempts. My bread just did not want to rise. Finally this weekend all the elements came together and the bread started to rise. On the second rising it took overnight to get it the size of the loaf but it finally worked. Baking the bread was not only aromatic but satisfying because it turned out to be what it is supposed to be.

Happy Holidays and Let In Snow Dipped in One

Each year I like to do a little something for the people I work with. Usually it is a cute ornament or cute Christmasy container of candy. This year I needed to do something different. So I decided to try an experiment. Marshmallow dipped snowmen. Basically I took three jumbo marshmallows and threaded them on a lollipop stick. dipped them in a white candy melt and decorated with black gel. Since the gel never hardens I will probably not do that again. I topped the snowman with a regular Oreo then half of a marshmallow. Voila, a yummy and cute snowman.

The snowman was placed in a small glass vase filled with Christmas candy (red and green m&M's, ribbon candy, hard candy) and was balanced with a traditional candy cane. The snowmen were very sweet and would make an excellent desert or hot chocolate stirrer. As does the candy cane, and while drinking hot chocolate there is a sweet treat to eat with it.

Bilingual Cake

It is not often that I get to make a cake that translates into any language. Okay I lied, I do make cakes that translate into any language. But a Dora cake is bilingual because the character speaks both English and Spanish. This one is for a very special young lady.

My secretary has a large family and this one is for her niece. This niece is the daughter of my coworkers youngest brother and this special little girl has the nickname of meanness. She has an entire family wrapped around her pinkie and she is a girls girl. Of course any young lady who has seen TV has seen Dora and her pal Diego. Apparently this birthday girl was able to speak to her cake in two languages. Who says we don't learn from TV? Happy Birthday to Kensley, who is the apple of so many people's eyes.