Boy or Girl? Blue or Pink? Watch them break the piñata to see!!!

Puple and Silver Baby Smash Cake

Blue fondant cake with royal icing piping and mini-roses

Coconut Curry Chicken Soup (Slow Cooker!)

This soup is really good!  I keep thinking about it and I ate it last night for dinner!!  I just love curry and coconut milk, mmmm, makes me happy.

Ingredients:
1 T Olive Oil
1 large Onion, chopped
1 large Bell Pepper (any color), chopped
3/4 tsp Salt
3 Garlic cloves, minced
3 T Yellow Curry powder
1 tsp Cumin
1 T Fresh Ginger, grated
4 Red Potatoes, cut into bite size pieces
5 cups low-sodium Chicken Broth
3 Large boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1.5 - 2 lbs), leave whole
1 can Coconut Milk
1/4 cup Corn Starch
1/4 cup Cold Water

Extras:
Cashews
Chopped Cilantro
Cooked white rice

Saute onion, bell pepper, and salt in olive oil until soft and spotty brown.  Add garlic, curry, cumin and ginger and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Remove from heat and add to slow cooker insert.  Stir in chicken broth and red potatoes.  Lay chicken breasts on top of all ingredients in slow cooker.  Cook on low for 4 hours.  Remove chicken and set aside.  Combine corn starch and cold water in separate bowl until dissolved and smooth, stir cornstarch mixture and coconut milk into soup.  Turn Slow cooker to high and cook for 30 - 45 more minutes.   Whisk the soup briefly, chop chicken into small bite size pieces, then stir chicken into the hot soup to warm through.  Serve with steamed white rice and garnish with cashews and cilantro.  Enjoy!!!

Tiffany Gift Box Cake

I'm back from a long break!  Last summer I had a baby, my 4th boy!  Needless to say cakes had to be put on hold for a while.  Actually even the thought of doing a cake for at least a year after he was born caused immediate anxiety.  I did a cake for his 1st birthday and had fun doing it, but stressed out too much and decided I wasn't really ready yet.  Then about 3 months later I was asked to do a cake for a friend's daughter's 16th birthday.  She was having a Breakfast at Tiffany's theme.  She wanted this cake and I had to do it.  This time it not only ignited the old creative spark but lit a bonfire within me.  I'm so excited to start doing some cakes again!!  Watch out!

I loved doing this cake and learned soooo much.  The whole sharp edges on fondant technique finally clicked.  I've tried it before after watching countless Youtube videos but couldn't seem to get it.  This time it finally made sense.  I even decorated a second smaller cake the day after this one and practiced the edges.  I still need to work on it, especially the corners, but I love the straight lines on the sides as opposed to rounded edges (I hate rounded marshmallowy edges on fondant cakes and it has been my goal in life to get rid of them!!)  Since I have just figured this out, I still need lots of practice and have yet to try it on a round cake but I'm excited to.  I lay awake at night practicing it over and over in my brain haha!

The bow was super fun too, I love working with gum paste and making bows and this one turned out super pretty.

Cake baker's and cake eater's pet peave alert!!

Can I just say to anyone out there baking a cake - stop over baking!!  Hello, who wants dry cake?  NOT ME!  I will confess something.  I don't really like cake.  Any time I go to some kind of function and they're serving cake I usually pass on it.  (Especially if it's grocery store bakery cake, oh my goodness don't get me started! tasteless crisco frosting, spongy dry cake, chewy fake jammy filling yuck!) My whole life for birthdays, etc I have had to put my piece of cake in a bowl and pour milk on it because I can't stand dry cake and everybody's cake is dry.  WHY?  Because everyone sets the timer to what the recipe says or waits until the toothpick comes out clean.  Heads up, if it comes out clean the cake is overdone. Nobody knows this because they've been doing it wrong for so long that they just assume that's how cake should be, dry, and then they say (like I used to) "I don't really like cake".   It wasn't until I started making my own cakes from scratch that I stopped having to pour milk on it, I had learned that cakes don't have to be dry and unappealing.  They can be moist and soft and yummy.  You don't have to drench the layers in simple syrup to cover up their blandness, just making them gummy!  You don't have to pour milk on it, making it soggy!  You don't have to simply rely on the filling or frosting to save you!  It's simple, just find a good recipe, turn down your oven 25 degrees, set the timer at least 10 minutes earlier than the recipe says, check it every minute during the last few minutes of baking and take the cake out right at the point when you think of saying….um I think it needs one more minute.  NO take it out now!  The toothpick should come out with cake all over it, (not wet batter of course) but if it has cake crumbs on it, TAKE IT OUT!  Another confession, my cakes sink ever so slightly in the center when they cool, and when that happens I do a happy dance because I know I haven't over baked it!! Domed center = overbaked and dry, slightly sunken center means slightly underbaked, or in other words - perfectly baked and moist.    I always level my cake layers anyway before I stack so the sinking is actually preferable to me when making level layers.

There you go, I'm off my cake (soap) box and on to some moist cake baking! Let's start a moist cake revolution and end the reign of dry cake!!

Roasted Tomato Soup

This soup is so yummy! We loved it, kids loved it, even my 2 year old asked for 3rds! I was given 2 grocery bags full of ripe tomatoes from my friend.  I made 8 pints of salsa plus this awesome soup for dinner.  I didn't get any tomatoes planted this year, (I had a baby instead :) Yay for friends' gardens!

2 1/2 lbs Fresh Ripe Tomatoes cored and halved (or quartered if large)
6 Garlic Cloves peeled and left whole
1 large Yellow Onion sliced thin
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
2 T Butter
2 T Flour
2 Bay Leaves
1 tsp Dried Basil
3 C Chicken Broth
2 T Sugar
2/3 C Half and Half

Preheat oven to 450. Spread tomatoes, garlic, and onions on cookie sheet (I needed 2 sheets).  Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast in oven for about 25 minutes or until soft and caramelized.  During the last 5 minutes of roasting melt butter in soup pot then stir in flour.  Add bay leaves and basil and let cook for a minute or so.  Whisk in chicken broth.  Remove veggies from the oven and add to soup pot along with any accumulated juices on your cookie sheets.  Add sugar.  Let simmer uncovered for 10 - 15 minutes.  Remove bay leaves.  Puree in blender in 2 batches or with an immersion blender.  (Just remember to remove the insert from your blender lid and cover with a towel so you don't have an explosion!)  Return to soup pot and add half and half.  Salt and pepper to taste (I didn't need to add any more). Enjoy!

Lego Castle Cake