Cabin Fever........

is setting in...........
So, we've been looking for ways to entertain ourselves.........
I like to bake cakes, so I found this recipe for a Guinness (R) molasses cake and thought I'd give it a try. It turned out delicious. It is from a cake magazine that I have a subscription to. I am not sure if I can publish the recipe though. The cake is richly dense, made with Guinness Extra Stout Beer, molasses, cocoa and is "Strangely Good" as they say in the heading of the recipe. The icing is very good, too, and just melts in your mouth. Probably because it has a whole pound of butter in it!

OH SO GOOD!!!!

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean

Cars and Quilts............

Phew! I've had a busy time the last few days!
First, my grandson's birthday was 2 days after Christmas and we hadn't celebrated it yet! Poor kid, his birthday is always put off 'til later! Let me say that they celebrate within their immediate family, but not with all of us. So, we did the birthday party last night and it was really fun! He just got his driver's license about a month ago. So, naturally, he is saving money to buy his first car. So, I made him a "Cars" cake, got him the movie "Cars", a model kit of a '68 Mustang and some money for his bank account. He liked it all, in spite of being 17!



Then, I got a message from the sewing store that we needed 8 quilts to meet our quota of 500 quilts for this year! We just started this project in June, so it really was only 6 months. I had 2 kits to sew and I made one little baby quilt from my own materials.
I called the store to let them know I would bring 3 baby quilts to the store on Saturday. So, I was sewing up quilts like crazy! I still didn't know if 3 would be enough. Then, when I got there on Saturday, I found out that we indeed, did have 501 quilts!
Yay, us! We did it! This made me very happy! Here are the three that I made.....

Now it's time to reset the counter for this year!

Have you entered my 200th post giveaway yet? You can do that HERE.

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean

The perfect day....

We had lots to celebrate yesterday.......
St. Valentine's Day, and three birthdays.......

It was a party atmosphere in my home.......

Lots of good food, wine, cake & ice cream, and presents!
And a good time was had by all!

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean

My Grandson's Graduation Cake!

I can't believe that he's graduated from High School! They do grow up too fast, don't they? So, I made his cake for the Graduation Party and I thought I'd show you the steps of making a cake. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of all the steps, there are way too many! I just did the basic ones. Please remember, I do not sell any cakes, so I am not a professional, I just do this for fun. The cake was white chocolate and the icing was vanilla buttercream. It tasted really good and I got lots of compliments on it.

This is a picture of the finished cake:

(click on the pictures to enlarge) Some of the ingredients--

The cake is in the oven--

Pretty close to being finished--It's baked and on the rack to cool--15 minutes. This is a 12" x 18" white chocolate cake. It smells awesome!

This is the little cake that will go on top of the sheet cake. It will be the bottom of the graduation cap.

This is the back of the cake board--



The prepared cake board--






This is what the cake lays on. It needs to be strong and stiff so that the cake doesn't crack when you lift it.


This is the graduation cap cake in the oven.

This is the vanilla buttercream icing. This bowl was full when I started to ice the cake.

Smoothing the icing--

It reminds me of ironing. Instead of clothes, I'm smoothing the icing on the cake.

All finished and pretty smooth--

The next step is to put on the writing and the borders--

This is the cap with the black icing on it. I put this on the cake last and then piped some borders around it. I made the mortar board from cardboard covered with black fun foam and placed it on top of the round cake. I had a gold tassel and I put it on the board and attached it with some black icing. It looked cute!

Here is how it looked--

I added some other details and a little scroll (diploma) tied with some red ribbon. The school colors are red and white--


Again, the completed cake----

Congratulations, Cameron. I love you and wish you all the success in the world. You've worked hard and you deserve it! Love, Grammy

I hope you enjoyed the "behind the scenes" of making a cake.

'Til next time, Love ya, Jean