One Last Christmas Post...

My Nana past away more than 15 years ago and she left several precious handwritten recipes for some our favorite treats. This Christmas I decided to make two of her recipes, Kiflins and German Chocolate Cake.

The kiflins were easy. Flour, sugar, butter, vanilla and chopped pecans. Mix, form and bake for an unspecified amount of time and then cover in powered sugar.  They went so fast I did not get a chance to take a picture of them. 

Now the German Chocolate cake had a couple more steps from baking 3 layers of cake and cooking the icing/filing.

I had to put my own little twist on top, handmade poinsettias and roses.

Although I love chocolate and cake, I was being good and did not eat any of this yummy creation, but many family members did and went back for seconds

Chirstmas Time in DFW

For the last 4 years, we, and by we I mean my mom, step-dad (Ronnie) and I, have traveled 20 minutes south of our respective homes in Lewisville to Downtown Dallas to see the Neiman Marcus window and this year was no different. 

So two Saturday nights ago, I had a holiday cocktail party to attend at my firm's downtown office, so Mom and Ronnie dropped me off at 901 Main St. As I headed up to the 44th floor, they headed to the Downtown El Fenix.

Once I was done with my party and they were done eating, I met mom and Ronnie in the Lobby and we took some pictures in front of one of the Christmas Trees made of giant red ornaments, after making introductions of the parents to the Boss and his wife and to various co-workers who rode in the elevator down.


After pictures were done... now to the Car and off to Neiman Marcus...  Below are some of the pictures from the Windows of Neiman Marcus.


The Star Field





Butterflies

The "Tree"

"Big Encounters of the Little Kind" - interactive windows allows kids to explore a world of possibilities inspired by our friends at Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/templates/F0.jhtml?itemId=cat35160731#

Happy Festivus

I love Seinfeld and spent most of my middle school and high school years watching it. Laughing at their crazy antics. Cracking up at and with Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer. There was always something new and hilarious and sometimes so true..."man hands, " "close talkers," "the Soup Nazis," "Can you spare a square?," "Muffin Tops"...


And then there is Festivus...Celebrated on December 23, the nondenominational holiday involves a metal pole (instead of a Christmas tree). Instead of exchanging gifts, participants are encouraged to air their grievances. 





I encourage you today to air your grievances and moan and belly ache and complain and whine and nag and get it all out because tommorrow is Christmas Eve and there will be no whining allowed...

"Sock" Pedigo

I spend almost every Thursday since September attending the Lewisville Citizen's Police Academy.  During the 13 weeks of class, I learn many things I did not know before and somewhere along the way they elected me president of our class.  I really enjoyed the whole experience, including the speech I had to give at Graduation. 



Officer Scott Pedigo, Me and "Sock" Pedigo

My speech brought the house down. Not just my classmates were laughing, but the Mayor and Chief of Police were too.

Holiday Madness

Well I have been a busy bee again and lazy about blogging.... Sorry again.

So it is December and you know what that means lots of baking, baking cookies, cakes and gingerbread houses...

I love the smell of gingerbread and I have a new found love of decorating....

 

Here are a couple of pictures...

And then are I left it alone in the lounge .... My co-workers started to enjoy the gingerbread house.

Well I am glad they enjoyed it.

Gobble gobble...

Sorry it has been a while since I shared ... I have been a busy bee, please forgive me...there was a road trip to Houston and a plane trip to Florida to see old friends and watch my sister get married.  But back to the good stuff...


Thanksgiving is just around the corner...really it is next week. And that means that the S&P Annual Thanksgiving luncheon is coming up. So what to make?...mmmm... what to make... I know some thing turkey-ish...


As usual, I referred to wilton.com, my cake decorating/idea bible of late.  I started bright and early (well ok it was 9 but still) on Saturday...Little did I know Micheal's and JoAnn's moved from Halloween to Christmas faster that you can snap your fingers. And this little piece of knowledge made it a little more difficult to find a couple of the things I needed to complete my Turkey cake... So 3 stores and 2 hours later I found a maple leaf cookie cutter.

I hit the grocery store and got all my ingredients then home to make some fondant "tail feathers."



Next...a little food coloring spray

On Sunday, I attempted to make my first cake from scratch, Cream Cheese Pound Cake. 



1st Attempt...Fail... Too much batter in the pan

2nd Attempt...Fail... Did not cook long enough

Attempt # 2 happened Monday night after work and I almost gave up. But, I had to try one more time, because I have just enough cream cheese and butter to make one more cake...

And 3rd Attempt...SUCCESS!! Just enough batter, right temp. and right amount of time.

Tonight (Tuesday), I made my icing and decorated my first stand up cake. I forgot to take pictures of my process, plus I can't give away all my secrets....

Here is the finished product. Tommy, my little turkey.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month..

In honor of all the beautiful people (men & women) touched by Breast Cancer....

Decorating like Crazy....

Hey I know it has been a while since I blogged, so I thought I would catch you up on what I have been doing.... Well today is my mom's birthday as well as my own. (yeah!)

I made the skeleton face out of rice cripsie treats and then covered it with candy coating.


Rice Crispie Skeleton Face





Woof Woof  - Mom's Dalmation Cake

I made Mom a chocolate cake with raspberry filing, chocolate butter cream under white fondant.

I made the puppy out of fondant and painting the spots with black food coloring.




Then I made a cake for mom and I to share for our Saturday night celebration. I made the little Nirto and Elvis out of fondant for the top of the cake.  And marbled the white fondant with blue and purple. once it was on the cake I added purple and pink royal icing flowers.

Roses

Today I prepared for my second cake decorating class by making icing... yummy yummy sugary icing... :-)

During class, we learned how to fill the icing bag and use couplers with our icing tips. Once we pretty much mastered stars and dots, they taught us how to make roses... I thought it would be super hard and complicated, but see for yourself....

My First Rose.

Once I started getting into it, I ran out of little wax paper squares and started running out of icing...

All the Pretty Roses...

I am going to keep practicing my roses, stars and dots. When I actually put them on a cake, I will take lots of pictures. 

Cupcakes, icing & filing ...oh my!!

So tonight was the big night, making icing and and icing the little cake and 12 cupcakes.... so first I decided to fill the cupcakes. Chocolate pudding Yum!!

Time to make the icing... Shortening, check. No Color Vanilla, check. Meringue Powder, check. Water, check. Lots of Powdered Sugar, check. Sifted, check check.  I did a pretty good job of not making a complete mess.

The final products for round one....

Cake: Yellow cake with Raspberry filling and White Buttercream icing
Cupcakes: Yellow Cake with Chocolate Filling and White Buttercream icing

They are not perfect but I think they look pretty good for my first little projects on my own.

Things I have learn from this first experience... don't over fill the cupcake pan, or the cake pan for that matter and take it all one step at a time. I think next time I will bake the cake one night, make icing the next, and ice and decorate the next night.

First Cake...

Sooooo I used my new cake pan... the 6" cake cake pan.  Well let's just say proper measuring cups are on my shopping list along with clear vanilla. The chart said 2 cups of batter and I think my measuring cup is a off.... kinda looks like a souffle...

First Class...

Well today I took my first Wilton cake decorating class. I am taking it at the JoAnn's in Frisco. I learned about baking a cake, torting a cake and icing a cake...Tonight I am going to bake a little Ducan Hines Butter Yellow 6" cake and 12 cupcakes and let them cool completely.... I will post pictures before I make icing tomorrow.... Till then

4 days and counting...

Courtesy of Wilton.com

Well in just over four days I will take my first Wilton cake decorating class. I am very excited about learning to decorate cakes, cupcakes and cookies and not gain any weight in the process.  

I am starting this blog to share my experiences in learning to bake and decorating yummy cakes. My hope is that you enjoy reading about my adventures in cake decorating....