cakes

I've got 3 cakes and 2 sets of cup cakes to make in the next couple weeks. Cake is on my mind. This white cake was surprisingly easy (besides the enormous amounts of frosting it required.) But it packs a punch. I found the how-to on I am baker. Find it here. And yes, hers is much better than mine, but I'm learning.

My first attempts at cake making were at best pretty sad. Here's the buddies first birthday cake. . .  good thing he was only one and didn't know how bad it was. It even leaned to one side. So I decided that I just didn't like making cakes and that it was too sloppy for me. I like clean crisp edges and neat lines--easily achieved with paper. Not so much with cake. Goopy, unpredictable and messy. Yup. Always getting the crumbs from the cake into the frosting. 

Last year I decided I was going to learn how to make a decent cake for the buddies birthday (below). So I picked the brains of a couple of really great ladies at church, one of whom used to teach cake decorating classes. (yep, I'm too cheap to take an actual class). Here are some the most important things I learned from them.

When making a layered cake: bake the cakes. Let them cool, take them out of the pans, and wrap them tightly in saran wrap.  (but not so tight that you crumble the cake :) Then freeze them overnight. It's about 10 times easier to frost a frozen cake than it is to frost a soft crumbly cake. And the best part of all is that when you freeze it, the moisture is kept in the cake and you end up with a much moister cake.

When frosting the cake I also learned that you don't go over and over the same area with the knife. An easy way to do it is to pipe the frosting on all over the cake with a big tip and then just spread it flat so you don't make such a mess.

And finally, I really like using fondant: crisp edges and neat lines :) I made my own marshmallow fondant, which is kind of annoying, but really much yummier than the already made kind. I used this recipe from all recipes. When you are ready to use it just roll it out with some powdered sugar to keep it from getting sticky and then use cookie cutters or fondant cutters (or new sculpey clay cutters) to cut them out. Get them wet with a tiny bit of water and stick them on your cake.

Anyway. This week I'm going to attempt to make a chocolate ganache for a fancy chocolate cake I'm making for a mother's day tea party. It's amazing how much more confident I feel with a few cake making success behind me. I'm no pro and I've still got a lot to learn, but I've decided that making cakes is surprisingly fun, time consuming, but with some attention to detail do-able.

Freebie Friday- Editable Recipe Dividers & Cards

After gathering some great recipes the last couple of fattening days. I thought I would provide a way to write them all down nice and neat. I already posted the recipe cards, but this time they are better. THIS TIME YOU CAN TYPE YOUR RECIPE IN! The same is true for the dividers-you get to write in whatever you like! Then you can organize things you're way-with as many as you need. Fun fun.

They could also be fun put in a recipe box (modge podge an old one?) and given as a gift with your favorite recipes. Or just send a favorite Christmas recipe with the homemade goods as neighbor gifts. The possibilities.

Anywhoo. The only downer to making them editable is that I can't just link them up-scribd isn't a fan of editable fields apparently. Oh, and the other downer is you can't save the edits. That means you have to type it in and print it out immediately because it won't save what you typed. Alas.

So here are you're options: email me at yellowmum (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know what you want-the cards, the dividers, both . . . your Christmas wish list. (joking). I'll send them as soon as I can.

Or, don't worry about the neatly typed look and download the empty dividers here and recipe cards here and write them in by hand. 





Sorry for the weirdo freebie. Email me so you can Enjoy!

FF-scalloped recipe cards

September makes me think of cooking for some reason. Harvest time I guess. I love the beginnings of fall once school starts with that little bit of crispness in the air. When I was growing up we'd always come home to bread baking, or some fall canning waiting for us. So, I feel like some fun scalloped recipe cards. They are printable on letter sized sheet (I'd recommend card stock). Two 4x6 cards on the page. Use the gray crop marks as guides for cutting them out!

FF-Monthly Menu Planner

*UPDATE 8/8/11: I've relinked the files so they should work again! enjoy!

This is my new favorite way to plan meals-by the month. I'm not a huge fan of cooking, but I grew up in a house with a home cooked meal every day, and that's what feels right. The worst part about it is coming up with an idea for dinner. I've been planning my meals for a week, but this seems to work even better. Then I don't have to stress out what we're going to eat at 4:30 in the afternoon when I forgot to plan my weeks menu. I can still tailor my shopping around the planned meals, but I only have to worry about deciding what to eat once a month. I like that. I thought you might like it too. I actually have two freebies today though. One is a monthly menu planner with a shopping list space on the right hand side, and the other is just a larger monthly menu planner-with no shopping list. Both print on a letter size sheet still. enjoy-and good luck meal planning.