Monkey Cake

Who wouldn't want a monkey cake for their birthday? My sister-in-law Ginny decided to make one for her friend Alex's birthday recently. She sent photos of the final product today, and I thought it was so cute that it needed a wider audience... hence this post. Perhaps best of all, the cake was banana with chocolate frosting. Sounds delicious and looks too cute to eat. The inspiration is from a Martha Stewart recipe, which can be found here.

Happy Birthday Alex!

Crazy Birthday Cake

I don't know what came over me, but I made a really kooky cake for my husband's birthday yesterday. I decided to use my new Baker's Edge pan to make the cake (actually an applesauce bread with cream cheese frosting) and then cut them into four strips. I got inspired in the gummy bulk foods section of Wegmans grocery store (if you don't know about Wegmans, I'm sorry... and FYI, there's no apostrophe in the name, which is something that probably only bothers me).

Immediately after blowing out the candles, John ate a gummy tarantula.

This is the cake that my husband would probably like for me to make for his birthday, which is today. Unfortunately, I didn't. In fact, I haven't been very crafty at all for his big day... probably because I'm frantically working to get my dissertation proposal finished and preparing for our upcoming trip to Mongolia. But I don't think he really minds-- I did make him a cake, and I also got him The Office (U.S. version-- we watched the British version when it came out but haven't yet seen the U.S. one, and by all accounts it's really good) and Heroes on DVD.

Oh, and I went to the movies and watched a really creepy Kevin Bacon movie with him (the name of which I've already forgotten). At one point I said, "I think I'd rather just be sitting in the lobby than watching this," to which he responded, "Now you know how I felt when we went to see Mamma Mia." Fair enough. Happy Birthday, buster!

Why My Mother Hates Fondant

My #1 goal for our wedding cake was that it was the most delicious thing imaginable. For me, that meant three layers of chocolatey goodness: triple chocolate, German chocolate, and toffee chocolate. Delish Bakery took care of making that a reality.

My #2 goal for our wedding cake was that it have skulls all over it. My mom Judy took care of making that a reality.



As you can see, I met my goals. But I really can't take credit for anything but the vision. I bought the mold for these chocolate skulls from Mexican Sugar Skull, which I've talked about elsewhere. Then my mom took over, creating 60 little chocolate skull masterpieces (crafting obviously runs in the family.) She used tiny bits of fondant to uniquely decorate each one. This was truly a labor of love, because my mom HATED working with the fondant from the very beginning. Her dislike of the medium sure isn't evident in the final product, though.

The flowers on each layer of the cake are meant to be marigolds, a flower associated with El Dia de los Muertos. The first picture also shows some additional sugar skulls. The one on the far right was made by my husband's Uncle Charlie. He worked on it diligently for several hours one day! My sisters-in-law Ashlee and Ginny made the one that's second from the right, and I made the other two.

Texas Donut: Almost as Big as a Bread Box

It's a stretch to say that this post is about crafting, unless you consider oversized donut-baking a craft. But I just had to write about the Texas donuts made by Buffalo small business Paula's Donuts. I'm not much of a donut eater (though I pity those who have to survive without Tim Hortons coffee-- one of the many benefits of living in a city that borders Canada!) The Texas Donut has, however, captured my heart. Paula will make them in any flavor combination (the one shown above is a huge strawberry donut). And just to put it in scale, check out how puny an orange looks next to it:



For a while I was so infatuated with these donuts that I thought about having one on each table at our wedding as a dessert/centerpiece. Ultimately we went another route (which I'll blog about another day), probably much to the relief of many guests!