A Day at the Zoo
Friday was somewhere near 80 degrees here in Madison, Wisconsin, and DH finally had a day off (He’s been traveling A LOT this month.). So, even though he was exhausted, he readily agreed to take DS and I to the zoo. I love the Henry Vilas Zoo for many reasons, including that it is free to enter and it is just the right size that it can be thoroughly visited in 1 – 2 hours. There is also a large play area for the kiddies, although not really for kiddies as young as DS.
This was our first trip to the zoo where DS actually noticed the animals. He is really into pointing right now, so there was a lot of that. Sadly, a lot of the normally active animals, like the penguins and otters, were sleeping while we were there but he did enjoy the prairie dogs and giraffes. He also got to take his first ride on the merry-go-round, during which he stared straight ahead, motionless and expressionless–which is a lot better than screaming his head off. I think he enjoyed himself.
Cake Order – Dave Matthews Band Birthday Cake
My brother-in-law ordered this cake for our friend, Anna, for her birthday. It is a carrot cake with cream cheese icing. The cream cheese icing cracked a bit when I tried to smooth it and my shell border wasn’t as neat as I would have liked, but other than that, I think it turned out well. It was a ten-inch cake and I had enough batter left over to make a 6-inch cake for my final Wilton class, so yay for less work for me later.
Wilton Course 2 – Class 1 & 2
I started the Wilton Course 2 last week, the last of the Wilton courses for me. We only have to make one cake for this class, which is nice. It is mostly royal icing flowers. Last week, we worked on a few new borders, including the reverse shell and rosettes. We also learned the chrysanthemum, which I will need a lot more practice to get right. I was starting to believe I would never successfully make a decent-looking royal icing flower until this week when we learned to make apple blossoms and violets. Granted, they are pretty simple flowers and mine aren’t perfect, but at least they resemble flowers, which is more than I can say for what I’d done prior to these.
I think it has a lot to do with the consistency of the royal icing. In Course 3, I think my icing was too thin, but this time, I had it just right. My instructor says its supposed to look like marshmallow fluff and to err on the side of mixing it longer. Royal icing is a bit more enjoyable to use than buttercream because it doesn’t have any shortening in it. Shortening is kind of a pain because it’s so greasy and it doesn’t dissolve in water. It just sits there. I don’t like to imagine just how bad something like that is for you nutritionally. Yikes. Royal icing also doesn’t have to be refrigerated, which is nice since my fridge is already so full of buttercream.
Besides the two flowers we learned, we also learned violet leaves and the color flow bird. Since I didn’t feel like purchasing a container of color flow, I just used royal icing to make my birds, which my instructor said is basically the same–just not as shiny.
I didn’t buy the course kit for this class, since it only includes a few tips (most of which I already have from the other course kits), some color flow mix, 2 small oval cake pans and flower formers. I don’t really need the oval pans, so I just purchased the flower formers ($6.29 at my store, although I don’t see why you couldn’t just use anything with a curved shape, like the cardboard from your paper towel roll cut in half lengthwise or aluminum foil bent into the right shape) and am buying the tips as I need them ($1 a piece).
Sadly, I am going to miss next week’s class in which they will be making the victorian rose (supposedly easier than the buttercream rose), daffodils and pansies. My instructor said she’d try to teach me them in class 4, though, which is pretty sweet of her. I am really looking forward to learning the basket-weave in class 4. That is the design that DH and I had on our wedding cake and it was just simple and beautiful. I loved it!
Color Flow Birds
Violets, Apple Blossoms and Violet Leaves
Our Wedding Cake - by Rilling's Bakery, Philadelphia
BB: Chinese Chicken Salad
I’ve been lagging on my posting lately. Sorry! April has been a busy month… I actually made this recipe on Easter Sunday, thinking I would take it with me as my main course (since I don’t eat ham, which is what was being served). But after a large brunch at my mother-in-law’s, I wasn’t all that hungry at dinnertime and got by just eating sides (which I’m used to anyway, after 2-and-a-half years as a vegetarian).
I wasn’t too excited about this one after reading the ingredients; I like peanut butter with my chocolate or jelly, not necessarily with my chicken and asparagus. It’s an Asian thing I just don’t understand. Though it’s probably not something I’d make again, I did enjoy it. I loved the addition of asparagus and am really happy it’s back in season. Though the recipe says to serve this cold or at room temperature, I am kind of turned off by cold chicken so I ate mine hot out of the microwave and it was great that way. Recipe is here.
TWD: Banana Cream Pie & Chocolate Amaretti Torte
I got a little behind on my TWD recipes while my folks were in town, so I caught up this week by making our last two assignments for Easter dessert. This was good in that I got a lot more opinions than usual and that I was not forced to eat most of the desserts myself.
For the Banana Cream Pie, I made the crust and custard a day ahead of time. I normally don’t make my own crust because it’s usually a disaster and I like to save myself the aggravation. I can never get it to roll out right. But I wanted to try Dorie’s crust recipe and I liked that I could make it in the food processor (I love my food processor!!), so I gave it a shot. When I took it out of the fridge after a day, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it. Should I just try to roll it out?? Should I warm it up?? It was hard as a rock and when I tried rolling it, it started to crack. I thought maybe I should warm it in the microwave, but the recipe specifies that the ingredients should be cold…hmmmm… In the end, I warmed it in the microwave for 20 seconds. It rolled out okay. I sort of had to piece it together when I placed it in the pie plate, but I’m sure no one noticed. I am still thankful to Pillsbury for making ready-to-use pie crust for when I’m not feeling up to this challenge. ; )
The custard came together very easily, but after refrigerating it overnight, it was hard to get it moving again. It was like jello. Next time I make this pie, I will want to make and serve it on the same day.
I enjoyed this pie. I think everyone else did, too. I had never made Banana Cream Pie before (DH prefers Coconut Cream Pie) and it was unlike any I’ve tasted. I was upset that I forgot to add the sour cream to the whipped topping. I’m sure that would have made it even more delicious. Recipe is here.
I also made the Chocolate Amaretti Torte. I was able to find cheap amaretti cookies at World Market (cool store, by the way). I couldn’t really taste them in the torte, though. I didn’t try any of the cookies by themselves; DH said they just tasted sweet. All I could taste in the torte, though, was chocolate–which was alright by me. It was very chocolaty. DH’s cousin said it was so chocolaty, it tasted minty. I guess that’s the bittersweet chocolate, which Dorie seems to use in a lot of her recipes, but I don’t usually use in my baking. I was glad I made the whipped cream to put on top. I wasn’t really sure what made a torte a torte, but apparently it is “a cake made with many eggs (check) and usually ground nuts (check)…instead of or in addition to flour (check).” It was very dense and chocolaty and delicious and along with the pie, satisfied my Easter dessert cravings perfectly. Recipe here.
BB: Lobster Cobb Salad Rolls on a Budget
Barefoot Bloggers has introduced a new challenge this month: take a chosen recipe of Ina’s and change up a bit to make it more budget-friendly. I rather enjoyed this challenge because we do live on a tight budget and groceries are a huge expense. I stockpile my groceries when they go on sale (see my Grocery Game post) and often cook from my freezer or pantry, but when you want to make a specific recipe, sometimes you don’t always have all the ingredients. And I sure don’t have any lobster laying around…
I was glad this was the recipe chosen, because I thought the substitutions were pretty obvious. I’m sure other people were more creative than I, but I have a lot of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my freezer so that replaced the lobster. I had most of the other ingredients from the original recipe. The only things I purchased specifically for this recipe were Dijon mustard (I was out and needed some anyway), lemons (on sale 3 for $.99) and 2 avocados ($1.50 each). I suppose I could have done without the avocados since they are pretty expensive, but I just love them and I couldn’t leave them out. The rest were items I had on hand. I left out the cheese and the bacon, because I’m not a big fan of either.
I really liked this recipe. It was like new-wave chicken salad. It reminded me of a sandwich I get at Atlanta Bread Company. I would definitely make it again and I would love to try the original recipe sometime–when lobster goes on sale. Does that ever happen?
Lobster Cobb Salad Rolls On a Budget
For the vinaigrette:
1 1/2 Tbl. Dijon mustard
1/2 c. lemon juice
5 Tbl. olive oil
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
For the salad:
2 Avocados
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 c. lettuce
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and cut in bite-size pieces
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
12 slices wheat bread
For the vinaigrette. whisk together the mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
For the salad, peel avocados and cut into 3/4 inch dice and toss with lemon juice. Cut lettuce into bite-size pieces.
Put the chicken and tomatoes in a bowl. Toss with enough vinaigrette to moisten. Add the avocados and lettuce and toss again. Serve in between two toasted sliced of wheat bread.
Find the original recipe here.
Wilton Course 3 – Class 3 & 4 & Other Goings-On
I’m behind on my posting. My folks were in town this week and I was pretty busy. I had a lot of desserts/cakes to make, including this one for my brother-in-law’s birthday:
He spends a great deal of his summer playing tennis and drinking beer while watching tennis, so that’s what I thought of when I made this cake. It is a rum cake, made with Captain’s Morgan’s Spiced Rum and it was very moist and delicious. I was surprised he liked it so much, since he’s not a big fan of sweets. I think it turned out really cute and I was proud of it.
Last weeks Wilton class was probably my least favorite so far. It was my first time working with royal icing. We made petunias, poinsettias, Easter lilies and morning glories. I wasn’t happy with how any of my flowers turned out. I just didn’t get it. In the book, they look very realistic, but mine just look like icing. I was very frustrated in class and sort of regretted signing up for Course 2, which is basically all sugar flowers. Hopefully, I will improve over time.
In yesterday’s class, we had to bring in two cakes, in order to practice with tiers. I made a chocolate cake recipe from The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook, which I borrowed from the library. I think it was my fault and not the book’s, but my cakes did not turn out so well. It was my first time baking a 10-inch cake and I think it may have baked too long. When I tried to fill it, the top layer broke into pieces. I had to glue it back together with icing and it looked very lumpy and strange. I also tried a new buttercream recipe (also from the Buttercup Cookbook), which was another complete failure. I’ve tried this type of recipe before, where you have to heat sugar-water to the softball stage and add it to egg whites and then add butter and both times it has turned into a curdled mess. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I’m getting slightly annoyed. What am I doing wrong?
Since my cake was lumpy, the fondant looked a bit lumpy and the top of my cake was not exactly level. I made the marshmallow fondant again, which is pretty exhausting. I can’t get it to roll out without bubbles and creases; the store-bought stuff just doesn’t crease like that. I do love doing everything from scratch, though, so maybe I’ll just look for a new recipe.
In class, my instructor showed us how to use our pillar-thingies and then left us to decorate our cakes. I spent the week making 40 fondant roses (of which I used maybe a third) so I basically did exactly what the book said and assembled my cake. It was terrifying to move it after I did the ruffle border, but I did get it back home in the correct number of pieces.
Overall, I like how this cake turned out. This is my first “wedding cake” cake, so that’s pretty cool. I start Course 2–my last course–next week. I only have to make one cake for this class, which is probably a good thing. I have to catch up on my TWD and BB recipes and all that other normal life stuff: cleaning, sleeping, maybe finishing my overdue library book…
