Ruins Cake

We live in an area with lots of Indian Ruins. So, for my husband's birthday, I thought it would be fun to make a cake depicting such ruins. {I know he doesn't care much about a birthday cake, but it was just an excuse for me to try something out.} And it went pretty well. As far as the picture in my head and what I was able to actually make. It's not exactly what I had in my head, but I also don't have the equipment to air-brush the frosting....

I just used a basic 9 X13 cake for this.

I cut it length-wise not quite centered and even- probably a 5 inch piece and a 4 inch piece. Then I made some little hollows.Crumb layer with the ruin "walls".

Orange layer of frosting. My technique (which may be tweaked if I try this again) was to layer (like paint faux finishing-sort of) white, then orange, then brown. I think it worked pretty well, considering tinting frosting is where I always mess up.

Here's the final. With some sage brush/cacti added. It might could have used a little more of that, but I didn't want to overdo it. And we will add candles since it's for a birthday ;)

Donuts!

Do these look good?

The texture of this dough was absolutely beautiful!!

I have tried about four different recipes for homemade yeast donuts and hated every one of them. My sister emailed me this cookbook with famous recipes in it. I am anxious to try the candy bar ones, but I also figured I'd give this Krispy Kreme one a try.

The worst that could happen is yucky donuts; right?
I decided I would stick strictly to the recipe. Lately, I have problems doing that. And this is the first thing I've made without any wheat flour in it in about 10 months....man that dough looked WHITE!!
I made some that I filled with jelly. I haven't tasted any of the filled ones yet though. These are, by far, the best homemade donuts I've done.

Mardi Gras: Half Done

We had our own little "Mardi Gras" today. I know, it's a week early. But, I figured nobody around here would know-or care. And I really needed something fun to do in this never-ending winter season. Anyway, the top picture is of yam biscuits. I was quite pleased with these. The texture was fabulous...as far as biscuits are concerned.

Above you see my first "King Cake." I don't know how the taste compares to the traditional cakes. And I don't think it's baked in a bundt pan usually, but again; nobody around here could correct me. It was pretty fun. We've eaten some of it, but haven't found the "baby" yet. {And ours is really a princess from my daughter's mini-castle set}.

A couple of new things

I tried out using puff pastry. I have not used it for anything before. These are peanut butter cups and the kids love them! The marshmallows were a little brown for my tasting, but you know how kids are about black and burned marshmallows!! These weren't nearly that bad.

I also made bagels for the first time.

I was overly pleased because I have always been intimidated by them. I was too afraid to try them. But they turned out really yummy. It put cheese on half of them. I really liked that and so did one of my boys.

Love Muffins

These are what I'm calling Love Muffins.
It's a Banana/Chocolate Muffin of sorts, but I did make it up myself.
they taste rather yummy.

These are the free-hand hearts I made for the muffins. I don't have a heart mold, but I think these look okay. Not fabulous, but I only plan on sharing them with 1st graders. I know I could have stuck any old valentine candy on top, but I wanted to try this.This is what they look like.

Soft Gingersnaps

Is anyone else having trouble downloading my background? It won't pull up on my computer anymore. Just wondering.

The cookies are quite yummy!
I like Gingersnaps, but I don't like how hard they are. They have sort of a shell, firm on the outside and soft on the inside. I got the recipe from studio5.ksl.com. My daughter didn't like how the dough smelled, but they tasted fine to her. She's already had a number of them.

I love baking with bananas!

I need to work on my photo skills. I don't even know how to turn off my flash!
So, this is now my favorite cake. I made it last winter the first time. And just last week for a second time. It's a Kraft recipe called Banana Sour Cream Cake. I was a little wary of the sour cream/banana combo. But I love it. I got tons of compliments on it the first time I made it! It stays SO moist! The frosting on the recipe tasted fine, but I felt it was too thin. This one above, has store bought frosting. Because I was feeling a little lazy! I forgot to take a photo when I made it, and this is all that's left.