Student Cakes February 2011 and Baby Shower Cupcakes

Yep, it's been forever since I posted anything. I'll try to do better Gram, what can I say. =P

The cake above is by me. It's a one-person mini cake for Chelsea's birthday. The shoe and flower are made of chocolate. Fun huh? It was about 5 inches tall counting the shoe and 4 inches wide at the base. The flash makes the black look a little funny, but it turned out cute. Especially when you consider it was the second one I made since Ethan ate the first one for breakfast that morning before I woke up. He wasn't alone in his sneaking though. His little protege grabbed a measuring cup of sugar off the counter when I went to answer my phone.

His only response to getting caught was: More? More sugar? He's such a cute little monster.

The rest of the cakes are by my latest group of cake class students. They did such a great job!

At the end is a picture of some cupcakes I made for a baby shower. Click on the "read more" link for instructions on how to assemble them.

 

Cake Class

SOOOO much has been happening around here lately what with hospital visits and trying to move in, but I thought I'd do a quick post and put up the pictures from the cake class I taught at the college a couple of weeks ago. One of the pictures got deleted off my camera thanks to my 1 year old, sorry 'bout that. They all did so great especially considering most of them had never worked with fondant or made roses before. One of my students even won 2nd place in a contest with his 'mermaid project' cake. So, here are the pics and I hope you all are doing well.

Ethan's Birthday.....FINALLY

So, Ethan's birthday was August 28th but I went up to Idaho and things were busy and he didn't get his party until yesterday. That's right 17 days after his actual birthday. Poor kid. He's been really patient about the whole thing though. Before I left I did take a batch of cupcakes to his preschool class though.

I just arranged the mini-cupcakes how I wanted and then iced them like they were one whole cake. No knife needed for cutting and it's easy for little hands to get just the piece they want.

This year Ethan asked for Captain Hooks' pirate ship for his cake. I took a few pics during the process, but as you'll see, it was really pretty simple. I used a half-sheet cake pan, but you could easily use a 9x13 to do this cake. The only specialty thing I used was a little imprint that presses into the fondant to make it look like wooded boards nailed together. I got mine at Cake Craft Shoppe in Sugarland for 10 bucks in a pack that had that one, cobblestone, brick, siding, and basketweave imprints. Since we're trying to close on the house and pack and what not I decided to just buy a couple of pirates to put on top and then I printed Peter Pan saying "Happy Birthday Ethan" on a piece of cardstock that I used for the sail. I'll include the pictures etc at the end.

He decided for his birthday dinner that he wanted to make his own pizza. I'll include my focaccia bread recipe at the end since we used that for our pizza dough. 

So, I said before how Jon and I had taken away all their toys and....well, everything and that the end result was that they basically didn't care. We realized from that little experiment that all these toys and things they had were, for the most part, for us. We wanted our kids to have this stuff. They didn't really care. I read this article in some waiting room where this organization expert said (and I paraphrase):

"Look at all your stuff and realize that every thing you own represents some of your time; time to clean it, time to put it away, time to maintain it in some way or other. Think of how much more time you would have in your life for things and people you love if you took back some of that time that's being eaten up by things that are just in the way." 

Profound right? Since we're moving I thought this was pretty much perfect timing and we're getting rid of loads of our crap we've been holding on to for years for Heaven only knows what reasons. We'll donate it and maybe someone who actually needs it can have it. Simple, streamlined, peaceful lives is the plan. So, as part of that we asked the grandparents and cousins (we only did a family party) not to get toys for birthday presents. Yep, you read it right. No toys. Before you think I finally crossed the line just read on.What we asked instead is a gift that means something: time. We want our kids to have strong, happy, meaningful memories of time spent with those they love. A tradition of having a lunch date with just them and Grandma or going fishing with Grandpa will mean so much more to them than another plastic thing that will be broken or have half the pieces lost in a month tops. (Who am I kidding? We all know it's a week tops in this house.) And I don't mean that it will eventually, in the long run, sometime when he's older and wiser be more meaningful to them. I mean now as well. For his birthday present from us Jon and I took Ethan to the Houston Children's Museum for the day (we have an annual pass) and we ate PB & J's in the car on the way home. You never saw a happier kid. Traditions, memories, family. That's what we want our celebrations with them to be about.

For the pics and recipes....

Starting School and Visiting Grandma Stellmon

 Aren't they cute? Christopher walks Ethan to his class everyday and then he goes to his. I'd like to be able to say that I had a hard time watching them go, but the truth is I spent the morning of their first day at school reveling in my new-found freedom and marveling at all that one can accomplish with only two kids in tow. Still, I thought they were adorable and took this picture just after they crossed the crosswalk together. See, not heartless after all.

Some of you friends and family know what's going on with me lately, and some don't so I'm going to do a little 'nutshell' version for you. I went to a neurologist because I've had this annoying twitch thing going on since the last few months of pregnancy with Timothy. They ran a whole battery of tests and didn't find out what's causing the twitch, but it turns out that I've had a (VERY MINOR) stroke at some point in the past, I have a small hole in my heart (a congenital defect, but they're checking it out just the same), high cholesterol, a high anion gap (whatever that is), sleep apnea, and possibly arsenic poisening. You know, if you take a car to a mechanic and he pokes around enough he's bound to find something wrong with it. I'm just sayin'. Anyway, I had a thing this last Sunday and I'm going for another CT scan because my neurologist thinks it was a TIA (like a mini warning stroke without the long term effects) but he wants to make sure it's nothing more serious. I guess I'm in the same boat as Bill "We're toast." Really, I'm fine, no worries.

Now, for some fun stuff.

 Timothy, Ryan and I went up to Lewiston to visit Gram & Gramp Stellmon for a week. It was so great. Timothy still smiles when he hears Gram's voice over the phone and Ryan is such a little monster but he and Gram had so much fun having raspberry wars all week. I took a LOT of pictures and video so I just loaded them onto my picasa album. Here's the link to all the pictures from our trip up there. I'm going to load the video sometime, but you know me.

So-obviously-I'm trying to be even more careful of what I eat lately. Jon's sure that a low-fat, low to no sugar, only whole grains, low sodium diet can NOT include edible food, but I'm going to at least try. I got a leg up from my parents and Jay who gave us a huge amount of fresh caught Alaskan Salmon to add to the menu. Yay Dad. At Jon's parents the other day everyone else had burgers and I had a MorningStar Farms® Chipotle Black Bean Burger. I know what you're thinking:" Bean burger?!?" or "Mindy ate something with chipotle?!?!" Actually, it was pretty good. It had some spice, but with the bun, some lettuce and a tomato it wasn't too spicy. I also have a recipe of sorts that I tried the other night and loved. It's a black bean salsa thing. I'm not going to give exact amounts for the salt and spices, just add them to your liking. Really, all the ingredient amounts are negotiable. I just gave amounts to get you started. I know that the banana sounds like a weird ingredient, but trust me on this one okay. I had it once served over tilapia that I had just broiled with a little olive oil and kosher salt and I had it the next day in a whole wheat tortilla with some leftover grilled chicken. Delish both times. I'm also posting a lovely pork loin roast recipe that Jon made for me all by himself the other day because he's so wonderful. I just copied the recipe from the word file he'd saved it in, so I don't know where he originally got it from. For the recipes....

Playing with Fondant

Life with 4 boys, I love it!

YAY! WE HAVE A HOUSE!!! Well, almost. We've signed papers. I'll post pictures when the current owners move out and I can take pictures without potentially crossing that peeping Tom line. Still, YAY!

So a while ago we all went up to the house formerly known as Lauras' which is now an empty shell because they've abandoned us and moved to Utah. While we were there we played with fondant and made some new friends. I thought I'd do a quickie post on a few of the things we covered for those of you who were there. So, here is a link to the post with the fondant recipe as well as some icing, cake and filling recipes. Also, here is the website for the store in Sugarland that I go to to get anything I can't find at the local Hobby Lobby. Be warned though, their shipping charges are really high, so if you can go there to get what you want you'll be better off. (Besides, if you can go without kids it's fun to browse a bit too). I'm doing a couple of cakes next week. One is a cake for the quinciañera of a girl I teach in Sunday school and one is a pirate ship cake for Ethan's birthday. They'll both be covered in fondant and I'll try to take pictures as I go so I can explain some techniques for you. Hope you're having fun with your fondant and feel free to e-mail me anytime with questions at mindywhipple@gmail.com.

Fun with Friends

 

I'm posting a recipe for a great Spanish chicken salad and an easy Moroccan chicken. I 'm also posting the pictures from playgroup this last week and a few other cute pics  and a video of or the long-distance relatives and friends out there. I don't have any pictures from our little weekend without the kiddos, but it was great. We saw Wicked (FANTASTIC!!) went to the Houston Museum of Fine Art (only because Jon was forced to via his art appreciation prof.) and generally enjoyed ourselves. Thanks to Gramma Whipple and Pam for babysitting for us. Anyway, click the link for the photos.... 

A Coup in the Whipple house....Almost

This is one of the pictures of the cake I made for my nephew Brian's birthday party yesterday. In case you're wondering it's supposed to look wonky like that. It's called a topsy turvey cake. They're really very stable despite their look although not quite stable enough to handle Ethan's curiosity. He knocked the top two tiers off, but it's not too bad off considering; just a few lumps and wrinkles.

We’ve gotten tired of the boys breaking everything they look at, so we’re trying something new now. We emptied their rooms of everything-we even took apart their beds-and put it all in a storage unit. They’re sleeping on the floor with a blanket, pillow and stuffed animal each for the next month. They have no toys or books so they’re going to have to entertain themselves some other way. I did keep a few books out for them to use during ‘quiet time’ each day though. I keep those in my room and get them for them when it’s time. They’re learning to appreciate what they have and that’s good. They play a lot of games using their hands as puppets now and I'm glad it's helping them use their imaginations more. We’ll leave it that way for a month (we paid for the storage unit right?) and slowly phase most of their stuff back in after that, but I think we’ll donate quite a bit too.

Due to this new arrangement, Christopher and Ethan are in one room and Ryan and Timothy are sharing a room. Timothy’s sleeping through the night now, so Ryan is getting way more sleep as his roommate than he did as Ethan's. Timothy doesn’t wake up until about 6:30 usually and that’s so nice because Ethan is up by then normally anyway. This morning Timothy woke up first though and it was hilarious. I went in the nursery to feed Timothy and closed the door so we didn’t wake up Christopher or Ethan. Ethan woke up a little bit after I started nursing Timothy and went into my room as usual to ask for a snack. When he saw that I wasn’t there he freaked out and started screaming and crying and ran in their room to wake up Christopher. The funniest thing is how Christopher reacted. He checked my room and when I wasn’t there he decided that he was in charge now and they were going to watch movies. He wasn’t even concerned. I was in the nursery cracking up but trying to be quiet about it. They only found me because"Grand Czar" Christopher decided Ryan could watch movies with them and he was coming to get him out of his crib. You should have seen their faces when they found me in there. Ethan’s face was pure relief and Christopher looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Poor guy; I ruined his little coup.

The recipes this week were: Healthy Country Fried Steak with Mushroom Gravy, Asparagus Primavera with Couscous (47), Spicy Shrimp over Rice, and Crème Brûlée (both vanilla and dark chocolate). The first two are from the Clean Eating magazine I wrote about before and the other two are my own recipes. The dark chocolate Crème Brûlée doesn't have exactly the same mouth feel as the vanilla. Judging by what I've read online at various sites that seems to be the case across the board when chocolate is added to it. Still it was very good if you like dark chocolate (which I do). Even my 3 year old niece liked and and I'm including it in this weeks blog at the behest of my nephew Brian who also loved it. Even if you don't like dark chocolate, the vanilla recipe is really the best one I've used and it's a good base for whatever flavor you want to go with. Don't be afraid to give it a try because-even though it seems intimidating to a lot of people-great Crème Brûlée is almost as easy to make as instant pudding it just tastes SO much better. My evil plan to sabotage Jon is working because he can't resist Crème Brûlée and I made him several for Father's Day. Waahh Haaah Hahhh (<--evil genius laugh). Hey, he REQUESTED for me to make it. So I'm not THAT evil.

For the recipes and a few more pictures...