Bad Blogger, Bad Bad Blogger!

Just pictures since I’m a bad blogger…

Some Sewing Projects…

A quilt I just finished titled “Boxed In.”

A party dress for Marin - only took 1 yard of fabric!

Grady Eats a Cracker

I always take too many shots of one subject and pose, but I love the evolution and the process…here’s Grady eating a rice cracker…

If at first you don’t succeed…

I decided to try making a grasshopper angel food  cake – I really like mint and chocolate and had a dram of creme de menthe candy flavoring – with no plans for its use. I bought some tiny chocolate chips and proceeded to come up with a recipe – which I won’t post since it didn’t work.

I mixed up the cake mix according to directions, added the candy flavoring, some green food coloring, and at the end mixed in the tiny chocolate chips with a metal spoon.

When I pulled the cake out I could tell there was a problem because there were no chocolate chips in sight. When it was cooled, the major problem was evident.

All the heavy chips were on top – and so the cake wasn’t very tasty. Plus the chocolate chippy area was doughy and weird. Bad deal. Back to the drawing board…

This time, I decided to incorporate chocolate flavored cake into the mint cake. Here’s what I needed:

Angel food cake, creme de menthe candy flavoring, green food coloring, unsweetened cocoa powder and almond extract. I mixed up the angel food cake as directed, and divided the batter evenly into two bowls. I NEVER use plastic anything with angel food cake – so it was a glass bowl and a metal bowl. In the first bowl I added 5 drops of creme de menthe flavoring…but if you don’t have it, peppermint extract would work fine (1/2 tsp). I added 10 drops of green food coloring and mixed thoroghly.

In the other bowl I mixed 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa and 1/2 tsp of almond extract into the angel food cake batter.

I poured half of the chocolate and half of the mint into the pan and swirled, then repeated.

I baked the cake for 45 minutes. Once cooled, I was able to take a peak inside…

If I had known how lovely it would turn out and how good it would taste, I would have added a chocolate mint ganache icing…next time. But this cake definitely didn’t last long enough to even contemplate an addition. It was really good, very light and fresh tasting, and pretty. This is a keeper!

New Guest Powder Room Color

I didn’t take pictures of the before, but the after is much better! The color is an orange brown. It feels nice and cozy in there now.

A Walk to the Park

A Pink Grady

Marin dressed Grady up in pink for a “concert” they were “flying” to. He took it like a champ at first and then he got a little irritated. But he looked fabulous!

 

Portland Children’s Museum

We love the Portland Children’s Museum – and hadn’t been for a LONG time. More than a year. So we decided to go on Saturday and we all had a lot of fun. It was exhausting. The good kind!

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake

It felt like I had run out of fruit options for the angel food cake (I know I’m wrong, but I was ready for a change) so I went the spice route. I decided to try to make a coffee cake type angel food cake, and I’m really happy with the results…with one minor addition – FROSTING! Well, a glaze would have been nice. But I digress. Let’s get started!

Ingredients: An angel food cake mix, almond extract, ground cinnamon and brown sugar. If you feel like adding some sweetness at the end, you’ll need some milk and powdered sugar.

Prepare the angel food cake according to box directions but before beating, add 1 tsp almond extract. At the same time, combine 2 tbsps cinnamon and 1/4 cup brown sugar (I’m partial to the dark brown, but light brown would work just fine).

Pour approximately 1/3 of the batter into the angel food cake pan – and then half of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of that layer.

Repeat with 1/3 of the batter and the last half of the cinnamon sugar mix – top off with the last 1/3 of the angel food cake batter. Stick ‘er in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.

Once baked, you could whip up a powdered sugar glaze with milk and powdered sugar – I didn’t. But it’s an easy thing to do – you can even add a touch of almond extract to enhance the flavor in the cake.

There are delicious pockets of cinnamon and sugar, melted and holey, which I thought were fun, and I suppose you could mix some flour in with the sugar to keep it from leaving holes. But I kind of liked it.

It tasted like a light and glorious cinnamon roll – just perfect for a Sunday brunch or a tea party.

I’ll be making this again, no doubt! It was a fantastic recipe.

Raspberry Angel Food Cake

Mmmm…raspberries! But what I had wasn’t fresh . Doesn’t matter, though, because I cooked what I had and made a delicious sauce.

Recipe: 1 bag frozen raspberries (I’m assuming they come in a standard size), sugar, clear-jel (or corn starch) and an angel food cake! Oh, and whipped cream as a garnish.

Dump raspberries into a pan with half a cup of sugar and a quarter cup of water. Cook over medium heat until the raspberries are fully thawed and hot.

Once the mixture is hot, push liquid through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl until you only have seeds remaining in the strainer. Discard seeds.

Pour seedless sauce into pan – but scoop out 1/4 cup. Prepare cake mix, pour half into the pan and 1/8 cup of the reserved liquid on top. Swirl into the cake with a knife. Then pour in remaining cake and 1/8 cup raspberry liquid, swirling again. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Prepare sauce by adding two tbsp Clear Jel into raspberry liquid and 1/2 cup sugar. If you don’t have Clear Jel, use 2 tbsp corn starch dissolved in a little water. Cook until sauce thickens. Add a little lemon juice if you like a little tartness.

Cut the cooled cake, sprinkle on sauce, spray whipped cream and you’re done!