Twitter is a great invention as far as I am concerned. I love chatting with y’all there and especially late in the evening the banter can get going pretty strong. One night last week it was going back and forth and Kelly from Evil Shenanigans said something about me making whiskey sours and inviting her over…I don’t drink very often…counted in terms of maybe once or twice a year if that and so I thought that was funny. I said I needed to make a whiskey sour bundt cake and all of a sudden half a dozen people were inviting …read more

Texas has lost its mind.  I promise. The entire area of North Texas has decided to skip October entirely and get on with November. It is total insanity.
Nah…it’s just Texas weather.
So I spent the week shopping with my girls. I need to still get the boys outfitted for winter but that is usually a little easier. Both girls are hard to fit. Shiloh is nearly 14, tall and long legged so it would be hard enough without the hooker-wear all the stores seem to be carrying. Trying to find a simple dress for church that is not so low cut …read more

This is the cake that I had decided on for the luncheon I catered last Saturday. I wanted a recipe that would go together quickly and easily but be a delicious ending to the rest of the meal, and sort of pull all of the other flavors into it. When I need inspiration I have a couple of cookbooks I invariably turn to – Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours is one of them. I knew I would find exactly what I was looking for and I did.

I used her Double Apple Cake as the basis for my …read more

Due to the magic of preposting as you are reading this I am having surgery. At the moment I am not sure how I feel about that but I am sure everything will be fine.
Root Beer Floats are one of my guilty addictions. I have loved them since I was small. I like classic root beer floats but also love them with coffee or chocolate.  The trick to it is to get good root beer, hard to find nowadays. If you can get the real stuff from the health food store, or better yet make your own, you are on …read more

This is an interesting kit. I have mixed feelings about it and it is late, so bear with me as I more or less ramble on.
The girls were excited to see the kit. We have dvds of Ace of Cakes and love to watch them. Shiloh, my 13 year old has worked with fondant in the past so was looking forward to working  with it again. Remember this image?
So, Shiloh read the directions carefully and began to take the stuff out of the kit.

A few weeks ago I was talking to Evil Shenanigans and she mentioned Sugar Bomber. I was curious so I checked it out.
Sugar Bomber is committed to causing copious drooling in as much of the population as it can reach in as short a time as possible. It is a cause I can believe it so I applied to be a Dictator. Yes a dictator.
My children always knew it. Now it has been made public. Basically when I find a dessert locally I submit the image to Sugar Bomber.
Today I had the great pleasure of taking out a dear …read more

I made it just in underthe wire once again.  I finished this cake during a birthday party for Shiloh last night!
First of all the required verbage:
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

I have wanted to make this every since I saw it in the November/December issue of Food Network Magazine.  I loved the idea of it totally.
The thing is that when I copied their cake recipe it was not what I wanted.  It did not roll well, it broke and it was a weird texture. Didn’t like the chocolate flavor, or lack thereof, either.
Sorry, Food Network.
But other than that it was awesome.

This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.
Florilège Gourmand is all in French and the hosts this month, Hilda of Saffron and Blueberry and Marion of Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux, created 12 pages of recipe for us to experiment with.
YAY.
Needless to say I will not be copying it off here.

 
Ethan’s 15th birthday is Monday.  His birthday is the 29th anniversary of Marc and my first date, too.
Anyway, we celebrated it last night with friends and family.  He had three of his closest friends spend the night.  Of course one of the little brothers (of two of the friends) is best friends with Sean and Nick…so he stayed too…and then Kyrie and the grandkids, Amanda and Gabe, begged to have a sleep-over…
That is how I ended up with 12 kids in my house this morning.