Last year, I had a Halloween dinner party and had so much fun with it, I'm hoping to make it an annual celebration. I have pictures coming later of the actual party I held this year, but I wanted to keep this post to one topic – the dessert. I upped the ante this year by making a cake from scratch and went straight for the yummy-looking, chocolate-y, and kinda scary Devil's Food Cake with Flame Tuiles from the Martha Stewart holiday Halloween magazine (the "bad things" side, of course).
I knew the cake would take a long time, so I started super-early last Saturday and yet still underestimated the effort required to bake this bad-boy.
After sleeping in a wee-bit, we made a quick run to the grocery store for all the ingredients for the evening…including an $8 box of Dutch-process cocoa powder, which the recipe required. Not sure if that "Dutch-process" part is totally required, but I figured I'd better not experiment with my first from-scratch cake.
You see, I don't think I've ever actually baked a cake from scratch before last weekend, and for sure, I've never baked a two tier cake. Don't let the two tiers scare you off, new bakers, that was the easy part! lol Anywho, see these red-thingys? They are the "flames" for my cake. They're actually very thin cookies that I've tinted with icing colors – a mixture of red and copper (b/c Michaels was out of orange). I met a nice lady at Michaels who helped me out w/ tons of suggestions, including the mention of "Cake Release." I paired this with a circle of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan (b/c I'm paranoid) and the cake really did pop right out!
Oh, and you know this trick about icing cakes, right? Put your cake on your cake stand and add little pieces of parchment paper tucked just under the edges of the cake…
…ice away…
…and when you're done icing your cake, simply remove the parchment paper and you have a beautifully iced cake and a clean cake stand.
After the addition of the flames, we're all done! Woohoo!
Ooh…scary "flames"! Can ya tell I made them too tall? The directions said to make them 5"x2", but I think I was supposed to break more of the tuiles off…oopsie!
This side looks more "flame-y" I think.
The best part was, I didn't ruin the cake (a fear for any first-time-from-scratch baker) – it was worth all the hard work and tasted so yummy! It tasted like a dark-chocolate cake…a flame-covered, dark-chocolate Devil's food cake, that is! Yum!
My craft room is a complete and utter mess. Sadly, it's been that way pretty much ever since we've moved into our apartment (well over a year ago). I know I keep talking about cleaning it up, but I've tried. I really have! My craft room has become almost a black hole – sucking all my time away into seemingly infinity. You see, I spend a couple hours here and there, organizing this, switching these craft goods for those craft goods, and then, feeling quite fulfilled that I've done my best for the day, I take a step back and look around, only to see that it doesn't really look that much different. This is frustrating, but ok, b/c I love organizing. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours organizing my bedroom – turning my picture frames just so and making everything was in the proper place. I truly enjoy organizing.
The problem now is that I have SO MUCH STUFF! I wonder where it all came in and when it all came in. I guess it came in one shopping trip at a time, huh? Tee-hee!
I had this past Monday off, so I decided to spend another good chunk of several hours working away on the craft room. As usual, it didn't look too different when I was done, but I did manage to think up a quick make-over project for some simple plastic bins.
I thought at first the bins would look okay on their own since they are the same brand, shape, size, and things grouped together usually look pretty good. But, I just wasn't happy seeing all the goodies I had inside those bins with everything else I have out in the open. I thought about labeling them, but I didn't have any labels, and I hate sticking sticky-things on things b/c labels never come off right. Soo…I dreamed up an idea and made a template by tracing the edge of the bin and adjusting it little bit by little bit. I used my template to trace out my pattern on some decorative scrapbook paper.
I used a simple, black marker to create my labels, slid the paper pieces inside the bins and…VOILA!
I can't reveal the whole room yet (b/c it's still a mess), but here are the finished bins with their new make-overs. If I had more time, I'm sure I could do something more elaborate, but these were pretty nice for a quick project.
I went home for my b-day a few weeks ago and, as my fam likes to do, ate a ton of food. My sister (we call each other "Sissy") was sweet enough to bake me a b-day cake. Of my family, I have always been the "cook", and my sister has always been the "baker." I can bake and she can cook, but we are better at one than the other. My amazing mom is, of course, good at both. 
We must get our cooking/baking skills from her.
My Sissy used the Cake Doctor cookbook to bake my cake. Apparently, this cook book is amazing. Have you heard of it? I should probably ask for it for Christmas.
Anywho, the truly impressive part of my cake was the decoration. My mom got my sister a cake-decorating set from Pampered Chef and my sister wanted to try out her new toys on my b-day cake. I have to say, she did a pretty fab job, no? My dad even helped out a tad by helping my sis mix the icing color to just the right Robin's Egg Blue I love so much. Thanks guys!
Why is everyone around me having babies?! What in the world!? Good thing I have a good booty pattern b/c I'd never be able to keep up with all these baby gifts if I had to make something bigger. I swear, I have become a baby-booty-making-machine! lol.
And, I've got another pair in the works, plus the yarn needed to make a fourth. Phew! I have been giving my crochet hook a run for its money! lol
These floral booties were actually made with the same yarn used for the Dinosaur Booties, as well as the same basic booty pattern. Since these booties were for a girl, I decided to forego the animal attachments and add flowers instead. These flowers are from Nicky Epstein's lovely
Crocheted Flowers book. I hope the family enjoys these!
