for love of peanut and monkey

Dear Peanut,
I loved that you and your little sister got to live here for 3 months so that I could see you every Sunday. I loved that you would open the door every week that I came over and that you always liked to give me hugs. I love that you still wanted to draw me pictures and how you always loved to play a game with us. I love how you take care of Monkey. I love seeing how much you’ve grown since you were a baby. I have always loved your cute little personality. I especially love that when you were a baby, you were always my buddy.

Dear Monkey,
I love that after a month or so of giving me crusty’s (and me giving them back) you started to trust me. I loved when I would come and visit the first thing you would say to me was “Hi Nuh” in that cute little voice because you can’t pronounce my full name. I loved waking up on one of my sleep-overs to hear you outside my door saying, “Nuh, Nuh, Nuh” because you wanted to show me your pan full of Velcro cookies. I love when you let me sing “Eensy Weensy Spider” and then tickle your neck.

Many hugs and much love,
Nuh.

I will sure miss having you both around.

sweet cakes

Last year I got this crazy idea in my head that I was going to start decorating cakes. Because, why not. Out of the clear blue, I suddenly had a passion for baking. Who knew. Certainly not anyone related to me. When I was younger, it was questionable if I even knew what a spatula was. But hey, things change. My mom used to decorate all of our birthday cakes and has made all of my siblings’ wedding cakes. Yeah, she’s amazing like that. So I thought, how hard could it be, right? (Whenever I say that, my mom shakes her head and rolls her eyes… with good reason.)

My first commission to do a cake was last year and it was going to be amazing. (If it turned out like the picture, that is.) But that event didn’t pan out and so I played around with fondant and tried to figure out why my cakes kept falling when I cooked them. My oven light was broken so I had to open the oven door to check the cake during baking. Remember that time oven lights really help one check progress on one’s cake so one doesn’t have to keep opening one’s oven door creating one’s cake to fall? Changed the light and now the cakes don’t fall. Imagine that.

Well, my second commission for a cake was from my good friend, Mandi. She and I used to work together and we have remained good friends. She asked me to be her wedding planner and I told her I would. Then, in an effort to go all out, I also offered to make her cake…

Because, how hard could it be. (My mom is somewhere rolling her eyes.)

Mandi decided that she wanted a simple white cake with fondant and a pink ribbon with a little bit of bling. Love it. As far as cakes go, this one was probably the cinchiest to tackle. Besides, I had worked with fondant a little bit before and figured that ‘little bit’ was sufficient enough. Uh huh.

Well, to give just a small overview, I got to my mom’s house at 4:00 pm on Friday evening (the night before the big day) to frost and fondant the frozen cake. 8 hours later, 2 swears, and a complete fondant overhaul of the 9” layer, I was finished. Let me just say that I could not have done this without the help of my mom, who tirelessly puts up with my shenanigans time and time again. She is, as I mentioned before, amazing.

I won’t lie, that fondant is shifty business. My problem (not realized until after I had nearly unsuccessfully covered the 12” base layer) was that the fondant was too dry. And getting that stuff off the counter and onto a 12” layer without any casualties is a feat in and of itself (we, of course, had casualties). As a result, the cake is somewhat of a Monet. Meaning, the farther you are away from it, the better it looks. That being said, here is the finished product.

I will say that the serving of this cake was the best part. Has anyone noticed that typically wedding cake is dry?? Don’t get me wrong, a dry wedding cake cuts like a dream, but it don’t taste good. Having people love eating it made all the drama worth it. I didn’t make the recipe up, so I can’t take credit for it, but it sure is a winner. That cake, with my mom’s frosting, (because she IS the frosting master) was de-lish. So what if it was a mess to cut…

To Mandi and Pablo. Here’s to a long and happy life together. And when you pull that cake out of your freezer in year, I hope you invite me over.

july

there is a calendar that hangs on my wall. call it old school, but i like having one that hangs up. it has fun graphics and little quotes from random people. the month of july?

"kiss me and you will see how important i am."
sylvia plath

well said, sylvia. well said.