Dinner Party

yup, these are my cream puffs... yummy, huh?

I'm having the girls over for "Dinner Club" tonight, and I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous. I am not a cook.

Last month, we ate grilled shrimp and scallops with cantaloupe and black bean salsa at Brenda's. I am feeling the pressure.

If I can't wow them with dinner (how about sliders with grilled onions, sweet potato fries and salad?), then I'll wow them with what I can do… homemade Cream Puffs!

Thoughts?

School Carnival ~ Cake Walk

Last Friday, my daughter's school held their annual Carnival. One of the activities scheduled was a cake walk. One of my own fondest childhood memories, is of the Cake Walk from my grammar school carnival. You can imagine how quickly I jumped at the chance to make cakes.

From deep in the unused-pan-cabinet in my kitchen I found an unused mini-bundt cake pan that was probably a wedding gift. Who knew it would finally come in handy more than 13 years later? Smart and Final supplied the box-o-cake mix (sorry, I just couldn't do from scratch this time) I did make frosting myself and used yellow and orange sprinkles from Surfas.

How did I come up with this fantastic packaging you ask? Some small colorful paper plates (which were cut into smaller circles), curling ribbon and celo bags from Alin party supply.

How many did we end up with? Well, 36 was all we could manage, but it was enough for the Carnival. The Cake Walk made a good amount of money (to send our 8th graders to Washington D.C.) but more importantly the families had such a good time!

Desperately Seeking Cake?

Are you living in the Pleasant Hill, California area and in need of an AWESOME cake? Then look no further. My step-sister Maura Houston (also a graphic designer) has recently decided to broaden her horizons and branch out into cake making. Using her existing creative genius, she can make pretty much make anything you can dream up - including shaped cookies and themed cupcakes.

Just check out these recent baked goods she has produced...









Her website is still under construction, mostly because she is so busy making cake, so try her at: maura@persnicketycakes.com... your wish is her command.

Me on Mom Spark?

Look out people! Just when you least expect it... there I am.

Wedding Party

This weekend, I was honored to be asked by my good friend to take photos at her wedding. It was a quaint little gathering at a public park, with bubbly and cake afterward. This couple has been together for 17 years, and they have two children together... don't you think it's about time they were married?

In Appreciation

Dropped the kids off at their respective schools this morning, and as I got back to my car to run the three thousand errands I had to do before pickup - surprise! The car would not start. By coincidence, my friend Julia was there with me and tried to jump start my dead battery, to no avail.

I waited for AAA during what was supposed to be errands number 1, 2, and 3. He did jump start the car but advised to not turn the engine off until I reached the auto mechanics shop where I should buy a new battery. I waited at the auto mechanics shop during the time allotted for errands 4, 5, 6 and 7. After paying for a new battery and service, I realized that I just spent the money earmarked for errands 8 and 9.

To make a long story slightly shorter, when I finally got back to my house (after skipping the rest of the errands) guess what was waiting on the porch for me?

3 spider web and 3 ghost cookies

A giant thank you to Laura of A Dozen Eggs for the scrumptious cookies she made and sent to me as the winner of her Halloween Super Spectacular Giveaway!

This is going to turn my day around, I just know it.

***UPDATE***

Those cookies were delish.

Surfer Girl Birthday Party

My daughter and I take so much pleasure in talking about and planning for her birthday party. For this “Surfer Girl” party, the theme was chosen more than one year in advance of the event itself. It’s not that we are obsessive compulsive when it comes to planning birthdays, it’s that we use these conversations to connect with each other and have some serious mommy-daughter bonding time.

So, back to this “Surfer Girl” party… It was pretty tough to find any store-bought kits, decorations or paper goods that fit this theme. I usually look around at least a little bit for inspiration and to see what other people have done in the way of a cake for every birthday I throw. I don’t know what would happen today if you were to google it, but a couple years back there was nothing, nada, zippo.


Invitation

Taking inspiration from my husband’s surfboard collection, I came up with a surfboard shape for the invite (you can print your own blank). I also found a pink and orange hibiscus print scrapbooking paper to use as a backing paper for the surfboard. Writing some surf inspired lingo for the invite was pretty fun:

surf’s up! Autumn is turning 4
you are invited to catch a wave and hang ten with us
saturday, february 4 at 10:30am
wax up your surfboard and paddle on over to
1234 main street, regrets only 562-555.1212

Decorations



One of the most versatile decorating items I have is the fish bowl style glass vase. It comes in handy for every party, I’m not kidding. I have 4 of them and you’ve probably seen them before at my parties filled with cars, but for this party they are filled with seashells. I purchased a bag of shells at my local party supply store to augment the meager group I already had at home.




I also used beach towels (that we already owned) instead of tablecloths, and cut giant surfboards out of colored butcher paper to a hang on the walls (you can see them here in the background).




TIP: if you want to hang decorations on the walls and from the ceiling, but don’t want to repair and repaint the drywall, try “Command Strips” from 3M. They come in a variety of styles to fit every need and I promise they come off without a scratch!

Food



This party started at 10:30 in the morning, so I was able to have brunchy snacky items instead of a meal. I made pumpkin muffins and chocolate banana muffins and served them in conjunction with smoothies. Not just any smoothies, but, custom build-it-yourself smoothies. Here is how we set it up: I made a little banner matching the invitation graphics and hung it off the countertop where the blender was set up. Each child filled a red plastic cup with their choice of frozen fruits, to which we (okay, my husband) added orange juice and yogurt. We did purchase some sippy cups with straws from Oriental Trading Company to eliminate spillage, and VOILA! Breakfast!



Pumpkin Bread (this is a big batch - yeilds 3 loaves)

• 3 c. sugar
• 3 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 4 lg. eggs
• 1 c. vegetable oil
• 2 c. canned pumpkin
• 2/3 c. water
• 1 1/2 c. chopped walnuts (opt.)

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Butter your containers well. Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and add the eggs, oil, pumpkin and water. Beat thoroughly with electric mixer. Stir in the walnuts. Pour the batter into the containers, filling each only half to two-thirds full. Bake for 60-90 minutes depending on the sizes of your containers. Cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn out on rack.

Activity



For this group of 4 year olds, we had a craft project and a non-competitive (although prize winning) game. The craft was putting together an aquarium themed picture frame that I purchased, once again, at Oriental Trading Company.



The game we planned was “Freeze Dance” with a bit of a non-competitive twist. The game is meant to be played like this: have a group of children dance while the music plays, and freeze when the music is stopped. If a child moves after the music stops, they are “out” and go sit down on the sidelines. The “winner” gets a prize. Now, because the kids playing this game are only 4 years old (or less) we wanted to be sure all the children felt included and that they didn’t need to compete with one another for a single prize. So, we gave each child a prize as they were called “out”, the child could decide if they wanted to go back in to dance or sit out, and the “winner” was not actually singled out as the big winner of the game but given a prize just as everyone else had gotten.

Cake



I loved making this cake! Let me start though, with the “cake topper”. After searching high and low for something, anything, that could sit atop the cake and match our surfer girl theme (girl being the operative word, as there were plenty of boy surfer cake toppers), I actually ended up sending away for an adorable salt and pepper set that matched our theme perfectly.

For the cake itself, I did vanilla cake with blue buttercream frosting. To give the effect of water I separated the frosting into 3 batches, tinting each a slightly darker shade of blue. After a thick coat of two shades of frosting on the sides, I pulled a cake decorating comb through it making little wave patterns. For the top of the cake, I kept the buttercream a touch on the thin side and pulled peaks up with a spatula. The board underneath the cake was also coated with a layer of the dark blue buttercream.

I cherished every moment planning this party with my daughter. It just goes to show you, your theme can be one of a kind or straight from the TV. Use some creative thinking to make it your own, spend as little as possible and make it look homemade - even if it isn't!