Valentines Day Cakes

For my hubby I made some vanilla yellow cakes in the shapes of hearts from scratch. 

The recipe is nothing special but the secret to fluffy cake is having room temperature warm eggs and butter. They whip up fluffier at room temperature.

 

 Then i made some vanilla cream frosting with a little red food coloring to match the theme.

then once i found my heart cookie cutter i placed it  on the cakes and put rainbow sprinkles in them to make cute sprinkley heart shapes.

The cakes also have a marionberry jam filling to add a little something to all that vanilla flavor.

They tasted great and Hubby was quite surprised and happy to come home to baking of treats.

No baking is complete without a trusty kitten to keep you company.

Princess Scarr managed to fit herself perfectly into an empty stropewaffle box.

Lol my hubby says she looks like a hotdog in it.

Hope you all had a great Valentines Day with treats and fun.

And yes even more bread!!! Christmas present loaves!

My previous post was of the savory herb pupmkin loaf that I made. Well for christmas I thought it would make a delicious and fun gift. I changed the recipe so that it would rise better and get along in a loaf pan for better sandwich making.

Here are the changes I made to the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree plain
1/4 cup of milk
2 1/4 tsp of yeast
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour
1/3 cup slightly roasted pumpkin seeds
1 generous tablespoon of rosemary
1 tablespoon of butter melted

1. mix flour yeast salt, pumpkin seeds and herbs in a bowl
2. heat milk and butter in a separate dish (i use my pyrex measuring cup in the microwave)
3. mix the liquid ingredients into the dry until fully incorporated. Then dump out on a well floured surface and knead as with normal bread. It will be a bit stickier then normal but i just add a little more flour as i go to help with it.
4. put in a lightly oiled bowl flip so both sides have oil on them cover and let rise for 3-4 hours until double in size.
5. punch down knead again and cut in half. Form each half into a loaf shape either by forming with your hands or rolling out and rollling into a log. Place in well oiled loaf pans and leave to rise another hour.
6. when loaves have risen to the size you want 425 degrees bake for 45 minutes. I like to put a pan of water in the bottom wrack of the oven.

These are what you get. They had a nice color and definitely were more slice-able for sandwiches.

I like to rub a little bit of butter over the tops when they first come out of the oven and are on the cooling wracks. This just adds a nice golden color to them, and makes them more savory.

3 of these were gifts to family and the fourth we kept for ourselves.
I sewed up some cute little drawstring bags for the loaves to be delivered in.

What kind of baked goods do you like to give as gifts?

Happy Birthday to me! ....um belated lol

As you can see I've had many posts saved up over the summer and never got the time to post them. Now that Autumn is on its way things have slowed down a bit and I can catch up.

So my birthday was actually August 30th. For my birthday my awesome sister got me this Gothic birthday cake. Both me and my husband love Gothic things that are reminiscent of Victorian or "Interview with the Vampire"
So it was hilarious and gorgeous to see this come out of the box.

Done in a wonderful whipped frosting since I tend to find butter cream a little to thick and heavy for my taste.

One last lovely picture of the beauty. I loved the art on it so much I almost wanted to cringe cutting into it. Glad we did though cause the cake was delicious!

Belated post from Christmas

So these happened at Christmas, but they were on my little sisters camera, and she finely sent them to me. My husbands favorite things in the world besides cheese is Cheesecake, and pumpkin anything.
So for Christmas my sister and I made him a homemade pumpkin cheesecake.

We even whipped fresh whipped cream to top it. This was her first time piping and she did a fantastic job!

Also to celebrate the holidays we decided cookies were in order.
Something chocolaty and fun. These are called fudgie wudgeys but my husband says they are chocolate orgasm cookies.

They are baked as little balls of chocolate fun and then rolled in powdered sugar when they come out of the oven. The recipe was from a set of cookbooks my stepmom got me called "With Heart & Soul" and "Heart & Soul: among friends"by Roxie Kelley and friends. These books are fantastic! They have the most darling illustrations in them and the recipes are phenomenal. So far we have tried four recipes from each book and every single one has gotten tasty results.

Here is me and my sister forming the cookies together.

Me and my sis cooking together.

Beautiful Wonderful Valentines Day

So for this Valentines Day I got off work and rushed home to make a romantic meal for me and my sweetheart to enjoy. As I walked in I found that he'd beaten me home. I told him I'm going into the kitchen to start making the food and am quite surprised when I see this.

This is the sweet love note he left me in a pot of gold.
Oh not just any pot of gold though....

My dream crock pot that I've been coveting for ages now, full of chocolates!
I squealed and screamed and tackled him with kisses. I was sooo surprised I couldn't believe it.
Already ideas of all the wonderful meals I can cook in it for us.
I then got to business making the stuffed acorn squash that he loves and steaming some vegi's to go with it.
Then he tells me that I need to go to the computer room. I'm thinking "oh no thats where I hid my gifts for him." I run up there hoping not to find my packages out of their hiding nook and instead find my computer chair inhabited by such a nice gift I almost didn't believe it was real.
He had gotten me a shiny new digital camera so that I can take better and more pictures for my blog.

12.1 megapixels can you freaking believe it. I'm so excited now my blog picts are going to be sooo much better, and now I want to go somewhere fun so I can take tons of pictures of us and family together!!
Oh no but it's not finished as crazy as it sounds there is even more.

Yes my friends to go with the shiny new camera is a shiny new photo printer, scanner, copier.
Are you kidding me. I feel like a princess!!!
Well after touching everything and trying out the camera we went down and had a romantic dinner, watched some anime, and had much snuggling and smooching.

I loved that as he was eating the squash he kept grunting and moaning "this is sooo good" "oh man this tastes soo good". Definitely stroked the cooking ego lol.

Dinner consisted of country sausage stuffed acorn squash, garlic toast, and steamed vegetables.
With beautiful green tinted wine goblets of strawberry sparkling cider.

It was so romantic, and cozy and wonderful. We both had such a fantastic Valentines Day.
I love any excuse for a celebration!!!
Below is David, my sweetheart. He spoils me rotten and is so kind and thoughtful. He has restored my faith in humanity as well as love. He really is my Paladin & Hero.

He came into my life when all I knew was despair. I was ready to give up on this world, and he showed me that there are still honest people, there is still chivalry, and most of all that not everyone is out just for themselves.
Thank you baby for bringing so much joy into this world.

I want to dedicate this poem to him which I read and it completely touched my soul. It was like feeling deja vu because it so described how I feel.

This poem is by Richard Watson Gilder, 1892

"I count my times by times that I meet thee;
These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons
and nights; these my old moons and my new moons.
Slow fly the hours, or fast the hours do flee,
If thou art far from or art near to me:
If though art far, the birds' tunes are no tunes;
If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes,
Darkness is light, and sorrow cannot be.
Thou art my dream come true, and thou my dream;
The air I breathe, the world wherein I dwell;
My journey's end thou art and thou the way;
Thou art what I would be, yet only seem;
Thou art my Heaven...
My ever-living judgment day."

I wish love and joy to everyone else this year as well, and hope you all had a fantastic Valentines day.