There's Nothing Quite Like These Cakes - Especially The Doll Cakes!

Some of my earliest memories of birthday parties had me sitting in a chair propped up on pillows so I could reach the table, like the picture shown above.

It's too bad the picture above is a black and white photo.  What you can't tell from the picture is my cheeks were bright red and I had a fever.  I was sick but there was no way I was going to miss my birthday party.  I'm sure you all have memories of such times.  There is no way you can go through childhood and not remember a time when you were sick and should have been in bed, but wanted to attend the birthday party.

I can remember family birthday parties as well as birthday parties filled with some of my childhood friends.  There would be birthday cakes with candles to blow out, ice cream, party hats, those old fashioned party horns that you would blow into, and presents.

My older brother and I were "Irish Twins" because we were born 10 months apart.  So, when I was very young for the family birthday party when one of us had a birthday the other one would get presents, too.  I guess it was just easier for my folks and grandparents to give both of us presents at each others birthday then to deal with the fallout of one of us not getting presents that day.  That way neither one of us was jealous of the other getting presents when we didn't and we ended up having two family birthday parties. Sounds like a win-win.

In the early years my mother always made the birthday cakes.  As I got older I always wanted to make the birthday cakes. A lot of the time I didn't get to as my Dad and brothers inevitably wanted a white cake with white frosting loaded with coconut.  I hated coconut and never had a piece of their cakes.

I never had a piece of this cake.  I couldn't stand the smell of it. The reason is I had made the mistake of eating a whole package of coconut snow-balls on a dare from my older brother and ended up upchucking the whole bunch. As a result and to this day, I can't stand the smell of coconut. If someone asks me what kind of dessert I want for my birthday I always say lemon meringue pie. So, when it came to birthday cakes I let my mother make them.

Like most young girls from the "baby boomer" generation I learned how to cook from my mother. We'd bake cookies, cupcakes and cakes. I loved cookies and cupcakes, but really wasn't a big fan of cakes. 

I loved baking small things like cupcakes because you can easily decorate them. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when the Easy-Bake Ovens for girls came out. I could make all the little cakes and cupcakes I wanted. Unfortunately, my first attempt at a cake in the Easy-Bake oven didn't turn out so well. It was hard as a rock and inedible.  Subsequent attempts, however, were a hit.

Nowadays I'd have to really step up my game as cakes have become an art  form.  I suppose it was always an art form for bakeries and the very talented bakers who made them, but nowadays there are all sorts of video's and tutorials out there to teach you how to make some of the most amazing art cakes you'd ever want to see.

They even have beautiful doll cakes.  Now for the doll maker and lifelong doll lover, for that, I'd actually like cake.  Then there's the dog and animal cakes. All I can say is "Wow!"  I'd love to create a cairn terrier cake based on a picture of my "beloved" Bud. 

I've always wanted to learn how to make those fancy decorated cakes, just for learning how to make the floral decorations, but have never had the time. However, it's on my craft bucket list which I have to alter to add making a doll cake.

In the meantime I set-up a Cake Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating Cakes Pinterest board and have been adding all sorts of delicious looking cakes to it.  Enjoy!

Cake Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating Cakes

I would love to learn how to create beautiful cakes. If you would love to learn this, too, perhaps these tutorials, video's and how-to's will be helpful.

If you love my Cake Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating Cakes board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

Have fun making your cakes - especially your doll cakes.

My Cupcake and Cupcake Making Recipe Pinterest Board

I have loved flowers, floral design and floral crafts since I was a little girl.  My love of flowers was fostered by my next door neighbor's beautiful English Garden. I was mesmerized by the colors and textures of the various flowers.  I can remember just standing there admiring all the beautiful flowers and thinking of creating a beautiful bouquet with them.

While I loved all the flowers my favorite was always the dahlia.  It never mattered to me whether it was a spider dahlia, anemone dahlia, cactus dahlia, waterlily dahlia - it didn't matter.   I loved all of them.  Every time I planned a garden I planted dahlia bulbs.

When I was 8 I decided I wanted to have my own garden and wrote about this experience in my "Wonder What The Birthday Flowers Will Be Next Year?" post.  It was definitely a learning experience and one I never forgot.

I think being mesmerized by my neighbor's beautiful garden at and early age fostered  my love of all things floral, including floral crafts.  While I absolutely love fresh flowers and can be mesmerized for hours at their shear beauty, unfortunately, they just don't last.

That's what drew me to naturally dried floral and then silk floral in the late 1980's and early 1990's.  The silk floral last for decades and if they get a little banged up, you just re-do the floral arrangement.  It's hard to do that with fresh flowers.

I've always admired the beautiful floral creations that bakers created for their beautiful cakes and often wondered how they did that.  I even thought about trying that but just never had the time.  Plus, given I really don't like cake and, when crafting, tend to prefer smaller creations, when the cupcake craze became a mania in the early 2000's I thought floral cupcakes might actually be easier to create than a large cake.

However, with a lot of crazes I have they never come to fruition.  They're still on my bucket list and I still hope to learn how to create them.  In the meantime I set-up a Cupcake and Cupcake Making Recipe Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating and Making Cupcakes Pinterest board filled with all the amazing cupcakes I have found. 

Aside from lack of time, with the amount of free YouTube video's, blog tutorials, and how-to's out there I have no excuse for not learning how to do this.  They even have e-classes showing you how to create these amazing little works of art.

Cupcake and Cupcake Making Recipe Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating and Making Cupcakes

If you love my Cupcake and Cupcake Making Recipe Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating and Making Cupcakes Pinterest board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

Have fun making your cupcakes - especially your floral cupcakes.

Memories To Be Cherished Of Cookie Making Marathons

 

One of the things I always looked forward to during the Christmas season was my multi-day cookie marathons with my mother. There's nothing quite like the smell of cookies baking, the scent of Christmas candles burning, and the festive atmosphere of a busy kitchen during the holiday season.

And, there's nothing like working with your mother in the kitchen when you're both totally in sync and have similar cooking habits.  Not only did she teach me how to cook when I was a young girl,  but she taught me her cooking and kitchen style.  As a result, whenever we cooked together we were always in a perfect rhythm.

For many years my Mother and I would reserve 3-4 days in the weeks before Christmas for our annual cookie marathons. We would spend two days baking cookies and then one day packaging the cookies for our friends, loved ones, and several senior centers and nursing homes.

Every year we would select the cookies we would be baking from our list. For the most part we kept making ones that we knew were really good. Once in awhile we would add a new cookie, but it had to be exceptional to bump another cookie off the list.

Sometimes we added fudge and chocolate candies that we'd made.

We knew that our cookies were good - how could they not be with many, many years of experience honing our cookie making skills? As our list continued to grow we even had people asking to be put on our list. So, of course, we added them and the list continued to grow and grow.

During this period we really took over the kitchen, the dining room, the family room and the sun-room. Let's face it during our cookie marathons we basically took over the house. There were tables everywhere for cooling the cookies or cookies on cookie sheets waiting to go into the oven or tables for the bags of finished cookies. Everywhere you looked there were cookies, but the smell was irresistible.

Of course, before we ventured to do this I had already decorated the house for the Christmas holiday season.  I decorated the dining room with my carolers scene, which is shown in the picture at the beginning of this post.  I also decorated the kitchen, family room, sun-room, living room and outside of the house.

During our cookie marathons hubby would spend a day or however many days he needed to do his Christmas shopping and my mother and I would bake.  Before we began however we always put the Christmas carols on.  The house was decorated to the hilt, the carols were playing and there was the smell of cookies baking.  What could be better than that.

During the Christmas season hubby and I would inevitably attend one of the larger and more popular craft shows in our area. One show, in particular, always had a fudge booth which I loved seeing. I couldn't resist all the different types of fudge. I wanted to try making some so I started saving fudge and candy making recipes I thought might be good.

During one of our cookie marathons I told my mother I wanted to make some fudge and candy. She thought it was a great idea. Given how we were distributing our cookie containers and the time frame involved with doing so we decided that we would only make fudge and candies that didn't require refrigeration and selected several types of fudge we wanted to try. We created the fudge and then put each into a long rectangular Tupperware container for setting and then put it into a large cooler we had in the garage so it could set overnight.

The following day my mother and I emptied the containers and went to cut them. They were too big for us to easily cut so hubby lent a hand and cut them into 1" by 1" cubes. With the fudge done we started making the cookie recipes we had decided on. Since we had the fudge we didn't need quite as many cookies that year

It was a good thing we both were really organized and had similar kitchen styles for baking, washing, and cleaning up. While one was putting the cookies in the oven the other was taking cookies off the cookie sheets for cooling on the racks. While one was adding new cookie dough to the cookie sheets the other was washing some of the dishes. While one was mixing new dough the other was adding the cooled cookies to the plastic storage bags.

Two cooks in the kitchen spoils the brew was never a true adage during our cookie marathons or anytime we would be in the kitchen together. It was more like a Mother and daughter so in-tuned with each other they would be reading each other's minds at exactly the right moment. Knowing exactly what to do without speaking a word.

Oh, what fun we had. What warm memories to last a lifetime.  Memories to cherish and, now, times to be recalled but oh so missed.

Over the years I've seen pictures of some scrumptious cookies and cookie recipes and thought it might be nice to make them. So I kept copies of them in a 3-ring binder. 

As you can imagine my folder got quite large so you can imagine how happy I was when Pinterest came along.  Not only was I able to store as many recipes as I wanted to try but could organize them as well.  A definite win-win.  So, I set-up a Cookie and Cookie Recipe Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating and Making Cookies Pinterest Board.

Cookie and Cookie Recipe Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating and Making Cookies

When my  other and I were  making cookies they looked like what you would expect cookies to look like.  Well, nowadays, cookie decorating has become an art form with all sorts of methods for creating some of the most beautiful cookies you could look at.  They are simply gorgeous.  Especially the Victorian ones.  Now why would I think that...... Hmmm.....  Cookie making has become a recognized art form.  How great is that.....

Over the years when I've seen different fudge and candy recipes I thought might be nice I'd save the recipes to a folder. As you can imagine this folder also got quite large so a fudge and candy making " I LOVE Making Fudge and Candy" Pinterest Board was a perfect solution for storing recipes I wanted to try. So, here too, I set one up.

 I LOVE Making Fudge and Candy

If you love my cookie, candy and fudge boards board please follow my boards by clicking on the links above.

Have fun making your cookies, fudge and candy.

My Birthday Cakes Tutorials Pinterest Board

Like most young girls from the "baby boomer" generation I learned how to cook from my mother. We'd bake cookies, cupcakes and cakes. The latter I wasn't particularly fond of as my brothers favorite birthday cake was white cake, white frosting, and coconut sprinkles everywhere.

I never had a piece of this cake.  I couldn't stand the smell of it. The reason is I had made the mistake of eating a whole package of coconut snow-balls on a dare from my older brother and ended up upchucking the whole bunch. As a result and to this day, I can't stand the smell of coconut. If someone asks me what kind of dessert I want for my birthday I always say lemon meringue pie. So, when it came to birthday cakes I let my mother make them.

I loved baking small things like cupcakes because you can easily decorate them. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when the Easy-Bake Ovens for girls came out. I could make all the cakes and cupcakes I wanted. Unfortunately, my first attempt at a cake in the Easy-Bake oven didn't turn out so well. It was hard as a rock and inedible.  Subsequent attempts, however, were a hit.

I've always wanted to learn how to make those fancy decorated cakes you see in the bakeries but have never had the time. However, it's on my craft bucket list.  In the meantime I set-up a Cake Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating Cakes Pinterest board and have been adding all sorts of delicious looking cakesto it.  Enjoy!

Cake Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating Cakes

I would love to learn how to create beautiful cakes. If you would love to learn this, too, perhaps these tutorials, video's and how-to's will be helpful.

If you love my Cake Tutorials, Video's and How-To's for Decorating Cakes board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

Have fun making your cakes.

Cookie Making Marathons, My Love of Fudge, and My Fudge and Candy Pinterest Board

One of the things I always looked forward to during the Christmas season was my cookie marathons with my mother. There's nothing quite like the smell of cookies baking, the scent of Christmas candles burning, and the festive atmosphere of a busy kitchen during the holiday season.

For many years my Mother and I would reserve 3-4 days in the weeks before Christmas for our annual cookie marathons. We would spend two days baking cookies and then one day packaging the cookies for our friends, loved ones, and several senior centers and nursing homes.

Every year we would select the cookies we would be baking from our list. For the most part we kept making ones that we knew were really good. Once in awhile we would add a new cookie, but it had to be exceptional to bump another cookie off the list. Sometimes we added fudge and chocolate candies that we'd made. We knew that our cookies were good - how could they not be with many, many years of experience honing our cookie making skills? As our list continued to grow we even had people asking to be put on our list. So, of course, we added them and the list continued to grow and grow.

During this period we really took over the kitchen, the dining room, the family room and the sun-room. Let's face it during our cookie marathons we basically took over the house. There were tables everywhere for cooling the cookies or cookies on cookie sheets waiting to go into the oven or tables for the bags of finished cookies. Everywhere you looked there were cookies, but the smell was irresistible.

During the Christmas season hubby and I would inevitably attend one of the larger and more popular craft shows in our area. One show, in particular, always had a fudge booth which I loved seeing. I couldn't resist all the different types of fudge. I wanted to try making some so I started saving fudge and candy making recipes I thought might be good.

During one of our cookie marathons I told my mother I wanted to make some fudge and candy. She thought it was a great idea. Given how we were distributing our cookie containers and the time frame involved with doing so we decided that we would only make fudge and candies that didn't require refrigeration and selected several types of fudge we wanted to try. We created the fudge and then put each into a long rectangular Tupperware container for setting and then put it into a large cooler we had in the garage so it could set overnight.

The following day my mother and I emptied the containers and went to cut them. They were too big for us to easily cut so hubby lent a hand and cut them into 1" by 1" cubes. With the fudge done we started making the cookie recipes we had decided on. Since we had the fudge we didn't need quite as many cookies that year

It was a good thing we both were really organized and had similar kitchen styles for baking, washing, and cleaning up. While one was putting the cookies in the oven the other was taking cookies off the cookie sheets for cooling on the racks. While one was adding new cookie dough to the cookie sheets the other was washing some of the dishes. While one was mixing new dough the other was adding the cooled cookies to the plastic storage bags.

Two cooks in the kitchen spoils the brew was never a true adage during our cookie marathons. It was more like a Mother and daughter so in-tuned ;with each other they would be reading each other's minds at exactly the right moment. ;Knowing exactly what to do without speaking a word.

Oh, what fun we had. What warm memories to last a lifetime.

Over the years when I've seen different fudge and candy recipes I thought might be nice I'd save the recipes to a folder. As you can imagine my folder got quite large so you can imagine how happy I was when Pinterest came along. A fudge and candy making Pinterest Board was a perfect solution for storing recipes I wanted to try. So, I set one up.

 I LOVE Making Fudge and Candy

I LOVE making fudge and candy and I'm always on the lookout for new recipes to try. Here's a few that look yummy!

If you love my I LOVE Making Fudge and Candy board please follow my board by clicking on the links above.

Have fun making your fudge and candy.