WORD TO MY MOTHER

Happy Mother's Day!
 
I am a procrastinator. I need professional help. I am a rotten, rotten child. I fully intended to send my mother a card early last week. I went shopping, I forgot the card. I realized this on Thursday night. My mom lives in New Jersey and if I mailed it Friday, she never would have gotten it in time. I know what you're thinking, I should have sent it anyway. But I thought receiving it after the fact would be insulting to MY mom. She deserves much, much more than a Mother's Day card after Mother's Day. My mom ROCKS - and now I get to give you all a little background so you know why I think she's The World's Best Mom. After reading it, I know you'll feel guilty for wishing your mom was as awesome as MY mom. Don't worry, it'll be our little secret.

My mother hasn't always been my mother, biologically speaking. I have two sisters, and biologically speaking she hasn't always been their mother either. DNA is the one thing that precludes her being 100% my mother. But giving birth to a child does not a mother make, and in every sense of the word she is absolutely, unequivocally, without question, 110% my mother.  And she's aMaZiNg. (So is my Dad and so are my three brothers, but it's not about them!). My two sisters and I were adopted by our family in 1985. When we were adopted, I was 10.  Technically she's been my mom since 1981. In 1981, we became foster children and joined an already full house; three boys, all close to or over 18.  Who adds three more kids to the mix when you're sooooo close to having the house to yourselves after raising three BOYS? My mom does. And I am grateful to my core that she did. And I'm pretty sure she is not kicking herself. (Waiting on confirmation)

• My mom always made me feel special. No matter what it was, she always encouraged me, pointing out that I was good at something. I wasn't overly praised; she didn't think that everything I did was the greatest, but the stuff that I did have an affinity for she encouraged. She gave me a nudge in that direction without me realizing it at the time.
• My mother showed me what compassion is. She's a mush; gentle, with a heart of gold who loves people and animals. Mostly dogs but monkeys too. (Minkeys!) She's considerate and selfless and thoughtful and always thinking of others above herself, and she always thought of me.
• My mother is patient. I was a 'difficult' child. Strong-willed, stubborn, stupid and lacking judgement at times. So I was like most kids, only I was this way more frequently, and when I did it, I did it bigger than the normal, teenager would. Never really thought much about when she mentioned having my own kids who would one day act like me. And yep. What comes around DEFINITELY goes around as I can attest to in my own parenting experience. But she never gave up on me.
• My mom is fiercely protective of her family. There are no lengths she will not go to make sure her family is safe.
• My mom is fair, no matter what I said umpteen MILLION times when I was growing up. There was always a reason behind her actions. I never understood it then but that's one of the beauties of maturing. She was usually always right, but in the rare instance she was wrong, she was woman enough to admit it.
• My mom is a great friend. As a child who was, shall we say challenging, I never thought I would have the kind of relationship that I have with my mother today. She has been an immense source of support and wisdom, especially over the last couple of years. She listens, she advises, she doesn't judge.
• My mom loves me. She's even loved me when I made it hard (really, really, really hard) to love me. She showed me that love doesn't always come wrapped in pretty paper with a big shiny bow. She showed me that it may look a little different than what you expect. She showed me that love is not just the words 'I love you' but that genuine love is action in the absence of those words.She wasn't overly 'huggy and kissy' but she didn't need to be. Everything in my life only exists because my mom loves me.

In the early 80's, I met my mom. She didn't give birth to me. She never saw me take my first step. She didn't hear my first word. She didn't get to see all the cute stuff. In fact, she saw a lot of ugly stuff and somehow, she knew there was beauty beneath it and she patiently waited for it.

I know I haven't told her enough how grateful I am. I know I haven't said thank you enough. I know I haven't sent enough cards. But hopefully, by reading this, she'll know how much I appreciate her, how much I recognize what a brilliant woman she is. Hopefully she knows how much I respect her, how much I appreciate her honesty and cherish her friendship. But mostly, I hope she knows how very much I love her.

So here's to you Mom. Here's to all the moms out there who think that their children don't understand or notice all that they do. We really were listening, we really did pay attention.  And when we raise our own children (who are 10 times worse than we were) we will remember all the lessons you taught us. And when we hear our children say  'I'll never say that to my children', or 'I'll never ask my children to do that' or 'I'll never make my kids eat that', we will laugh hysterically and call someone who'll appreciate the humor. We'll call our mothers.

I love you Mom!

FIRST BIRTHDAYS

I've done a lot of First Birthday cakes recently and mom's are going all out for parties. First Birthdays are one of my favorite occasions. For me it usually means the beginning of a special relationship. I become 'The Cake Lady' for a family - a priveledge not too many get to experience. I also love being reminded of First Birthday's. It usually goes like this 'Hi. You did a cake for my little boy's/girl's first birthday last year.' or 'It's that time of year again! What flavor did we have last year?' 

The latest one I did was based on the invitations 'Mod Monkey'. This is the second time I have done this theme and still think the colors and monkey are adorable.

The design was based on a photo mom found on the internet, so I can't give credit to anyone, but isn't the design cute? The original cake had a two layer, side cake (I call it a smash cake) that was iced in chocolate with the monkey face on top and it was precious. I recommended to mom that we not do chocolate, that we do a fondant face instead (easily removed before demolition) and save mom the battle of chocolate cleanup in the midst of the party.  I wish I had gotten that advice before my first born dug into his cake which happened to be chocolate. Pictures were fun, cleanup not so much.

In the next few weeks there will be Second Birthday's celebrated and hopefully some tutorials on accessories for a Pirate theme. Arrrrrrrr.

CUPCAKES DELIVERED TO YOU IN GREENVILLE, NC

I am excited to tell you that in the coming weeks I will be delivering cupcakes to Greenville and Winterville, NC.  I am currently ironing out the specifics. If you work/study/live with people who might enjoy a cupcake (or two!) on Mondays and/or Wednesdays and you would like me to add your location to the route, please let me know ASAP. I will be stopping at the ECU campus, residence halls, local businesses, fire stations and police department and around the hospital. If you are not a fan already, become one on Facebook here. Or follow me on Twitter here. I will be updating my Facebook and Twitter pages with up to the minute locations, specials and flavors once I am on the road.

My last post I promised pictures of the Scooby Doo run-in from a cake last weekend. Unfortunately, I have children who think that if they can reach it, they can use it. And they reached my camera. The settings were changed and it won't take a picture. I couldn't even get a picture of the cake. My apologies to those who were waiting to see the tutorial.Once I fix the settings on it I will do another. Cross my heart.

SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? TUTORIAL TO FOLLOW

He'll be making an appearance on my cake this weekend! Since I haven't posted in a while (rut roh) I am going to post pictures of a cake-in-progress when I do it this weekend.  The order is for a 9 inch gluten-free yellow cake for a five year old who likes Scooby Doo. I will use the same technique I did for George on this cake.  Isn't he cute?

The technique is called run-in sugar aka run sugar, or flooding.The pattern was transfered to a piece of fondant (more on that this weekend), outlined in a thick glace and filled in with a thinned glace. Scooby will be done with this very technique.  The 'Glace' recipe I use is courtesy of Toba Garrett, an amazing decorator. You can see her work here.  From what I remember (I have been using it for years) the recipe was an alternative to royal icing for cookies. I prefer it as it tastes great and doesn't dry rock hard like RI.  If you would like a copy of the recipe just email me.

The cake will have some fun colors and funky flowers on it like the ones on the instantly recognizable van Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Freddie drove around in.

See you this weekend!

SNACK JUNKIES

Let me give you a bit of history about this first.  Do you have children? We have three. And if you do have children, you may understand this. You may think I am a horrid, selfish woman akin to Cruella De Vil for doing such a thing but that won't stop me. In our house, the kids mostly like what we like, especially when it comes to snacks. And sometimes we go to great lengths to ensure there will actually be certain snacks available when we get the hankering for them.  We hide them.  Go ahead, flog me now. But first hear me out. Have you ever had an intense craving for something? Have you gone to the pantry only to find that the package containing your heart's desire has been put back.....(gasp) empty? Do you know how frustrating that is? If you have ever found yourself near tears because of such an atrosity, you understand. (I know if you have kids you're nodding your head wildly and if you don't, you're snickering). Well this terrible act happens here. A lot.  Not to mention we have a 13 year old son who is 6'2", 190 pounds with a size 13 shoe and a 34" waist who could completely demolish a weeks worth of groceries in three days. So now that I've explained our need to harbor food, let's get on to what we stash. Me? I love chocolate and hazelnut, so it's Nutella and Ferrero Rocher. There just isn't a more perfect bite in my opinion. Well, maybe if they salted the hazelnuts in the center first.....

My husband? He's much more simple and it's Oreos for him. Just plain Oreos. No doubled filling, no chocolate coating, no special flavors like mint or peanut butter. Just regular ole Oreos and a big glass of cold, red top, full fat milk. The horror!  He just likes his milk to taste like milk, not white water.

Anyhow, on Tuesday, my world halted when I was grazing my favorite blogs. I came across a recipe for homemade Oreos. Stick a fork in me. I made them last night and have to say, they are wonderful.  And I don't even eat Oreos. But these are SO much better than what you buy at the store. Little investment, huge payoff.  I am my husband's hero. For now.

The original recipe is courtesy of Smitten Kitchen. Check her recipe because I changed the amount of sugar and salt in mine. The original says you can mix this in your standing mixer or food processor. I opted to use my KitchenAid food processor which I love almost as much as my KitchenAid standing mixers.

In the bowl I have 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 cup of sugar. It calls for salt but I left it out because I only had salted butter on hand.

I pulsed this a few times (just to combine it) and added 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of room-temperature butter. Pulsed it again a few times and added 1 egg.  I started scooping before I snapped the picture so you'll have a little more than this. It's got a cookie dough consistency.

I lined two jelly roll sheets with parchment and used a small scoop to measure the dough.  It's the easy way to get uniform cookies which matters to me, especially with sandwich-type cookies.

The recipe says to flatten them a little. Since I had two sheet pans, I flattened one more than the other just to see if they'd bake up different and found no noticeable difference in size or texture.

Bake at 375 for 9 minutes and cool.

The recipe gives you a recipe for the cream filling, but since I am a cake decorator by trade, I always have buttercream on hand. So I just used that. Since I don't have the pictures of that I will give you a great tip if you ever use decorating bags. Make a sleeve for your icing!

Lay a piece of plastic wrap on your counter. Put your icing in the middle, right up to the edge closest to you.

Bring the left side of the plastic wrap over top of the icing, then the right side. Think swaddling a baby.

Take the plastic from the back edge and twirl it (like a bread bag) and bring it down on itself towards the front edge. Then just drop it into your piping bag. I used a disposable bag for purpose of demonstration so you could see it.  When your 'sleeve' is empty just pull out the plastic and drop in a new one. It's so much easier than loading a new bag and makes cleanup easier.

Since I did four columns of cookies on my tray, I flipped all of them over, piped the filling down columns one and three. 

Then I put the tops on them pushing down gently. This step is a matter of preference and depends on how much filling you like. When you're making the filling it would also be a great time to add extracts. I would love mint, raspberry, cherry or some fresh peanut butter. If you add peanut butter you'll probably need to add more powdered sugar so the filling isn't so loose.

Mine did not come out like the recipe photos on SK's site. They looked more chewy than mine. Nevertheless, I'd say this recipe is could be very forgiving if you mess up and your results will still be delish.

Since I am the only one in my family that lives in North Carolina and often send edible gifts to my family in New Jersey, Texas, Philadelphia and Florida, I am always looking for recipes that will travel well and keep fresh. These fit the bill perfectly and I will definitely be adding these to future packages.