Dessert Tea

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, baking, birthday, family, food, party, projects, tea time

Tags

All Sparkled Up, baking, dessert, dessert table, food, party, Rosanna, tablescape, tea time

The timing was right… It was Rosanna’s 8th Annual Tablescape Contest, my daughter-in-law’s birthday, and I was finally healed enough to tackle an ambitious baking event. What better way to celebrate all three than with a Dessert Tea!

Dessert Tea table setting

Here is the table before I started adding all the desserts. I made the tablecloth from an old bedspread with fringed edge. (You can see scraps from that old tattered bedspread in the photos of Tea by the Sea. Crafters don’t waste any scrap. Ha!)

I adore Rosanna’s style and was hoping to enter her 2013 tablescape contest last summer. But we didn’t get the remodel done in time and I wasn’t very mobile back then. The china cabinet was emptied so we could move it around and all the china was stacked on two tables in the living room. That’s when I got the idea for a blue and white and yellow theme for a table.

This year, I thought about the Dessert Table theme for weeks. Each time I got an idea, I added it to my notes.

Four elegant mugs on a dessert pedestal hold the floral centerpiece.

After I decided on the serving dishes, I wrote a list of tasks, desserts and a tentative baking schedule.

There were two main focal points for the table, Rosanna’s elegant Luxe Moderne mugs for the centerpiece, and her La Mode fashion plates.
I used four of Rosanna’s mugs on a vintage dessert pedestal to make the centerpiece. I was so excited about this design. It has a lot of potential and I plan on using four mugs as a centerpiece base for other tablescapes.

Sugar cookies were painted following Rosanna’s designs on her mugs. I wrote about the cookies here. It was challenging to paint the designs! I have new respect for Rosanna’s design skill.

The fashion plates are so pretty!

These are not dresses, they are napkins! Small squares of fabric folded are diagonally and draped over a miniature hanger. A bit of ribbon and trim… and you have sweet petite dresses!

This server was made to accommodate round plates. But rectangle platters made for more interest.

This tiered server used to be bright red, yellow and blue but I painted it all white with acrylic paint. Instead of using round plates on the server, I used two rectangle trays on the bottom. It looked great!

Dessert Tea – Layered Desserts with Vanilla Bean Cake, Raspberry Mousse and Orange Gelatin with Raspberry and Mandarin Orange Slice.

To continue the fashion theme, I cut 6″ to 8″ squares of fabric for petite tea napkins and fringed the edges. Each napkin was folded and draped over hangers to look like dresses. Most were folded diagonally. Each was tied at the “waist” with ribbon, a little flower tucked in the waist and a small piece of trim was draped over the top to look like a collar.

I made the miniature hangers from pieces of coat hanger cut with wire cutters. One coat hanger made three miniature hangers. The metal cake stand was perfect from which to hang the napkin dresses.

The tea service was on the back of the table, behind the desserts. I wrote how I made the Sugar Bonnets here.

On the tiered server, top to bottom: Spritz, squares of Fudge and Shortbread, Butter Cookie Dresses.

I experimented with a new baking pan to make the Layered Desserts. They were delicious and so pretty! I will post the recipe some time.

The Layered Desserts looked perfect on the long rectangular tray.

I also made a Lemon Orange Cheesecake topped with Pineapple and a Marmalade Glaze. So delicious!

Dessert Tea – I didn’t have time to make round pastry shells. It was quick and easy to cut squares with a pizza cutter and place the pie pastry in the tart pan.

Dessert Tea – a table set with a delicious assortment of desserts: Layered Desserts, White Chocolate Praline Cake, Pineapple Marmalade Cheesecake, Cherry Tarts, Spritz Cookies, Fudge, Scottish Shortbread, Butter Dress Cookies, Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel Macadamia Frosting, Honeydew Melon Balls with Blueberries and a bowl of Cherries.

20 Fabric napkin folded to look like a dress on a hanger

Dessert Tea – napkins folded diagonally and hung on a miniature hanger, tied with ribbon and draped with lace.

Two bowls held Honeydew Melon balls and Blueberries and Cherries, garnished with fresh mint.

Cherry Tarts were on a glass dish.

I only had four covered glass dishes but that was enough to place four Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel and Macadamia Frosting.

The birthday cake was a White Chocolate Praline Cake with homemade Strawberry Raspberry Jam topping.

All together, the table looked lovely and the event was a huge success!

I submitted my photos and won an honorable mention in the tablescape contest… happy face! =)
My daughter-in-law was thrilled with her birthday, the girls loved the dress napkins and all our guests enjoyed the delicious desserts.
And it was the perfect event to celebrate the return of my health and stamina after such a long recovery. A sweet day indeed!

On my worktable – Dress Cookies

25 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, baking, food, On my Worktable

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

cookie, cookies, dessert, flow icing, food, painted cookies

Today I have cookies on my worktable. This is the second time I’ve topped a cookie with flow icing. It’s not too hard if you get the Royal Icing consistency right. Fortunately, we were glad some cookies didn’t turn out so we could eat them. This is the first time painting on a cookie. Easier than I thought and quite fun.
In the little dish – kirsch mixed with edible gold dust. In the shot glass – more kirsch that needed stirring into the mixture as it evaporated.

Painting the cookie with gold dust mixed with kirsch.

The designs were inspired by Rosanna’s beautiful white and gold Luxe Moderne mugs.

Crust-Lover’s Apple Pie

02 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

apple pie, baking, dessert, food, king arthur flour, pie crust, recipe, williams sonomas

Sometimes a gal just needs more crust.

Crust-Lover’s Apple Pie

I very loosely follow the recipe in this 2003 cookbook. Here is a similar recipe Williams Sonomas’ Apple Pie, but I use more apples, more brown sugar and less or no white sugar, triple the cinnamon, a little ginger and nutmeg. I don’t measure the filling ingredients. For the past 35 years, I’ve always used an assortment of apples in pies for better flavor, usually a couple Granny Smith for tartness, a couple Macintosh for extra apple-i-ness, and Rome or Gala for structure.

I discovered King Arthur Flour’s thickener – Pie Filling Enhancer, so now my pies aren’t soup-in-a-crust. The Emile Henry ruffled pie dishes are gorgeous and make any pie look extra delicious. The dishes also bake a better crispy crust than normal glass dishes.

But the crust… oh the crust! The recipe is probably in some cookbook somewhere because there are only so many ways to make a pie crust with few ingredients. It started out as a Good Housekeeping recipe and slowly morphed into a WS recipe with a couple tweaks.

Pie Crust

Whisk together:
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour (I always use King Arthur flour – it has the best flavor and is always consistent)
About 1/4 tsp salt
About 1 tsp sugar
Using a pastry blender, cut in:
2/3 shortening (NOT butter flavor stuff, just the regular white shortening)
1/3 cup unsalted butter
Cut in the shortening and butter at the same time till dough is craggy. If you cut the fats in too little, there will be too much flour when you stir in the water, making a glutenous, stretchy tough mess. If you cut the fats in too much, the fats will coat all the flour, basically greasing it, so you can’t add the water. At that point, your pastry will fall apart when you bake it. So the right amount of cutting-in has some small baby pea-size pieces of butter at the most but mostly looks like a lumpy powder.
Stir in with a fork:
About 6 tablespoons cold water. Sometimes you’ll need more if your house is extra dry, which drys out the flour too. But usually 6 or 7 tablespoons is enough. As you stir with the fork, the dough will almost lump together in one big mass. Press it together the rest of the way. There will still be little bits of yellow butter. That’s good because those bits mean a flaky pastry! Never knead the dough or it will get tough.
At this point, you can chill the dough to use later. I’m usually in a hurry and just roll the dough out between two pieces of floured plastic wrap for pie crust as usual.

Today my back was hurting wicked fierce and I had completely run out of decorative-edging patience. I didn’t do my usual pretty scalloped edging. I didn’t neatly trim the excess pastry from around the pie. I didn’t make cute cutouts for the top. With zero finesse I flopped the excess pastry on top of the vanilla-sugar-sprinkled pie and had one of the boys heft them into the oven.

This suits me fine. I’ve been known to make a pie crust, roll it out flat on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake. Eaten as is. So this pie, with it’s splendid mass of buttery pastry, meets my crust lovin’ appetite today. And the scrumptious apple filling is a bonus!

Cheers!

Just look at all that yummy pastry! Truly a crust-lover’s pie.

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde Cake – Part 4

30 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe, tutorial

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cake, dessert, food, joconde, mousse, PB & J, Peanut Butter, recipe, sponge cake

PB & J Joconde – Almond Sponge Cake wrapped around a layer of Chocolate Almond Sponge cake under a thick layer of Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Mousse and topped with Cherry Topping.

After the pan was lined with the joconde strip and cake, we made a batch of Peanut Butter Mousse. I’ve made vanilla and chocolate mousses many times so I just adapted a vanilla mousse with the addition of peanut butter and cream cheese.

Peanut Butter Mousse
1 pkg + 1 tsp gelatin softened in 3 Tbsp water.
6 Tbsp boiling water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz cream cheese
2/3 cup peanut butter

Stir the boiling water into the softened gelatin. Stir till dissolved. Set aside.
Beat sugar, whipping cream and vanilla until softly mounding.
Beat the cream cheese with the peanut butter until smooth.
Beat a little whipping cream into the cream cheese peanut butter mixture. Beat in the rest of the whipping cream until almost stiff.
Gradually add the gelatin mixture to the whipped cream mixture. Do NOT overbeat or the mixture will turn grainy.
Spread the Peanut Butter Mousse in the prepared pan.

I made mousse but I didn't measure all the ingredients. It wasn't peanut buttery enough so next time I will add more peanut butter.

When I made the mousse for this, I didn’t measure the peanut butter but it was about 1/3 cup. It wasn’t peanut-buttery enough so I made a second batch with 2/3 cup peanut butter (as in the recipe in this post) and that was much better.

I didn’t have any fresh fruit to make a jam topping so I used cherry pie filling. A fresh Crushed Blueberry Sauce would have been divine!

The finished cake was placed in the refrigerator for several hours. Six hours would have been better and made the cake slice better.

The cake is taken out of the springform pan.

I used a candy mold to make the chocolate shapes from Ghiradelli Bittersweet Chocolate.

There were rave reviews over our first Joconde cake. PB & Jam, dressed up to the max!

I’m looking forward to making a Lemon Almond Sponge with Pineapple Cream Cheese Mousse and Pineapple Mandarin Topping. Also a Raspberry rendition. And perhaps three crisp hazelnut dacquoise layers with coffee cream filling. The joconde was good just plain so we’ll be using the mat to develop some bar cookie recipes as well. All in all, we are very satisified with our first joconde cake.

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde Cake – Part 3

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, tutorial

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cake, dessert, food, joconde, mousse, PB & J

— PB & Jam Joconde – continued from Part 2 —

The beautiful baking mat filled with dough fit our oven wall to wall, with barely room to spare when we first put it in the oven. After a mere 7 minutes baking at 450, smoke started pouring out of the oven. We threw open the oven door to see the mat had swelled up and was buckled and spreading up the sides of the oven! We were so relieved that the mat wasn’t on fire or melting. But some of the batter was burning on the sides and bottom of the oven. No time for photos, we grabbed the oven mits and wrestled the oven rack and huge mat out.

The steaming cake is placed on the counter.

We’re still trying to figure out what caused the gently rolling hills on the cake since we had spread the batter fairly evenly. Most likely it was caused when the mat started climbing the oven walls and the batter pooled.

The next time we bake a joconde in our little oven, we’ll try a lower temp, maybe 400 or even 385 degrees since the mat completely cuts off circulation, especially when it swells with the heat. In order to maintain some heat above the mat, we might try starting the oven at 425, quickly putting the rack and mat in but then immediately lowering the temp to 385.

A greased cooling rack was placed over the cake.

The oven rack, mat and cooling rack are lifted together and flipped.

The mat quickly began to shrink down after being removed from the oven. But you can clearly see how it is still larger than the oven rack. The mat was still very hot here.

The siliconed mat was easy to roll back off the cake. The mat was still so hot that I dropped it back on the cake immediately after this photo was taken. We had to use oven mitts to lift it off the cake.

Blurry photo but Oh what a Beautiful sight! We were stoked that the joconde was a success, rolling hills, singed edges and all. I let out a whoop of joy!

We mixed any leftover chocolate and almond batters together and spread them in a 9.5" springform pan.

We mixed the leftover chocolate and almond batters together and spread them in a 9.5″ springform pan and baked it. It made a cake layer about 1″ thick.

The first strip of jaconde is cut and placed against the edge of the cool springform pan.

A second strip of joconde is placed in the pan to fill the gap.

Here I cut off the excess joconde with a sharp knife.

The pan lined with joconde.

The cake layer is carefully lowered and pressed into the bottom of the lined pan.

—Up next, the filling of the prepared pan with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Mousse and Cherry Topping in final Part 4!

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde – Part 2

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe, tutorial

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cake, dessert, food, joconde, mousse, PB & J

— Continued from Part 1 —

Continuing our PB & Jam Joconde, we had a large baking mat, the size of the entire oven rack, filled with chocolate batter that needed chilled. If we were an actual bakery, we would waltz our carefully prepped mat into the walk-in freezer and park it between the charlottes and wedding cake layers. But we’re not a bakery, we’re just a little family kitchen with a family size fridge with shelves that barely hold a fat turkey. So we had to get creative.

We figured that the object of freezing the batter was to make it firm enough to quickly spread a second layer of batter on without disturbing the design underneath. Freezing was out so we went for a good chill.

We placed a towel on the counter and covered it with ice cubes. Then we placed two half-sheet pans over the ice. This made a very cold surface on which to place the batter-filled mat.

But the oven rack under the mat created too big a gap between our cold source and the baking mat.

We didn’t want to remove the oven rack lest it disturb the surface of the chocolate batter so we placed a wet towel on top of the cookie sheets to transfer more cold up through the rack.

The wet cold towel worked and the mat and batter became cold. It wasn’t frozen but it was cold enough to stabilize the chocolate batter before topping it with the second layer.

A second batch of batter was made but without the addition of cocoa. (Note here how large the baking mat is. It is almost the size of our oven rack. The fit in the oven will be tight.)

To spread the top layer of almond batter without disturbing the chocolate batter, it was critical to push the batter over the chocolate layer without spreading back and forth, which would have stirred up the chocolate batter. This step was similar to the technique used in crumb-coating a cake.

Finally the mat was filled and ready for the oven.

The mat still on the oven rack was slid into the oven. The batter was stiff and cold so it didn’t run out of the pan.

A very tight fit indeed!

And then came the baking and our THIRD MAJOR Obstacle. If I recall, we figured 10 minutes at 450 should do it. But by the time we hit 7 minutes, smoke started pouring out of the oven. “The mat must be burning!” I yelled. “Maybe it’s melting!” he responded. “I told you the cake might burn.” he insisted. We threw open the oven in a panic and discovered ….

— To be continued in Part 3 —

We made up a new recipe – PB & Jam Joconde – Part 1

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, tutorial

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cake, dessert, food, joconde, mousse, PB & J, Peanut Butter

There are 43 photos with this entire post so I’ve decided to divide it up into 4 parts. I will post over the next several days so as not to slow down your connection.

A Joconde cake is a delicious, decorative almond sponge cake wrapped around layers of mousse, cake, fruit or other filling. I first discovered Joconde cakes online while surfing for baking equipment. Oh my, I did a double take at the amazing artistry of such a dessert! I didn’t know what it was called, I just knew I had to make one.

[Note about the photos: Two of my sons and I took photos of the process of making this cake. Please excuse the inconsistency in focus and style. My guys were great to kindly photograph when my hands were battered up. It’s important to me that skills are passed on to the next generation. So whenever possible, the guys get to do the fun stuff! And wow, their photos are great!]

We got the silicon baking mat from Laguna Wholesale. I chose a mat with a design that had the biggest “wow” factor for me, a geometric Greek Design with precise lines and sharp detail.

Even before beginning to bake, we hit our First Major Obstacle. We’re not a bakery, we’re just a regular family that likes to bake. And our oven is a regular home oven that happily obliges. The mat purchased was 23.64 x 15.76 x 1.18 inches. I should have measured my oven before buying the mat but was just too excited.

I have no pans that size to hold the mat. We considered making a custom pan since the guys can work with sheet metal. We considered cutting the mat in half and placing each half in a half-sheet pan. (Considering the expense of the mat, that was our very last and desperate option.) We considered covering a piece of cardboard with tin foil but weren’t sure if that would affect the heat under the mat too much. Finally, we decided to use just the oven rack itself. It was a risky tight fit, with barely 1/4″ clearance on the sides but we decided to go for it before trying something else.

I found various recipes online and then created one I figured would work. I’m very disappointed in myself for losing the recipe I scratched out on a piece of paper! I decided to use just egg whites instead of whole eggs and we didn’t have almonds so I used almond extract and extra flour for best batter consistency. The batter worked fairly well.

Unsalted butter and egg whites are beaten together for the first part of mixing the batter. I took this photo just because I loved how the slippery butter bits swooshed around the bowl of egg whites.

About a third cup of Dutch processed cocoa powder was beat into the finished batter then dolloped on the mat.

The cocoa batter was spread on the mat with a large offset spatula.

We spread the batter carefully into the design, hoping to press out bubbles.

After the design was filled, we carefully scraped off all excess batter, being careful to clean off the design so the second layer of batter would show cleanly.

After spreading the batter, we hit our Second Major Obstacle. The filled mat was supposed to be frozen for 5 or 10 minutes. We’re not a bakery, we’re just a plain home kitchen with a standard side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. The mat didn’t fit in our freezer OR our refrigerator. How would we freeze a surface the size of an oven rack?

—To be continued in Part 2 —

We finished off the Valentine’s Day cookies…

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe, tutorial, Valentine's Day

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

baking, cherry cordial cookies, chocolate, dessert, food, recipe, scottish shortbread recipe, shortbread, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day cookies

They were delicious! We kept it simple and made just two recipes: Shortbread Hearts and Cherry Cordial Cookies.

The Cherry Cordial Cookies recipe was from a Chocolatier magazine from years ago. I cut out the recipe and taped it into my recipe notebook. I should have written down the year but it was probably from the 80’s.

The Shortbread Hearts were made by slightly adapting our traditional Scottish Shortbread recipe. The recipe was handed down from relatives in Scotland for ages. The usual form is patted out into two rounds or pressed into a 9″ x 13″ pan and cut into squares. We always do the square thing just for simplicity.

Here is the original Shortbread Recipe, which takes just 4 ingredients.

Scottish Shortbread
1 lb butter (Note: We use 1 1/2 cups of unsalted butter and 1/2 cup of salted butter for best flavor)
1 1/4 cup fine sugar (Note: We use granulated sugar and process it in a food processor until it is less grainy. It should be half-way between granulated sugar and powdered sugar in texture when you pinch a little bit between your fingers.)
1 1/4 cup cornstarch (Note: Various Scottish relations argue over whether this should be rice flour or not. We stick with corn starch because we like the melt-in-your mouth texture of the baked shortbread.)
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (Note: We always use unbleached King Arthur flour for best texture and flavor.)

~ Knead ingredients by hand. (…um… we use a mixer…faster and way less messy!)
~ Press into a 9″x13″ pan.
~ Prick dough all over with a fork.
~ Bake at 325 for 50 to 60 minutes. The edges will be light golden brown but the top will still be pale. We usually break open a tiny bit in the middle of the pan to test for doneness in the middle, since these are very thick squares.
~ Cut while warm into 1″ squares.
~ Store at room temp for a couple days. Refrigerate air tight for several weeks. May be frozen, wrapped air tight, for over a month. (We’ve found shortbread in the freezer six months later and it was perfectly fine. It just has to be wrapped well in plastic wrap and then in foil to avoid picking up any off-flavor from the freezer.)

To make the heart shaped shortbread cookies, we added about 1/4 cup extra flour to the recipe to make the dough a little stiffer. The Valentines Day Conversation Heart Cookie Cutters were from Williams Sonoma.

Rolling out the shortbread. The cutters were from Williams Sonoma.

One side of the cutter featured Valentine’s Day sentiments, which were pressed into the shortbread. We also used a fork to press holes around the edges of the cookies.

Valentine Shortbread Heart cookies. We baked them about 20 minutes at 325 but don’t remember the exact timing. They’re very hard to ruin.

A little tray of Shortbread Heart Cookies and Cherry Cordial Cookies, ready for giving away.

A little tray of Shortbread Hearts and Cherry Cordial Cookies, ready for giving away.

The last three cookies, posing sweetly beside my vanilla bean coffee. I ended up not eating them though, I gave them away.

I didn’t take any photos when we made the Cherry Cordial Cookies but here is the recipe as printed in the magazine.

Cherry Cordial Cookies
1 pkg Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (NOTE: The recipe does not specify the size of bag. 1 cup of chips are used in the cookie dough and the “remaining cup chips” are used in the frosting.)
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups unsifted flour (We use King Arthur unbleached flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1 jar (16 oz) maraschino cherries

~ In double boiler, melt 1 cup chocolate chips over 1-inch simmering water.
~ Cream 1/2 cup butter with sugar.
~ Add egg, vanilla and melted chocolate; beat until smooth.
~ Combine flour with baking powder and salt (NOTE: salt is not listed in the ingredients so we figure this was a printing error. We use 1/4 tsp salt); add to creamed mixture, beating until smooth. Chill at least 1 hour.
~ Enclose 1 cherry in 1 tablespoon of dough.
[NOTE: Enclosing that cherry in the dough takes a lot of work! The dough is fairly dry so it has to be squished around the cherry, it can’t be rolled and folded around the cherry. We drain the cherries while the dough is chilling, otherwise, the dough becomes a gooey mess when trying to squeeze it around a squishy cherry. We put a tablespoon of dough in the palm and pressed a little hole in the middle of it to start. Then the cherry was placed into the hole and the crumbly mixture was pressed up over the cherry. Then we carefully squished the whole lump in our fists to close it all up good and tight. Finally, we gently rolled around the lump to make a nice round ball.]
~ Place on greased baking sheet. (Note: we used ungreased, parchment paper-lined baking sheets.)
~ Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 14 minutes. (ours took exactly 15 minutes)
~ Cool on wire rack.
FROSTING:
Melt remaining cup chocolate chips with 2 Tbsp maraschino cherry syrup and 1 Tbsp unsalted butter.
(NOTE: We used 1 Tbsp kirsch and 1 Tbsp maraschino cherry syrup)
Frost tops of cookies.
YIELD: 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

It was so tedious forming the Cherry Cordial Cookies that we vowed we would never make them again. But then when we bit into the deep dark chocolate cookie and tasted the exquisite cherry buried within, we decided to make these cookies our new Valentine’s Day tradition.

My Grandson turned two!

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, birthday, family, food

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

birthday cake, cake, construction zone cake, dessert, diagonal cake layers, diagonal striped cake, food, striped layers

I’m not quite mobile yet so my 19 year old son made the awesome birthday cake and my oldest son, Everett’s dad, took photos. We used our own recipes for the Vanilla and Devil’s Food Cake layers but followed this site for the construction of the diagonal layers. Totally cool cake for a little boy!

When he first saw the cake, two year old Everett placed his elbows on the table and just stared at the cake dreamily.

Checking out the awesome construction toys on the cake.

Getting more excited!

Moving in close enough to smell all the chocolatey goodness of the Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Oreos.

As soon as he realized he could eat the cake, he ran to the kitchen asking for a fork even before we lit the candles and sang. He paused his careful tasting long enough to blow out the two little candles.

Cutting the chocolate and vanilla layers to construct the diagonal stripes was challenging and took precision. I had never made a cake like this before so my son was on his own to figure it all out. He custom chose the recipes that he thought would work best. He did a terrific job!