A wedding cake!

It's been, like, forever.... *ashamed-toe-in-dirt-expression* I know. *cough*

Anyway!

Remember that wedding cake I made in May? Here's a photo

I made that. Magical, yes?

Here's another:

I made two ten inch cakes besides the actual wedding cake so that at the party, people could enjoy cake and look at it too. Plus there were a lot of peeps at that party. It was a lot of cake. So, clearly, it was a very successful party. :)

Here's me.

Tada! A cake.

It took me like, a week! And a few weeks of planning and prep before that. Here's a few photos of production, if you're interested. (I know you are.)

Mix the flour and baking powders, salt, etc. Mix butter and sugar and eggs. Mix them together and add some buttermilk. Repeat like 12 times. Phew.

For the 32 cups of buttercream, I did this step a lot:

Eggwhites to fluffy clouds. I then stabilized them with sugar-water boiled to the hard candy stage.
 But before I could whip egg whites, I had to separate them from their yolky side-kicks...

yigh....It took like 4 dozen eggs!


 And then- I added butter.

LOTS OF BUTTER

Like, a gajillion pounds of butter.

And homemade vanilla extract, measured in a heart tablespoon, for extra love:

The process made like, a gajillion cakes...

But it also made about the same number of dishes...

That's like, hardly a fraction of the dishes I ended up doing. Thankfully I baked the whole thing at my church's kitchen and had these ENORMOUS sinks to use. I could have bathed while I did the dishes, if I was so inclined....(I wasn't)

Then I crumb coated each and every layer.

Imagine this, times 10.

And then filling and stacking:

2 ten inch cakes 2 layers each, and then the wedding cake, each with two layers, a 12 inch tier, an 8 inch tier, a 6 inch tier....Do the math. That's a lot of cake.

And a lot of frosting and filling....

But it was made with love, and I had a helpful sister along!

She read to me and kept the tea coming. So I was able to pull through.

See that stove clock? It says 9:34. That's pm. We pulled some late nights on this project....

The final step was assemblation. That's a real word you know...

Dowels keep it from collapsing into itself. Very important, despite not being edible...

And then, I frosted it!

And decorated it!

Have another look at that beauty. Really, just look and be inspired by awe and majesty.

And have some cake, it's on me.

No really, I had a lot of cake on me by the end of the whole thing.

It was really good. I ate a lot of it. And received lots of compliments. And ate lots of cake.
The end

P.s I'm 40 weeks pregnant and 2 days, now, and the contractions this morning amounted to nothing special. Just thought you might like to know. I'd post a picture, but my new camera is still being figured out...

p.p.s Georgia also took quite a few of these photos, but I'm not sure which ones. Give her credit, though.

p.p.p.s I'm now realizing how many times I used the word "like" in this post. Forgive me, but I kind of think it sounds good, so I'm not editing it.

Summery Update

Summer is full of activity and adventure. It's hard to find time to stop all the fun and actually take time and record it all sometimes. I've been pretty bad with writing here and even my photo taking has been slack lately. With all my running around and picking berries, making sun tea, going to the beach and delving more into herbalism I just keep forgetting that I need to keep track of it all!

Yesterday, I picked a quart of wild black raspberries. I haven't yet made my mind up about what I want to do with them. I'll need another 3 quarts to make a gallon of wine (according to one recipe, at least) and I'm not sure if I want to put that kind of effort in. It's pretty hot out there, even in the morning! Maybe ice cream, hmm.... Got any ideas? I don't want to just eat them, after all that work!

We've spent some time at Plum Island at John's parents house. They're doing some remodeling including adding 2 decks (besides upgrading their first one). One is a roof top deck and the view is incredible!

Looking to the west south-west

East-northish

We went up to have a look before the actual deck was on, and the only way to get up is by ladders. Soon there will be actual decking and some spiral staircases. I'm really excited to see it done, it'll be some cool architecture.

Of course there's been sun tea:

 

And some very pretty flowers!

Lilies

Roses

Purple and White (Anyone know these?)

Echinacea

We went to Odiorn State Park for Independence Day

 Our group went geo-caching....

There was a tupper-ware in the crags of the rocks....

Which is really great for the pretty hikes you get to go on...

Path through arched trees

 

I crocheted my first hat! I felt inclined to go to my pastor's daughter's baby shower and thought it would make a pretty decent gift. Cheers for youtube.com tutorials!

Baby Beanie

John models the fab hat

And probably the dumbest activity of the summer thus far! *drum roll, please*.......
I made cupcakes!.......No trust me, it was a dumb idea. It was probably the warmest day of the year yet and so humid and muggy. Not only do you not want to be turning your oven on for 30 minutes, but you also don't want to be creaming sugar, beating eggs, whisking flour OR whipping whites and boiling sugar water for buttercream. At least the butter softened fast...

And they tasted good. Earl Grey cupcakes with chocolate orange butter cream.

Not to mention these fail cute hello kitty and flower decorations....

I got the recipe from Katiecakes, and made the buttercream from Joy of Cooking with lots of alterations. I kind of preferred them without the buttercream, though. The earl grey flavour was delicate but really good and the buttercream sort of stole the show. But they were still yummy. Also, the recipe is in metric, which really throws me, but you can use this handy calculator for translating it into American measurements.

We also went to Old Songs Fest, but that deserves its own post; coming soon!

Oats, glorious oats.

The title is a quote from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. Oats are good for horses, but they're also very good for people too! Not to mention very tasty.

Awhile back, I ran out of whole wheat flour and wouldn't have a chance to get to the store for a couple days. I had plenty of all purpose flour but to me, baking with only all purpose flour in a recipe is inconceivable. Even when I make cookies or brownies I'll substitute part of the all purpose flour for whole wheat. Well, I decided I simply wouldn't bake for a couple days, not until I had some whole wheat flour. Probably not possible for me. I'm a baker, I bake. Moreover, I have a reputation for being a baker. Our friend called and asked if I could make some bread for Bible study's dinner (she was making soup). I agreed, though unsure of how I could possibly make a loaf of bread without whole wheat...Then I thought of it! Oats!

I ground the oats a bit in my food processor so that they were of the consistency of very coarse flour and I used about two cups of them in place of all purpose flour in my french baguette recipe. That night at Bible study I received more compliments on my bread than usual. I was very pleased with the outcome.

The next morning, being Saturday, I fancied pancakes for breakfast. This time, I didn't hesitate but pulled out my oats and made some delicious, hearty banana walnut oat pancakes. And that night, when for dinner I felt like making biscuits with our stew, oat biscuits was a no-brainer.

Here are my modified recipes:

This recipe is adapted from Local Breads by Daniel Leader. I have greatly simplified the directions, but if you are very into baking bread then I highly recommend this book. He goes into the science and the art of  baking bread, everything from starters to how to knead, shape and bake dozens of recipes. And there are lots of beautiful photographs as well.
The oats and beer are my additions, feel free to make them any shape you want if you don't prefer baguettes.
 Parisian Daily Bread (with oats)
1.5 c. water, room temperature
1/4 c. beer, room temperature
1 tsp. yeast
1.5 cups ground oats
2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp salt

Combine water and yeast in a large bowl. Add everything else and stir until water is absorbed and a shaggy, clumpy dough is formed. Cover bowl and allow to sit for 20 minutes. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for several minutes until it is a smooth elastic-y dough. Add more flour if necessary but try not to add too much. Let the dough rest for about two minutes and then knead again for a few more minutes. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and allow to rise about an hour. Give the dough a light turn and let rest another 45 minutes to an hour. Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle some cornmeal onto it  Turn out dough onto floured surface and divide into 3 equal parts. Shape each lump into a long baguette and place on cooking sheet. Preheat oven to 450. Allow to rise for 30-40  minutes, the baguettes will rise a bit but not quite double. Give them three slashes each and set into the oven along with a cake pan full of water, bake 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

The pancake recipe is from memory, so use with care. If you're okay with tweaking recipes to make them fit your style, feel free to go for it. If you are an exact recipe person, you might not want to use this one until I have a chance to double test it. You can, of course, do whatever you want, but don't say I didn't warn you!
Oatmeal Banana Walnut Pancakes
1.5 c. all purpose flour
1 c. ground oats
1/2 c. rolled oats
1.5 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 and 3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 tbs vinegar
2 tbs molasses
2 mashed bananas
1 egg
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, mash the bananas and add the milk, oil, vinegar, molasses and egg (tip: if you measure the oil first and then use the same utensil to measure the molasses, it will allow the sticky stuff to slide right out.) Combine wet and dry ingredients and add walnuts, stir until just combined. Add milk or flour as necessary to gain your desired pancake consistency. Cook as you would any pancake recipe. (sorry, haha, I'm getting lazy)

This recipe is straight out of Joy of Cooking, I only replaced 3/4 cups of all purpose flour with ground oats. If you prefer to use one of their other biscuit recipes, you can probably make the same substitution with good results.
Oat Biscuits
1 c. all purpose flour
3/4 c. ground oats
1 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4-6 tbs cold butter
3/4 c. milk
Blend dry ingredients. Cut butter into flour until the size of small peas add milk. Stir until a dough forms and then turn out onto a floured surface. Knead 8-10 times. Roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/2 to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place rounds onto a greased baking sheet and bake at 450 for 12 - 15 minutes.

Do you bake with oats a lot? Have you ever ground oats in a food processor to make oat "flour"? Let me know if you try any of my recipes, I'd love to hear feedback!

Also! Of great import: Tomorrow, my husband and I are departing for Key West. We'll be gone for a little over a week. I'll take many pictures and post when I get back. See you later!