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.

A newsy update and some pregnancy photos

Exciting things happening this summer!
And it's not even summer yet. Well, not officially anyway. It's beginning to feel a lot like it here though.

First off, my sister Georgia is coming to town. She'll be staying with us for awhile, about 6 weeks I think. It will be great to have her and have all kinds of adventures together. The best part, is I think it will really make these last couple months of pregnancy fly by. (That's a good thing right?)

Speaking of pregnancy, here's a little update on that. For folks like my family who may actually be interested:
I am (I think.) 29 weeks along. I think that's somewhere around seven months, but these days it's really hard to translate weeks into months and still know what the heck you're doing. Because 40 weeks is clearly LONGER than 9 months. And what baby comes on his due date anyway?

Here's a pikch:

And quite possibly the thing I'm most psyched about! (Except of course, about Georgia coming, of course.)
*drum roll*

I'm making a wedding cake!!!

Are you as thrilled as I am? No? Oh well!

Boy am I excited. I love making wedding cakes. It's such a glorious undertaking. It's just one of those amazing challenges that when you've accomplished the task you settle back and feel good.

And eat cake. And receive a lot of compliments.

And eat more cake.

This will be my fourth wedding cake. And this time, it's not for me or for someone to whom I'm related, so I feel like I'm really advancing in this career! My average so far has been a wedding cake every two years. So as you can see, this "career" is really hurdling a long!

Anyway, I feel my creativity bounding and springing in all sorts of new directions. Inspiration is flowing and the ideas are swarming. This most certainly will be my most amazing cake yet.

Have I mentioned that I love cake?

I also have some plans to learn to surf this summer. Ever seen a hugely pregnant lady on a surf board? Neither me, it should be funny. Though some might debate that I look "hugely pregnant." A lady told me I looked "a month pregnant" a couple days ago. Sheesh.

A month ago I looked like this:

Eh, about the same I guess.

That's about it. For the next few weeks I may not get around to posting simply because sisters and cakes are serious business. Plus it's summer and that's the time to be outside!

I need to go practice some cake meditation.... "Nommmm" (said like om, get it?)

Nevah mind....

Things I love Thursday: Dandelions

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love dandelions. I eat them and make them into things on a regular basis. Okay, on a springly basis. They're also very lovely to look at. And when they become little puff balls? ZOMG are they fun. I will spread those seeds like nobody's business.

Make a wish!

One thing we always do when dandelions come out is make wine of the petals. Mmm, by always I mean we have every year since we've lived in New Hampshire. (Dandelions don't really grow as abundantly in the lower parts of Florida).

Wine production of years past

In the four years we've been making it, and in the couple years before John moved to FL that he made it, we haven't yet found a perfect recipe. Mostly because we never remembered what we did the year before. We've tried at least 4 different recipes now. This year we decided to really buckle down and figure this out. Wine takes too long to to be so nonchalant about throwing it together. And while dandelion wine is relatively simple and since the main ingredient free, it's not an expensive wine,  it does take some work. After all, we have to pull all those tiny petals out of the bitter green calyx part. That takes time, baby!

Thems are some hot, manly hands... Oh! I mean, see what hard work that is?

Note the addition of tea cups to the process...

Especially when you consider how much of those petals you need.

This year, we made two separate batches, and I very carefully recorded all that we did for each one. One recipe called for six cups of dandelion petals, and one four cups. I'm pretty excited to taste and compare them.

But wine isn't all we make of dandelions. I've told you about pesto and fritters, which I repeated a few times again this year.

 There's also dandelion petal ice cream. The heavenly, light creamy confection that one friend of mine declared "tastes happy." It's true. This ice cream is happiness infused.

Unfortunately, I can't find where I wrote down the recipe, but I can gather from these two photos that I infused the petals into the milk and then pureed it all together. If you're adventurous, try it out. Make it up as you go or follow a vanilla bean ice cream and adapt.

 I think I may have strained it then, but I don't know. This one I haven't yet made this year because my freezer is currently too full to freeze the icecream maker bowl. If I do get a chance to make it, I'll post the recipe for sure.

You can also make a nice tea loaf out of the petals as I did one year.

I don't have the recipe I used way back then, but this one looks very similar. Try it out and be delighted by making something from your yard!

Dandelion potato soup is also a nice treat. Just follow a recipe for potato spinach soup (or even just potato soup) and put dandelions in instead of spinach. Puree and enjoy.

(If you haven't caught on to this yet, I'm using up as many past photos as I can find in relation to this topic. I meant to post most of these as their own thing, but as as per facts 4 and 5, this never happened.)

Two new things I've tried this year are dandelion tincture (extract) and dandelion vinegar.

Dandelion infused vodka, essentially

 Since I just started them a few weeks ago, and these things take a fair amount of time, I don't know how they turned out yet. But I'm excited. I may be able to add a lovely dandelion flavour to my desserts and dishes any time during the year!

So next time you think of trying to eradicate the dandelions in your yard, why not try eating them instead?

Real milk

For my birthday John has given me raw milk. He said I can buy 6 gallons (over a period of time, not all at once, of course). I've already bought one.

The good stuff.

I'm not sure he realized it cost 9 dollars a gallon when he pulled the arbitrary number of "six" out of his head. It seems a bit pricey for a birthday present....(Hey, we're cheap, what can I say?)

 But after we bought it he seemed to think that 9 dollars every other week or so actually wasn't too pricey for something so good.

I think it tastes amazing. John thinks it tastes "basically the same" as store milk.

It comes from a farm about 55 miles from our town. That makes me happy!

And as soon as possible I made a batch of raw milk yogurt. Cream top and everything  baby. YEAH. Take that Stonyfields. *angry face* (As a side note, I still haven't written to them, I need to get on that.)

Sally Fallon in Nourishing Traditions says not to heat the milk past 110 degrees when making yogurt from raw milk so you don't kill the enzymes. Last time I was at the store, I meant to buy a candy thermometer so I could keep track of such a thing, but I forgot.

So I decided I'd try using my regular human temp-taking thermometer. I washed it. Then I put it in my milk as it was warming up. When the temperature reached 109.3 I pulled the milk off the stove and put the thermometer down. It started beeping frantically, more loud and urgent than I had ever heard it before. 

Poor thing. It probably thought I was about to spontaneously combust with the worst fever of all time. 

Make yogurt, not fevers.

But the yogurt turned out good.

This is what happens when you put me in charge of the s'mores...

John and I and a group of friends planned a cook out for this last weekend; a bonfire on the beach with hot dogs and tin-foil wrapped potatoes smothered in the coals. And of course, s'mores. As far as I'm concerned, s'mores are essential to any fire-centered party being successful. Well, since I'm so adamant about marshmallows and chocolate melted between two slabs of sweet cinnamon-and-honey-crackery goodness, I found myself being placed in charge of the s'more round up.

I took my role very seriously. These would be the best danged s'mores of all time.

It started when I made marshmallows...

Last year I had learned to make the whipped sugary gelatin confections. They were scrum-diddly-umptious, bouncy and fluffy. More yummy than any store bought marshmallow could even imagine tasting. You don't even need corn syrup to make them.

 And the best part? You can flavour them. Any flavour you can imagine!!! ... Well, almost. I have a really vivid imagination when it comes to flavours and some pretty clever means of bringing them into existence...(though, I do say so myself. *cough*)

Of last year's production

Last year they were Earl Grey flavoured marshmallows. This year, inspired by pine edibilities, I made them...of course, Pine flavoured. But in case my very normal friends thought this to be too outrageous for their taste buds I made an alternate Vanilla Orange flavoured batch.

The result?
Oh heavenly goodness. How could such lovely perfection be wasted with nasty, grody, waxy, fake "chocolate" as those hershey "smore sized" bars? No no! I would have GOOD chocolate with my marshmallows and that was that.

But the prices. Oooohhhhhhhh the prices. A bar of silky, cocoa-y, marvelous Ghiradelli chocolate was ever so expensive. They were being priced at more than NINE DOLLARS A POUND. Even the yucky Hershey chocolate was more expensive than I imagined it could be.

So you know what I did?

I went to the BAKING section! Ah ha! Two 12oz bags of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips for $5! That's under four dollars a pound! (I think...) Who needs Ghiradelli to put their chocolate in bar shaped slabs for an extra five bucks a pound? I could do that myself!

And while I was at it I would sprinkle sea salt on them babies.

Noms.

Now that's chocolate. Better than any sub-par Hershey chocolate could ever imagine tasting.

Well, that settled it. If I was going to go "cheap" and gourmet at the same time (funny how those two coincide more often than many people might imagine) I'd simply have to make my own graham crackers too.

Yeah, I've done that before too. And they were fantastic. More delicious than any stale store graham cracker could even imagine tasting. So I did it again and they were the perfect top and bottom to my marvelous marshmallow masterpieces and my clever chocolaty concoction.

The cookout was amazing. Fire + food + frisbees = forever fun.. (I'm fond of alliterating, you know.) How could it go wrong? Okay, well it was on a New Hampshire beach in April, so yeah, it was cold too. But that just added to the adventure.

 And the s'mores?

 Yeah, you know it.

Absolutely amazing. Better than any combination of jet-puffed marshmallow, waxy Hershey chocolate and Nabisco graham crackers could have ever even imagined tasting. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only way to have s'mores.

Wish I had a photo of the final product, but my camera is not beach friendly.

Even my normal taste-budded friends were impressed. Please excuse me while I go and be smug.