Rainbow Cake

Last weekend we had my parents and sisters over for supper and cake to celebrate my parent's birthday's and anniversary.  Since it happened to be on St. Patrick's Day I thought it would be a great time to try out a rainbow cake.  I have after all pinned rainbow cakes at least 5 times on Pinterest I'm sure.  I used the recipe from The Little Epicurean but I just put regular buttercream frosting on it.  I think this is the first cake I have made where I didn't have crumbs all through the icing.  Just seeing all that colour makes me happy!

Here is Mom & Dad with their grandkids (missing Grace).

Happy Pi Day

I don’t know about you, but I totally get a kick out of the idea of Pi day.  You know March 14th… 3.14…. Pi…. Math, remember that.  Maybe it’s the nerd in me.

Anyway, Happy Pi Day!

Go make a Pie.

Croissants

I've been wanting to try making Croissants from scratch for a while but knowing that I had to start them two days before we planned to eat them I could never get the timing right.  Friday night after we put the girls to sleep Curt suggested I get them started.  I wasn't all that impressed with the idea at the time, since I generally shut down and do nothing after the girls are in bed, but am I ever glad I did it.  I followed the recipe from the book French Women Don't Get Fat, by Mireille Guiliano.  I found the instructions at shesingsatthetable.com and thought her commentary on the recipe was quite humorous as I went along.  After the initial preperations on Friday night they needed some attention twice on Saturday and then the final steps took place on Sunday morning.  I was up early so the Croissants came out of the oven just in time for breakfast.  Curt whipped up a quick batch of chocolate honey to have with them and we sat down to enjoy.  

They were amazing and I will definitely be making these again.

 Would you look at that flaky goodness, mmmmmmmm. 

Needless to say the 12 croissants did not last until lunch time that day.

Milk Bone Cake

We got together this last weekend to celebrate a few family birthdays at my parents house.  My brother Jesse, sister Courtney (and my parents dog Téa).  The joke in the family is that since Téa's birthday is on the same day as Courtney's we celebrate them together with equal importance.  I'm sure after four years the joke is getting a but old for Courtney, but the rest of us find it quite funny.  When I told Curt that we would be making the cake for Jesse, Courtney and Téa he knew just the cake he wanted to make... a dog bone.  I gave him my "really Curt" look but I could see by his face that he was doing this.

Immediately after supper I made up my favorite chocolate cake recipe and a quick crumb coat of icing then I left the rest to Curt.  This was Curt's second  cake working with marshmallow fondant and although he fought with it a bit it worked out quite well.  The writing says "Happy Birthday Tina, Love the Family" and at the bottom in tiny, tiny writing says "and Jesse & Courtney."  I couldn't let the extra cake that we cut way to make the bone shape go to waste so I tried my hand at making cake balls (cake & icing mixed together, rolled into balls and then dipped in chocolate).  It was a bit of a late night, but we had alot of fun together making this.

The Cake was a hit and OMG the cake balls were delicious!

 

Happy Birthday Jesse, Courtney (& Téa)!

Team Buchan Does The Impossible

Curtis & I accomplish alot of things but last week we did something I never thought was possible.  We broke the KitchenAid Mixer!  This thing is supposed to last a life time, you are supposed to be able to pass this down to your Great Grandchildren or something. 

Curt was using the mixer to make the dough for his hand pulled noodles (this really deserves its own post) and the mixer started to sound like it was struggling.  I then heard an "oh no, that's not good".  The motor for the mixer was still running but the beater was not turning.  My first reaction was "I can't believe YOU broke MY KitchenAid Mixer!"  OK, we are married, everything is supposed to be OURS but that's MY mixer.  I use that mixer several times a week, it makes me bread every other week, cookies, cakes, I even used it to mash up my tomatoes during our tomato extravaganza this fall.

I am glad that it was Curt using the mixer when it decided to die because we immediately jumped into our roles.  Curt started to investigate & take apart the mixer while I jumped on the internet to look for possible problems & repairs.  I was able to find what we thought to be the issue and even a tutorial on how to disassemble the mixer and get the worn part out.  We had apparently blown the worm gear which is supposed to break to save the motor when it is under too much stress.  We found the gear inside the greasy mess that is inside the mixer and got it out.

Being that Curt is a purchaser for an oilfield supply store he knows how to get parts fast.  Those patch workers don't want to wait for anything, no matter the cost.  He gave me some tips on how to find the part and get it shipped out quick.  I was able to find my replacement worm gear and we had it in our hands the next day.  I could have gone a little longer without the mixer but Curt was worried that if we took too long to get the part he wouldn't remember how to reassemble the mixer properly.  So all in all I was without a mixer for 2 days and it was a $45 repair.  Sure beats the cost of a new mixer.

The lesson for everyone to learn.  If you mixer sounds like its struggling when you are mixing something, stop the mixer immediately (it actually says this in the manual).  The KitchenAid Mixer is not invincible.  However if you do break the worm gear, have no fear it can be fixed.

Happy Mixing!

Without The Web

Our internet air card died last week and I have spent the last week without my favorite addiction. I was nervous but it was actually no problem at all. Knowing the internet was not there I did not feel the pull to just check one thing and then get stuck staring at the screen looking at all the cool things I could be doing but not actually doing them. I'm not sure exactly what I did in the last week. Work on the house? Nope. Spring cleaning? Nope. My sewing machine did make a few appearances on my kitchen table and I managed to finish this cute little apron for Nollie. Of course we had to make a batch of cookies as soon as it was done to test it out.
I'm glad to be back online and excited to keep crafting.

Scones

I made some scones fore breakfast yesterday...
and of course I had some help. The littlest of my little girls was up on the counter to assist me. After I confiscated everything fun from her (eggs, measuring cup of milk, mixed dry ingredients that she was scooping onto the counter) she settled on just putting Craisins into a measuring cup and eating them. This kept her busy while I finished up the mixing. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught her dump the cup that she had filled with Crasins into the flour container. Now really, why would you fill up a scoop if you couldn't dump it out, isn't the dumping the best part. No worries, a quick sift & I had the Craisins all out. I should have made a cake with all that nicely sifted flour.
The recepie called for orange zest and the only oranges I had were manderine oranges and just so you know they don't zest well (I had to try). Instead I opted for lemon zest alowing me to use up one of the lemons from the giant bag I bought.

Side Story: A couple of weeks ago I was having a bad day. The girls had been sick & I had been stuck in the house for most of the week. Since everyone was feeling a little bit better I was going to head to town for a necessities grocery trip. First my van wouldn't start (it wasn't even cold outside). Thankfully we bought a trickle charger that you can boost from so with the girls already strapped in I was able to get the van going. I went to back up and got stuck in my driveway. Agh, it makes me mad just thinking about it. I struggled with getting out for a while before a nice couple stopped by to help me. I was then on my way and completely flustered and so I made some ridiculous purchases at the grocery store, one being a giant bag of lemons. I didn't even need one lemon but that big bag full of brightly coloured fruit just looked so good. I guess I needed something to brighten my day.

Oh, the scones turned out great. Mmmmmmm.