A few weeks ago, Nicole e-mailed me to ask if I’d be interested in making a cake for her upcoming baby shower. Her mom (the shower host), was looking to have a variety of decadent cakes, but Nicole also wanted her to include something baby-themed.
After doing some browsing online, I sent her a few cute options. Nicole chose the baby carriage cake. I was excited because I had wanted to take a crack at this thing!
I met Nicole when we were both planning our weddings, when we both went to a “knottie get-together.” She got married a month after we did, in July. Now, she and her husband, Gabe, are expecting their first child in June. The baby’s gender is going to be a surprise, so the cake had to be gender-neutral. I loved how this cake used both pink and blue.
The cake was made out of two 9-inch round layers. I cut out the carriage and handle from one of the layers, then cut the two small wheels out of the other. I torted each layer so that I could put a thin layer of buttercream and fresh sliced strawberries in between.
The decorating went pretty smoothly, aside from the basketweave. I was rusty since my cake classes were so long ago, and I was having issues remembering what order to do the pattern in. I’m going to be honest; I wanted to throw my decorating tools across the room a couple times! But the fact that this was a paid job kept bringing me back to get it done, and get it done right. I eventually figured it out (thank god).
I made extra batter and made a small 6″ round cake for my grandma’s birthday (which was today), too. I couldn’t make a strawberry cake without making extra for us to try! I will post the recipe tomorrow.
Nicole, I hope you enjoyed your baby shower (and brought home lots of loot!). I hope the cake was well received. Congratulations again to you and Gabe!
Today is NFL Draft Day. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know that football is a big deal in this household. For as long as Michael and I have been together, we’ve always made a bit of a fuss over draft day. Mostly just with football food, and um, football beer. But still. It’s fun.
A few weeks back, I came across this recipe for homemade pizza dough over on Dinner with the Bickfords. I’ve never made homemade pizza dough before, but this recipe appealed to me because 1) It is made in the breadmaker, and 2) It contains beer. Need I say more?
At the time, I sent the link to Michael, and he agreed that we had to give this a try. It wasn’t long before we realized that Draft Day was coming up, and wouldn’t you know–pizza with homemade dough certainly fit the occasion.
We spent much of the early day out and about, enjoying the weather. We took Tessa for a loooong walk, and soaked up the opportunity to have every window in the house wide open. Also, since it was so warm, it was nice to not have to spend much time in the kitchen preparing dinner.
The dough came together really easily. If you make this, you’ll have to check your particular breadmaker, but on ours, the dough setting takes an hour and a half. I tossed all of the ingredients into the pan, snapped it into the breadmaker, and then totally forgot about it until it beeped at me 90 minutes later.
The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute some whole wheat flour for some of the all-purpose flour that was originally called for. I have reflected that change in the recipe posted below. If you don’t like whole wheat flour or don’t have any on hand, simply use all-purpose flour for the entire 2 1/2 cups of flour required for this recipe.
Don’t forget to prepare yourselves with the “flat beer,” too. Since we knew we were going to make this in advance, we cracked open a beer last night, measured out a cup of it, let it sit out for a while, and then stuck it in the fridge until we needed it today. It worked well (it was definitely flat). If you haven’t planned ahead, you can always pour the beer into a cup and stir the crap out of it, or you can put it in a container with a lid and shake it to get all of the carbonation out (have fun with that!).
Once the dough was complete, I stretched it out evenly into our pizza pan. We topped it with store-bought pizza sauce and our favorite toppings. We always have “his” and “her” sides of our homemade pizzas. I generally stick to turkey pepperoni and onions, while Michael loads his side with turkey pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, and olives (and usually some extra cheese).
The resulting pizza was fabulous. The crust was a great thickness–not thin, not overly thick. It has a really interesting flavor (I assume from the beer). There was almost a tangy flavor to it, and it was quite enjoyable. We will definitely, definitely be making this again.
Bread Machine Pizza Dough
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)
Ingredients:
– 1 cup flat beer
– 2 tbsp. butter
– 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
– 1 cup whole wheat flour
– 2 tbsp. sugar
– 1 tsp. salt
– 1 packet yeast
Directions:
1. Put beer, butter, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast in a bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer (ours says to put wet ingredients in first, then dry, then yeast). Select Dough setting, and press Start.
2. Remove dough from bread machine when cycle is complete. Roll or press dough to cover a prepared pizza pan (I lightly sprayed our pizza pan with cooking spray). Brush dough lightly with olive oil. Cover and let stand 15 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
4. Spread sauce and toppings on top of dough. Bake until crust is lightly brown and crispy on the outside, about 25 minutes.
It is 80+ degrees here today. We are all taking advantage, including little Tessa girl. This is her favorite thing to do on a sunny day.
When we take her outside, she immediately flops over into the grass, to feel the sunshine on her belly. She also expects us to give her belly rubs (we always oblige).
It is one of her little quirks; one of the many things that makes her our little Tess.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
I’ve never been one to be afraid of change. I’ve always thought I’m the kind of girl who can roll with the punches.
These last few days, however, I’ve started to realize that I may not be as good with it as I thought. The thing is, I think most of the change I’ve experienced in my life has always been GOOD change. So, really, what’s so hard about that? What’s not to like?
At the end of the day, what I’m going through right now is NOT a big deal. So I have to move offices. I am no longer going to get to see and talk to my coworkers (who have become close friends) on a regular basis. I keep telling myself, so what? It’s not like anyone has moved hundreds of miles away (they are simply on the other side of my company’s property, in a new building). It’s not like anyone has died.
So why am I so damn depressed?
Yesterday was moving day for my three officemates. They packed everything up, movers came, IT came to fetch their computers. We had an awesome last day together. Laughed, gossiped, went to lunch, laughed some more. And at the end of the day, we all walked out together for the very last time. I was fine.
I got into my car and fell apart. I cried the whole way home.
Seriously, what is wrong with me?
I was able to pull myself back together relatively quickly last night, and I figured that reality was finally beginning to hit me. Kept myself busy at home, went to bed last night, woke up this morning… all pretty normal.
And then I get to work this morning, open the office door, and wouldn’t you know… there was no one on the other side of it to greet me. No “good mornings” from my friends. No phones ringing. No talking. And worst of all… no laughing. (Oh, and no swearing. I’m going miss the f bombs, too.)
When I first had to move up here last July, I was not happy about it. I was moving away from the people who I actually work with, and was moving upstairs to a different division, simply because space was tight throughout the whole company, and these guys had a vacant office for me to inhabit. I really had no professional connection to these new officemates; there was no logical reason for me to be housed within their space. I knew who these people were, but had had very little interaction with them, so I didn’t know them.
Before I knew it, I had become a part of them. I felt like a part of their team, even though I wasn’t. When they moved yesterday, I wanted to go with them.
And so this morning, where my friends used to sit, there are empty chairs. The desks that used to be filled with pictures and personal items, phones, computers, papers, bottles of water… they’re all empty.
Honestly. So depressing.
The thing is, we all spend so much time at work. Aside from home, this is where I spend a good chunk of my life. I’ve been at this job for nearly three years. And for the past nine months, I had a really, really good thing going. I was happy here. Work was fun.
Now the fun is gone. The life has been completely sucked out of this place.
Where I’m moving to? Not fun. I’m moving back to where I used to be, but with half as many people left down there. It’s going to be quiet; it’s going to be a ghost town. I know them all well, for they are my true coworkers. We share job functions, and work together on projects. A couple of them are my bosses. They’re all nice people; I can’t complain.
But they aren’t my friends.
My new office isn’t ready yet. It’s being painted today, and I will officially move on Monday. Until then, I am all alone. I didn’t think I’d mind being up here by myself for a few days, but this is horrible. I’m just reminded of how things used to be. One thing’s for sure: I need to get the hell out of here.
I know I’ll get used to this, and all will be fine. But for now, I can’t help but wish that things would just go back to the way they were.
I miss my friends. And they miss me.
Disclaimer: I know there are far worse things in life. I know I’m being a bit dramatic. I’m just sad. I need to wallow for a few days. I’ll get over it; I promise.
Once again, I am moving offices at work.
I won’t go into all of the details now, since this is a recipe post, but the bottom line is, my officemates and I are going to miss each other. Terribly. So, today, which is our last day before the big moves start happening, we threw ourselves a little going-away-from-each-other breakfast.
These ladies have been enjoying and complimenting all of my baking for the last nine months. And so, I thought it only appropriate that I make something new and fabulous with which to send them off.
Enter the blueberry scones from Katie over at Good Things Catered.
It’s no secret; when I’m looking for a recipe that I really need to be good, I often turn to Katie. And since I had never made scones before, I needed a fail-proof recipe.
Well, after the fiasco I ended up having with the dough last night, I wasn’t sure these were going to be fail-proof. The problem was that when made according to the directions, my dough was wayyy too sticky. Quickly, I googled “scone dough too sticky” and found some information on the Joy of Baking that talks about how different flours absorb different amounts of liquids, blah blah blah. The solution was, as I suspected, to add more flour. So I wrestled with the dough, I added more flour, I wrestled with it again, and repeated. REPEATEDLY. I ended up adding wayyy more flour (at least a 1/2 cup more) than the recipe called for, and I was sure something was not right.
And THEN I went back to the Joy of Baking site and found WARNINGS posted ALL OVER the scone recipes about not overworking the dough. Basically, DO NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH OR YOU WILL END UP WITH RUBBERY HOCKEY PUCKS FOR SCONES.
Um, whoops. By that time, I had mixed and remixed and mixed some more due to my adding extra flour a little at a time. I was sure that my scones were doomed.
But finally, I got the dough to a point where I could actually work with it, roll it out, cut it into pieces, and transfer my scones onto a cookie sheet. Defeated, I wrapped up the pan and stuck the scones into the freezer for fresh baking in the morning.
Today was a new day. I preheated the oven while I showered, then stuck my frozen scones into the oven. And I baked them. And baked them some more. Added a few more minutes onto the timer. And another couple of minutes. And a few minutes more. (They required probably an additional 10-15 minutes of baking time since they had been frozen.)
When they were finally brown and scone-looking, I took them out of the oven, threw them into a container, snapped a few pictures (aren’t they pretty?), covered them with some clean dish towels, and ran out the door to work.
The blueberry scones made their debut once I got to work. At first, my officemates just wanted to see them. And sure, they looked great, but I was still nervous about biting into one of them. Imagine my surprise when I took my first bite and… well, they were perfect.
COMPLETE success. These scones are just the right amount of “crunchy” on the outside, and light and fluffy in the middle. They have the perfect amount of sweetness, and the blueberries make them fabulous. And knowing what I know now about needing to add extra flour? These things will be a cinch next time I make them. Really. So easy.
Blueberry Scones
(Source: Good Things Catered)
Ingredients:
– 2 cups flour + 2 tbsp. + 1 tbsp. (may need additional to get dough to the correct consistency)
– 1 tbsp. baking powder
– 3 tbsp. sugar
– 1/8 tsp. salt
– 6 tbsp. butter + 1/2 tbsp., chilled
– 1 tbsp. vanilla
– 1 cup half and half, chilled
– 2/3 – 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.
2. In small bowl combine frozen blueberries and 1 tbsp. flour and toss to combine. Place blueberry mixture into fridge or freezer.
3. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
4. Take butter out of fridge, cut into chunks and add to flour mixture. Cut butter into flour until pea sized or smaller.
5. Add vanilla and half and half and mix in with a spoon until just barely incorporated.
6. Take blueberries out of fridge or freezer and knead into mixture until mixture forms a ball of sticky dough. (It should be on the “sticky” end of the spectrum, but it needs to be solid enough that you can work with it. Add additional flour until you reach workable consistency.)
7. Turn dough out onto floured surface and pat down into rough 9-10 inch circle. Cut into 8 triangles and place triangles onto prepared baking sheet at least an inch apart. Take 1/2 Tbsp butter and cut into 8 small pieces. Place one small piece of butter on top of each scone. (At this point, you should wrap up the pan and freeze them if you aren’t baking them immediately.)
8. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes. (For frozen scones, don’t defrost them, just pop into the oven and start off at 20 minutes baking time. Keep adding time, watching the scones closely, until they are a nice, golden brown and the edges look sort of crispy. I baked mine for around 30 minutes.) Serve warm.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
