Curly Chocolate Cake

One of my favorite dessert cookbooks is the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Desserts.  I have made several cakes from this book and they all have turned out DELICIOUS!!!  Better than many cakes that I have gotten in restaurants or specialty dessert stores.  I am working on getting my results to "look" like they do in the book, but have been quite happy with how the results "taste".  That's the most important thing anyway, isn't it?  I have the 1991 version that I got from a little gourmet kitchen store where I used to work.

The first cake I made from this book was the Curly Chocolate Cake.  I made this for my good friend Kim for her birthday.  I wouldn't make this for just anyone...but Kim is a special friend.  A lot of care went into this cake and it was fun to make.  It was covered in chocolate curls which took some time to make.  Here are some before and after shots.

Kim was happy with it which made me happy!  She has always been extremely supportive of my baking hobby and I really enjoyed baking for her.  Baking with her was fun too!  We spent a couple of weekends baking and decorating millions (literally, it seemed like) of cookies!  I will post more on that later.  Miss you Kim :o)

Scrappin' Jubilee Blog Now Live!

So, I decided to create a blog for scrapbooking-related posts. It is called Scrappin' Jubilee and I just wrote the first post tonight (Well, this morning). I have been working on the design of the blog for a while. I know it looks pretty plain, but I wanted it to be white so that the focus is on the images versus the background. I played around with the html coding to make the columns wider too. I'm learning a lot about blog design, but it is time consuming!

Anyway, check it out! Please follow that blog, if you are so inclined!  No pressure! *please*


See ya on the flip side!


Steph

Oh, Lolly lolly lolly...

Yeah, weekly lollipop pic my patootie! The summer is winding down and I'm feeling like I've got more time to post on a regular basis...but please, all 9 of you...don't hold me to it!

So, here's a lollipop pic for August. I thought they were sort of early fall-ish from a color standpoint. These are Yummy Earth Organic Lollipops. They are allergen-free, casein-free, soy-free, dairy-free, kosher, pesticide-free, nut-free, organic-certified...yada yada yada. But do they taste good? Here's a great write up from thenibble.com where you can read up on the certain flavors. The ones pictured are cleverly named Orange Squeeze, Cheeky Lemon and Pomegranate Pucker. I guess they are less sweet than most l-pops because they use cane juice and are pretty tart. Other flavors such as watermelon and raspberry still need some work. Wonder if they have a sensory panel helping them with the flavor profiles {wink}. Available at Whole Foods and other fine food stores and health food stores. Let me know what you think of them.

P.S. I have not tried these nor do I endorse them, but I think the photo is cute!

Later!

Stephanie

Summer Update

It has been so long since I have posted that I almost forgot how! This summer has been crazy busy and I have had little time to blog unless I stay up really late...and let's face it, I need all the beauty sleep I can get! I was on the planning committee for my high school reunion that happened in July. I barely survived and I think I'm still recovering. Planning an event like that is pretty stressful because people have such high expections for their reunion. I'd say it was very nice...the hardest part is managing the budget because you start off with $0. The entire event is paid for with registration fees. The other hard part was finding everyone. We only found about half of the graduating class and only about 1/3 of them actually came. Luckily it all worked out fine. I think most everyone had a good time.

Dad's knee is healing very well. He's been fishing and doing some yard work. He's even resumed cooking and grocery shopping...all is pretty much back to normal.

I have finished my Jamaica scrapbook and have moved on the the second book. I have been using my spare time shopping for "scrap crap" but not as much time actually scrapping. The hoarding tendancies are definitely working their way into this hobby. I have been resisting it for so long, but the hoardies have been unleashed. I will never be able to use all of the stuff I have purchased, even if I scrap day and night for a decade. Here is a picture of my first scrapbook page. I used DCWV Citrus and Travel paper and some miscellanous embellishments and bling. Cricut cartridges Life is a Beach and another one that I'll have to add later. Hope you like it! More to come, I'm just tired since it has now taken me 1 hr to complete this post!

Wow! It's been a while...

I can't believe how long it has been since my last post! So much for "lollipop pic of the week" too! I decided to scratch the "week" part of that and just post a new L-pop pic every month instead.

My dad had knee replacement surgery 2 weeks ago and I've been helping my mom out w/ the cooking, shopping, babysitting, etc. Whew! Talk about a 2-week crash course into what it will be like to take care of a family!! All in all everything went well. Grammie, with her dementia, has been a bit hard to manage and the little nephew and cousins are having one crazy summer! In addition to this, I've been working on the 20-year HS reunion which is coming up in 3 weeks. Gulp! I can't believe it has been that long...and I can't believe how behind we are in the planning!!!

Surprisingly, during all of this, I've managed to get some scrapbooking done. I just completed pages 6 & 7 of my very first scrapbook endeavor. I am working on a book of my Jamaica trip from 8 years ago. It has been fun and I'm really getting into using different techniques and styles to support the images taken during the trip. I plan to post my pages soon. In the meantime, I'll just post another card that I did a while back. This one was for my cousin's birthday. I used the Four Dolls clear stamps from Hero Arts again. I just think they are so adorable, so I try to use them a lot!

For this card I also used the new Die Cuts With A View "Summer Dream" paper (purple floral) and solid textured cardstock in coordinating lavender and purple. The "celebrate your day" stamp was from My Sentiments Exactly! Cupcake B-Day clear stamp set. The glitter flower brads are Oriental Trading company. Hope you like it!

Stephanie

Cake + Magnum = YUM!

This post is a special tribute to a couple of my blog followers, Fran and my Mom. But I hope you will all enjoy...the Magnum P.I.--Tom Selleck--Hairy Birthday CAKE!

Now, I wish that I could claim this as my own masterpiece, but the true artist is alicia policia and I swiped this from her very cool blog because I had to share it with you. I was so excited when I discovered this gem. Alicia is an artist illustrator who carries her talents over to the cake decorating world. I love it!

This post is dedicated to Fran and Mom because they both love Magnum (Tom). Fran, did you ever see the Magnum P.I. series finale? Is this not THE coolest cake you've ever seen? Sigh...jealously pours through my veins...I wish I was the one who created it! Way to go Alicia! Thanks for the eye candy!

Asian Girl Birthday Card

So, I haven't been very good at blogging more than once a week. Mainly because I've been busy making cards for friends and family who have birthdays this month! I have one more birthday and Father's Day to finish for June, but several more to come in July. Here is one that I did for my sister. Her birthday was June 1st, but we haven't celebrated it yet otherwise I would have given it to her by now. My inclination is to just keep the card because I have become very attached to it like it is my own child. I find that I am feeling this way about all of my cards...I take pictures of them so that I can remember them always. I'll probably end up making a scrapbook of pictures of cards I've made. Sad.


For this card I used Hero Arts Four Dolls and Asian Elements clear stamps and Oriental Trading's Build a Cake clear stamps, the paper is Oriental Trading's Far East. I used the Provo Craft Cuttlebug to emboss the moss green paper. The ribbon is also from Oriental Trading's Far East self-adhesive ribbon collection. Then added a little bling using a pink paper flower and jewel.