A little pumpkin treat

With the craving of our pumpkin this year, I decided to roast the seeds for a yummy snack. This is something I used to do all the time as a kid, but hadn't done for my family yet. And because I live with a bunch of picky eaters, I thought it might be fun to try some different flavors on our pumpkin seeds, in hopes they might try them.

The recipe itself is super easy. Separate the seeds from the membrane. The website I was following suggested soaking the inside of your pumpkin in cold water to help the seeds free themselves from the goop. Well, they didn't just unattach themselves magically, but it was pretty easy to separate the seeds once they had soaked. I placed my seeds on a paper towel and let them dry overnight. Now for the roasting part...preheat the oven to 350. Once the dried, toss the seeds in 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. Lay the seeds in a single layer on a sheet pan. Here is where you get to have fun. The three flavors I chose were cinnamon sugar, traditional salt and a caramel crunch mix from Pampered Chef. You could really do anything sweet or savory. Place in oven for 15 minutes and then you are done.

I think my favorite are the caramel crunch, although I have to say all are really tasty.  Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!

Can you hear me now

This past weekend, was our neighbor's birthday. His wife Melissa asked if I would be able to make a cake for him, and of course I said yes. Now Mike is very into his cell phone. Loves the little device. And because of that, a cell phone cake was a must. Melissa and I were very sneaky and I was able to take pictures of Mike's phone on my phone to help me recreate it. The cake was chocolate with a chocolate fudge filling, covered in vanilla buttercream and good old marshmallow fondant.

Melissa texted me later that the cake was a big hit and that Mike loved it.

When I first saw Mike's phone I really liked the dandelion on the screen, and I'm pretty pleased at how that came out here. I hand painted it on just using some white and black food coloring.

Hooters

This past week, I made a birthday cake for a friend of ours who was turning 40. 10 years ago when she was turning 30, my husband and some of their other coworkers took her out to lunch to celebrate her birthday. The one thing is they told her they were taking her to one restaurant and ended up taking her to Hooters. So, because of this legacy, the party organizers (her husband and one of her old coworker) wanted to have a cake with a Hooters feel to it. And they were hoping for a 3D effect on the cake. I needed to make a cake that would feed 70-75 people and had boobs on it, not a challenge you get every day (at least I don't) To make the cake big enough I made 4 14" cakes, 2 vanilla and 2 chocolate. The coordinating layers went together and then the vanilla was placed next to the chocolate on a big old cake board. To create her chest, I basically made cake pops and formed them to the shape I needed. And to make her face, I simply used buttercream and a whole lot of cursing. The end result is below...

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, it was after 11:30 when I was able to finish this cake and I have to admit, I was a little fried.

I do

What happens when you take over 2000 hand rolled fondant pearls,

a bunch of hand made fondant flowers and combine it with different flavors of buttercream, and three kinds of cake...

You get Emily and Steven Seiltz's wedding gift.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure to create this wedding cake for the wonderful couple. It took about two weeks of prep time, many, many, many eggs and a couple of curse words to pull the cake together.

The cake stood just over 2 feet tall and the pearls had to be put on to the cake one at a time with a pair of tweezers. The layers were white cake with almond buttercream and raspberry filling, chocolate with chocolate fudge filling, spice cake with caramel buttercream, chocolate with coffee and caramel almond buttercreams, and the final layer, for the couple on the first anniversary, was white cake with chocolate fudge filling.  I got many compliments that night, the best one coming from the bride when she told me it was even better than she imagined. Congratulations Emily and Steven! :)