Underwood Family Christmas

The day after we got back from my brother's it was time for us spend celebrate Christmas with the other set of grandparents! Nona and Papa showed up with plenty more loot for the little one!

Ella worked really hard to open up all of her gifts from the Underwood/Dicke side of the family! She was even more into tearing the paper this time than on Christmas Day!

Ella got some great things including this kitty that she has to try to catch. Papa looked on intently while she was checking it out!

Luckily the weather was really nice while nona and Papa were in town, so we got to spend lots of time outside!

Ella Kate and Nona had a great time blowing bubbles

and checking out the flowers that suddenly went into bloom in the middle of winter!

Nona and Papa stayed through New Years Day and were able to enjoy our big NYD feast of brined Pork Tenderloin, black eyed peas, cabbage, homemade mac and cheese, and red velvet cake! It was a true day of southern food at this house! We had some friends from church and my boss and her husband join us and it was a wonderful afternoon. Can't wait to do it again next year with hopefully even more of our friends!

Wilton Cake 3!!!

I have enjoyed my cake class so much and was kind of sad about it being the last one! But don't worry, I will be attending Class 2 hopefully in July since I can't take it next month and they are not offering in June... So eventually more pictures and cakes will be coming!

For my final cake, I decided on chocolate in honor of my boss. I asked for her suggestion and her favorite cake is a chocolate cake with white icing and even though she won't be able to eat it cause she is in Baton Rouge and I am here, I told her I would make it anyway and take pictures. So here is the recipe for the cake and for icing I will be using the class Wilton Buttercream.


Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake
Hershey's Kitchens


Ingredients:
2 c. sugar
1-3/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c. boiling water

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 9-inch round baking pans.
-Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
-Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes.
-Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin).
-Pour batter into prepared pans.
-Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
-Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks.
-Cool completely.

The cake right out of the oven!

All iced and ready for decorating!

As LSU themed as I can get using roses!! I mean is there any other color that goes as good with yellow as purple????

Cake Number 2

This week for class we actually had to make cupcakes, but we only needed 2 so I figured I would make a small cake for Keith's work and also the cupcakes I needed for class. I decided to up my baking skills this week and steer away from the regular white cake and incorporate one of Keith and I's favorite things... WHITE CHOCOLATE! So thanks to a little bit of Paula Deen help, here is Cake number 2!

White Chocolate Cake
From Paula Deen's Holiday Baking (2007)
Ingredients:
· 1 cup butter, softened
· 2 cups sugar
· 5 egg whites
· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
· 3 cups cake flour
· 3 teaspoons baking powder
· 1/4 teaspoon salt
· 1 cup whole buttermilk
· 6 (1 ounce) white chocolate baking squares, melted and cooled
Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350°F; grease and flour 3 (9-inch) cake pans.
-In a large bowl, beat butter at medium speed with electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy.
-Add egg whites, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
-In a small bowl, combine cake flour, baking powder, and salt; sift twice. Add flour mixture, alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in melted chocolate.
-Pour batter evenly into prepared pans; bake for 23 to 25 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and allow to cool completely on wire racks. Ice to your liking!

I decided to mix some strawberries into the icing for my filling and it turned out pretty good. I used Wilton's Buttercream icing for the outside of my cake and I flavored it with their Clear Vanilla Extract. Just a note... this recipe makes A LOT of cake. It is actually for a 3 layer 9 inch cake so if you do not want to make a cake that large, you are going to have left over batter.

Reviews: We both loved it! Very moist with just the right amount of white chocolate.

Here is a picture of my finished product. Of course I had to use some of my cake decorating techniques to finish it off.

I promise that icing is actually purple and not the strange color it is appearing thanks to the camera! That is also supposed to be a fleur de lis, but it appears my cookie cutter was a little messed up. I am sure Keith will be made fun of for his purple fleur de lis cake (a little to LSU/Louisiana for the guys in the office). I could have done a better job on the icing but I figure the guys are just going to destroy it anyway.

Unfortunately after all the baking and icing and decorating, it was pizza night around here. There was no cooking after that afternoon and I was definitely not in the mood to wash anymore dishes! I will have to make sure to make a healthy meal tonight!

The First Real Cake Decorating Experience...

Well it is official! My first cake decorating experience is over and it was so much fun... and I have to say I am pretty decent at it too! But man your arm gets very tired! I don't know how cake decorators don't have one arm like 5 times the size of the other one!

First I am going to share with you the recipe I used for my cake... which tasted REALLY good... I only got to taste a little bit from when I had to take the top off to layer it, the rest went to Keith's office this morning.

Silver White Cake
From Betty Crocker Cookbook

2 ¼ cups cake flour or 2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups sugar
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup shortening
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 egg whites (1/2 cup)

Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour baking pan, 13x9x2 inches, or 2 round layer pans, 8 or 9 ½ inches. Measure flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening, milk and vanilla into large mixer bowl. Blend ½ minute on low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 2 minutes high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Add egg whites; beat 2 minutes high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan(s).

Bake oblong 35 to 40 minutes, layers 30 to 35 minutes (my oven it was 28 min) or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool.

Now a little bit about the actual decorating...Here is a picture of my cake after baking and frosting.

As you can see, I am not the best froster... but I am working on it. Last night in class the instructor shared a secret to flattening it out. You use a peice of parchment paper and rub it on the cake in small circles. The lady that was sitting next to me already knew that and her cake looked AMAZING!

In class we learned how to make Stars, ZigZags, the Curved Line, and dots. For our cake we only used the Stars and the ZigZags but it was really fun to learn different techniques.

And here is the final product...

I can't wait for next week when we get to start learning the rose and also we get to learn how to make clowns!!!