A Couple of Cakes to Welcome February!

First of all, congratulations to my niece Sarah Eddy Strouse who won January's comment contest.  Sarah gets to choose her prize -- cake, cookies, scones, cinnamon rolls, or something very chocolate (her preference) or lemon (her husband Bob's favorite). And even though Sarah is my niece, she won fair-and-square.  Her name was dropped into the hat along with everyone else who commented in January (one entry per comment), and my friend Lynn D pulled it out, even though she had a couple of entries in there herself. A generous act, I must say! (Thanks Lynn!). I'm happy that Sarah won, and look forward to continuing this contest beyond April, beyond the year that I had originally envisioned.  I don't see this monthly celebration of my commenters going away any time soon, so be sure to add your own comment or three when you have a chance.  Odds are GREAT that it will pay off!

Anyway, this is a two-cake weekend, both delivered this morning. The first is a birthday cake for my friend Mimi's son Paul.  The second is for my friend and co-worker Helen, whose husband is a huge Mets fan.  I am fairly certain neither men read my blog, so it's probably safe to show photos of these cakes which will be part of their family celebrations tomorrow.  There are cupcakes as well for Mimi's family, to be delivered to her front door in the morning.

Paul's birthday cake is a light yellow vanilla cake with a very buttery buttercream frosting (recipe follows).  It was decorated in a pretty simple design of vines, leaves, and little pressed flowers. Mimi, Paul's mom, always asks me to bake cakes for her family celebrations.

Helen's cake, the same vanilla, has a white buttercream frosting, and decorated for her husband's favorite baseball team, the Mets.  I hope he'll love it.

That's all the baking I had scheduled for this weekend.  It's been such an intense time at work, in the middle of our busiest season, and January is now behind us.  I'm grateful for a low-key weekend to decompress, to say so-long to frigid January and welcome the much-closer-to-spring February! With nothing on the schedule other than meeting my good friend Liz at Starbuck's very early in the morning (too early for most of my other friends!), the weekend is off to a good start.  I'm looking forward to spending some time catching up not only with Liz, but also my own little life here in Middle Grove, New York.  Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

This weekend's cakes...

Mimi's Cupcakes

Very Buttery Buttercream Frosting

1 cup soft butter (room temperature - I use unsalted)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 cups confectioners sugar
up to 1/2 cup milk (more or less for desired consistency)

In large mixer bowl, beat 1 cup soft butter until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla extract  Dump confectioners sugar all at once into the bowl, and at very low speed, very slowly add milk, a bit at a time, scraping bowl as you go along to make sure it all gets incorporated. Increase speed, and add more milk if necessary.  Stop adding milk when you get to the right spreading consistency.