Two Cakes, Two Celebrations

Thought I'd share the two cakes I made the last couple of days.  The first is a carrot cake I made for my boss, Mary Lou.  We had a small celebration in the office and found a little bit of time between two of her many meetings to sing "Happy Birthday" and wish Mary Lou well and a great year ahead.  She was very appreciative.  My co-worker Dean was Mary Lou's party planner, and came to me early on to see if I'd bake her a special cake, which I was happy to do.  Our office is great that way. Everyone is designated party planner for someone else, so no one person's birthday goes unacknowledged.  It's a special thing.

Here's Mary Lou's cake, which was a carrot spice cake with raisins and pineapple, and cream cheese frosting:

Mary Lou's Birthday Cake

The second cake I made was for my friend Anne's granddaughter, Breanna.  She's celebrating her 13th birthday with a slumber party and six of her close friends.  Anne sent me a photo of an "inspiration" cake that  Breanna liked, and I used it as just that, inspiration.  I always try to make someone else's design unique by incorporating my own touches, and I think it was successful.  This was a white/vanilla cake with butter cream frosting and cut-out fondant decorations.

Here's Breanna's cake:

Breanna's Birthday Cake

And, since I rarely give my oven a rest, right now I'm baking crumb cake muffins.  They've just come out of the oven, and they are pretty.

Today's crumb cake muffins -
hot out of the oven with a little sugar on top!

Photos:  my own

When a Man Loves A Carrot Cake

The other day I got a call from my friend Pat, who said "I want to order a birthday cake."  I said, "OK, who's it for?"  "It's for me!  I love your carrot cake, and I want to order my own birthday cake."

First of all, I think it's the coolest thing when someone goes ahead and orders their own birthday cake.  No waiting around wondering, hoping someone will provide the cake on your big day.  You know you'll have your birthday cake, and eat it too, because you've taken care of it!  It's proactive and shows self-respect and confidence.  I love that!

I dropped Pat's cake off at 7:45 this morning.  He was all ready to go.  He's meeting his wife and daughters up at Gore Mountain for a little ski get-away, and he told his wife Beth, "Don't worry about my birthday cake.  I took care of it!"

Because I AM the cake baker, I usually don't bake my own birthday cakes.  My big day is next week, the "Ides of March" will be upon us and my odometer will turn over from 57 to 58.  Henry's been trying to tell me something all week.  I walk in their house and he says "Grandma, I have a surprise..." and goes running to reveal it, only to have his mother remind him, "Not yet, Henry!"  Then he just has the hugest grin on his face and looks at me like he can't wait to share the surprise.  So far, he's kept the lid on it.  Let's hope he can hold out for the next five days!

I always think about what peoples' favorites are when it comes to their birthday cakes.  It's usually a very specific, if not personal, preference.  Any Eddy relative usually requires chocolate in some form.  My neice Lauren usually likes strawberries and cream.  My nephew-in-law (is that a bonafide status?) Bob loves lemon anything, as does my best bud Sue.  The O'Farrell side of my family often likes the classic yellow birthday cake with white frosting (which I love too).  And then there's my friend Pat, who got just what he wanted, his own carrot cake, for his birthday today.

I've posted about my carrot cake recipe before.  It's a bit of a short-cut, for which I'm forgiven because it is just so good.  It's lighter (less oil) than many from-scratch recipes, and the addition of crushed pineapple and pineapple juice, along with raisins and walnuts, makes it a taste and texture extravaganza.  Add the cream cheese frosting (posted with the linked recipe), and, all I can say is, MORE PLEASE!

Happy birthday to you, Pat.  I hope you order your own cake from me for many years to come!  And I'll close with a collage of "my boys" on this beautiful Saturday morning...

Saturday morning with my boys!

Lovely Weekend

There's a lot to be said about taking time "to smell the roses."  Between work and baking, I've been so busy lately that it was necessary to consciously stop to enjoy life a little bit.  This past Friday night some of my highschool classmates and other friends met for a "mini-reunion" at the Seven Horse Pub in Saratoga Springs.  I hadn't been in that building since it was home to Mother Goldsmith's, a place where my parents used to enjoy a New York-style deli sandwich back in the 1970s.  With all the baking orders I had pending for this weekend, I thought that I didn't really have time to join my friends, but realized that it was important to make the time, to deliberately carve out part of the weekend to reconnect, to enjoy familiar company, and once again to remember why we are periodically drawn to spend time with each other at least once every year or so.  With social media as a catalyst, spurred by fellow classmate Cindy Kahn Kansky, the ball was rolling by word-of-mouth (or I should say "word-of-facebook") and there were more than twenty of us gathered in the upstairs dining room of the pub for a few hours Friday night.

SSHS '72ers at Seven Horse Pub

Terry Valentine McCue and
Nancy Hinckley Stevens, SSHS '72!

After enjoying that little break, I woke very early Saturday morning to begin baking again.  There was a graduation cake for Abby (I've been baking her birthday cakes since she was a little girl), and bridal shower cupcakes for my "honorary" neice Teresa Loviza.  While we're not blood-related, my family and the Lovizas have been friends for years and our children grew up together.  Teresa and my daughter Tricia were great friends as little girls, and it's lovely to see what beautiful women they've become.  Teresa is marrying Nick Rauscher in August, and Tricia will be married to Jeff Ayers in September of 2012.  It's an exciting time for all our families. 

Lovely bride-to-be Teresa Loviza

Carrot cupcake
with cream cheese frosting

Teresa's bridal shower was hosted by her family and friends at the home of her sister, Tina Rosato.  Tina has a future in either catering, food design, or interior decorating.  She is an artist in the way she creates a beautiful atmosphere for celebration.  Her home is a reflection of her talent, a joyful and visually beautiful place, and an intimate setting for hosting a shower for her only sister.  My contribution to the shower was carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, decorated with fondant flowers, displayed on my trusty custom-made cupcake stand (one of the best investments I've ever made!). 

I came home to a little more baking which I took care of while Russ was off playing nine holes of golf at Brookhaven.  I spent a little time with my boys, Hank and Pete, and later Russ and I enjoyed dinner at Winslow's in Wilton.  It was a lovely first-half of the weekend.  Today finds me with no baking to do at all, and time to reflect on the weekend still left to smell the roses!

Pete, now 8 months cute!

Henry the builder

Friday Eve, Red Velvet Cupcakes, and Friends

Thursday ranks among my favorite days of the week.  By the time Thursday arrives, the weekend seems close enough that I can relax and bit and begin to enjoy a more casual mindset.  Thursday, as Friday Eve (or "Thriday" as my sister Anne refers to it), becomes the day of happy anticipation for the expected freedom from the hectic pace of the work week.  Thursday may have wonderful merits all its own, but I see it as the big assist thrown to Friday, to help usher in a well-deserved break with unstructured time.  Of course, I never seem to find unstructured time, because I manage to structure the heck out of the 48-plus hours that commence as I walk out of my office on a Friday afternoon.  I'm working on that...

This Thursday was particularly nice.  My boss agreed to give me Friday afternoon off, thus getting my weekend off to a head start.  This afternoon, one of our lovely student assistants, Dara, shared red velvet cupcakes she baked for a little birthday celebration we had for her co-worker Logan.  I LOVE to enjoy other peoples' baking, and these cupcakes were outta sight!  Dara made Paula Deen's recipe for red velvet cake, and topped them with cream cheese frosting.  They were beautiful and equally delicious!  I had one and told myself it was standing in for the yogurt and protein bar that are usually my afternoon snack! 

Dara's Red Velvet Cupcake!

After work, I met six friends at Jacob and Anthony's in Saratoga Springs.  We ordered drinks and shared appetizers (pictured below), and wished our friend Mary Cogan a happy belated birthday.  Our young server Marcus was terrific and enjoyed overhearing (I think he enjoyed it) the banter, at times silly and at times serious, between a bunch of 50+-somethings making sense of our worlds.

And to top it all off...

Mary's complimentary dessert
at Jacob & Anthony's!

Carrot Cake!

Carrot Cake

The very thought of it makes people smile. This weekend I attended a graduation party in Hatfield, Massachusetts for my good friend Logan (UVM ’09), where wonderful foods were served. Her dad John manned the grill with offerings of steak, chicken, burgers, veggie burgers, etc., but when I got there I had just one request – a burnt hot dog. I don’t know what it is, but I just love a charred hot dog on a toasted roll with mustard and relish. I know the carcinogenic dangers of such foods, but one, once in a while, kicks off summer for me like nothing else. Once that was out of the way, there was a wonderful salad (dessert, really) of green grapes in vanilla yogurt sprinkled with cinnamon. It was so simple and so refreshing that I could have stolen the bowl and hid around the corner, but I controlled myself. My contribution to the evening was not to be shared by all, and was not on the table. It was carrot cake, in the form of cup cakes, and Logan’s personal favorite which I kept in the car and presented to her after the party, to make sure she and her college room-mates had them all! Her father cornered me and asked “Where are the cupcakes?” so we made a personal trip to the car (in pouring rain) where he scored his cupcake, and he almost convulsed in happiness as he shoved the whole thing in his mouth! Anyway… I make a loaded version with raisins, walnuts, crushed pineapple, and coconut. This much personality is over the top for a lot of people, so for the less adventurous the recipe gets toned down a bit with just raisins and walnuts, or just raisins. Rarely is carrot the only textural component in my carrot cake. The topper is a cloud of cream cheese frosting. This is a softer version of the same frosting used on the cinnamon rolls of a previous post. A generous dollop spread with the back of the spoon, exposing a bit of cake at the cupcake’s rim, is all it takes to transform carrot cake into a devine dessert.

A carrot cake recipe can be very much like a zucchini cake recipe, with lots of shredded veggies, a cup of oil, the standard dry ingredients and lots of cinnamon. There’s a short-cut that I’m sharing with you today. It uses a carrot cake mix. One made by Duncan Hines is great, with a recipe for the loaded version on the back of the box, and the results are spectacular. If you’re short on time, or don’t feel like shredding carrots, and can handle rave reviews, this recipe is for you:

Carrot Cup Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

1 carrot cake mix
1 cup water
4 eggs
½ cup oil
8 oz. crushed pineapple in juice
¾ cup raisins, tossed in 1 tbsp. flour
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup shredded coconut

Mix all ingredients together very well and fill paper-lined muffin cups half full. Bake at 350 degrees F until they are dry on top and bounce back when pressed in the center, about 22 minutes.

When cool enough to handle, remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
¼ lb. butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. lemon extract
1 lb. confectioners sugar
Up to 1/4 cup milk, a little at a time

Beat cream cheese and butter together. Add extracts and mix well. Slowly add confectioners sugar all at once, and milk, a little at a time, until you reach the perfect consistency.

Drop a generous dollop of frosting on center of cupcake. With the back of a spoon, spread almost to edges.

photo credit of Logan's cupcake: Jeannie O'Farrell Eddy

Tomorrow's Blog: contribution form Claire ~ Bitchin' Bette's Blueberry Pie!

Easy Cinnamon Rolls!

Once in an airport my nose followed the irresistible aroma of warm cinnamon from Terminal A to Terminal C. My nose and I landed at a Cinnabon counter where I was amazed not only by the pure animal attraction to the location but also by the assembly-line process of creating cinnamon rolls. Perfectly portioned spirals of dough and cinnamon filling slid off an oven's conveyor belt (I think that's what I saw) onto a surface where exact little cubes of soon-to-be melted cream cheese frosting were deposited dead center. It was fantastic. I was mesmerized.

Deathly afraid of raised doughs (I’d been a yeast murderer and the punishment was brick-like bread), I sighed at the impossibility of it all and went on my way with a cinnamon roll – for research purposes – and determined that, scientifically, it was clearly a success. The fact that it was delicious and sticky wasn’t lost on me either.

Previous experience with cinnamon rolls involved whacking a cylinder on the kitchen counter and waiting for the cardboard's seam to explode open after peeling the label counter-clockwise (or was it clockwise). Then there was the attempt to pry the lid off the much-too-stingy container of frosting with a butter knife. That was the extent of my family's cinnamon roll experience. They had never had a cinnamon roll without that lovely processed-dough taste. I have redeemed myself since then.

Aware of my apprehension about all things yeast, my son Jeffrey came to me one evening with a revelation. He’d found a highly-rated cinnamon roll recipe that uses frozen bread dough (thawed, of course) on the Food Network’s website. It actually originated from Sandra Lee (who knew?!) but despite our skepticism for semi-homemade recipes, we went ahead anyway, adapted it big time  -- she uses much more butter and adds instant coffee granules, which we didn't want to do.  We added a Cinnabon-like lemon cream cheese frosting. It was incredibly good! Our own unoriginal original cinnamon roll was born!

Easy Cinnamon Rolls

1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed
4 tbsp. butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. Cinnamon
Mixed together

Let dough thaw completely in refrigerator over night. On floured surface, spread dough into a rectangle about the size of a shoe box top (so scientific I am) and then roll with a rolling pin to get the dough about 1/4-inch thick, as much a rectangle shape as possible. You don't have to be too precise with the measurements.

With an icing spatula or the back of a spoon, spread dough with softened butter to within 1/2 inch of the edges. Evenly cover with brown sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up jelly-roll style into a log about a foot long. Pinch edges together to seal as best you can. Trim 1/2 inch off each end of the "log." Using a good, sharp knife, cut into twelve 1-inch slices. (I cut it in fourths  and cut each fourth into 3 equal slices to get a dozen.) Another option is to use thread or unflavored dental floss to cut the dough but I've never done that.

Place rolls in individual muffin cups that have been sprayed with non-cook spray. Let rise until they have puffed a bit and just about fill the cups, usually a half hour or so depending on room temperature. Once risen,  place muffin tins on cookie sheets (to prevent bubbling sugar mixture from spilling over) and bake at 375 degrees F for about 20-22 minutes or until the tops are nicely golden (see photo).

Immediately upon removing from oven frost with cream cheese frosting using about a generous teaspoon for each roll. After it melts a bit go back and spread it some more with the back of a spoon. Let cool completely before removing from pan (yeah, right).

Cream Cheese frosting:

2  ounces softened cream cheese
2 tbsp. softened butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1 3/4 cups confectioners sugar
Splash of milk - maybe 2 tsp..  Add more, a few drops at a time, if necessary to get a nice, creamy frosting.

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together until well blended. Add confectioners slowly until all ingredients are incorporated and then mix very well until completely smooth.Add milk as needed to get to a creamy consistency.

Once the rolls have cooled and the frosting has set, enjoy! Oh, one more thing, don’t worry about storing these – there won’t be any leftovers.

Updated: 3/4/14 - ADK Baker