Diaper Cake

My sister is having a girl at the end of February, so we are having her baby shower next Saturday. I have heard of diaper cakes before and apparently they are all the rage. So I did a little research via youtube and a miscellaneous of websites to find out exactly how to make one. Isn't it so wonderful that they give a few simple instructions and poof magically appears the finished product that looks flawless. What they don't show you is that this is really a two person job, and even then it can get a bit sketchy. Luckily I had my brother there to help construct the cake. And after a few failed attempts we finally got it right.



We choose to do the flat swirled look. It just looks so much better than the other one in my opinion. And daisy's are such a friendly flower, who could resist?

Cake Decorating

Several years ago my sister Katie took cake decorating courses at Michaels and became very good at it. Recently Kiersten, also my sister, purchased a cake decorating kit and wanted to learn how to use them. So we went over to Katie's and decorated some cakes.




This is the cake that I did. It turned out pretty well for my first lesson. But the purple stripe down the middle of a cake haunted me right from the moment I put it on there. But live and learn.

This is the cake that Katie did. Unfortunately I had to leave to go to work before she finished it, but it still looks really good. No wonder she is the master of cakes.




This is the cake that Kiersten made. She put on several bouquets of flowers after I left. It looked really good. Who knows, maybe cake decorating is an inherited trait!

Paula's Design

Erik has had a long time obsession with food networks one and only Paula Deen. It has reached new heights with the addition of cooking magazine. So today we tried out one of her recipes, Strawberry Coffee Cake. We added out own addition to the recipe because I had never heard of a coffee cake without streusel. Isn't that the best part of a coffee cake, the secret reason to make one? I will take a firm stance and say yes I demand streusel!

So this morning when I arrived at work we immediately began baking. It took lots of hard work and help from Erik but we finally got it in the oven.


As I always do, we set the timer for the cake less than directed so that it would not over cook. We checked it when the timer went off (which is Erik's job to tell me when it does) and it was not done. So we put it in for 3 more minutes and checked again. We must have done this at least 5 times because each time it was still not done! But when it finally was cooked we discovered that it was well worth the wait.




Doesn't that look delicious?! Oh yes, streusel definitely makes the cake. Well the strawberries and almonds don't hurt either.