Chicken Marsala

Oh, June.  June... you are a nutty, nutty month.  You are living la vida loca, and yes, I am still living in 1999.  I am also still living in a world where June means summer... not recitals, teacher gifts, preschool graduations and camp registrations because, oh right, I'm a mom now and not a teenager living at the turn of the century listening to Ricky Martin.  It's just that when I was a kid June used to symbolize the beginning of summer, and now it feels like the end of so much.  Perhaps that's because I'm an emotional wreck about my kids growing up and my daughter starting elementary school next year with her big bro.  Time is speeding by, and this time of year is making me nostalgic for simpler times... when a new Backstreet Boys song was all I really cared about.  

Maybe I'm feeling this way because my mom has been staying with us for a few weeks and the other night she cooked dinner.  This always causes me to feel a bit like a teenager.  (By the way, does anyone else have a child that says "a bit" all of the time because Peppa Pig is everywhere??)  As much as I love to cook, there is nothing better than someone taking over every once in awhile.  That particular night, she made us a Chicken Marsala which was delicious!  It felt like comfort food but tasted light and refreshing - like something you could eat again and again. 

She followed this recipe :)

Stay tuned later this week for an epic ice cream cake!           

Rapunzel Cake

I am all birthday caked out.  My daughter Etta turned 4 on Monday, and she's only been anticipating her birthday since, oh I don't know, a few minutes after turning 3??  And, by the way, she's pretty convinced she'll turn 5 next week.  She is NOT understanding my explanation of a year!  I started out all patient and kind with my words, and now I'm so exhausted that I just say, "Etta!  A year is a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time.  You will feel like you are 4 forever.  And p.s. Christmas is far away too."  (Even though OMG no it's not.)  As a kid, I always thought it was so weird that my mom didn't seem to care about her birthdays BUT NOW I GET IT.  

Alright, birthday pessimism aside, I really did enjoy making her Rapunzel cake!  I had never worked with fondant before and I was terrified.  However, I found by using lots of powdered sugar to help roll it out and keeping what I wasn't using covered with a damp towel, it was pretty easy to use!  Of course, I have not mastered making it look smooth (I also don't have any fondant tools), but for this cake I was lucky because I was scoring the sides anyway to make it look like a tower.  I used white fondant and then sprayed the cake with this Silver Color Mist.  I used colorful fondant and a little fondant mold for the flowers, vines and birds.  Then, I used a tube of yellow frosting for her hair.  

One thing I would have done differently - more buttercream inside!  No one really likes to EAT fondant, and I found when I cut the cake the fondant took the buttercream with it.  I would have sliced each layer and slathered buttercream inside to ensure each bite had enough.

Finally, I followed this recipe for the cake.

Have great weekends!

Dory and Nemo Cake

My baby is two.  That means she's technically not a baby anymore, but you mamas know we are always allowed to call them that.  She is a tiny comedian and when she's not making everyone laugh, she's being her sweet, concerned self.  "Jackie sad?  Mama doing?  Sorry Etta." are phrases she utters frequently when she's not saying "UPPY UPPY UPPY UPPY."  She LOVES Dory and often likes to claim, "I'm Nemo."  For her birthday, it was a no-brainer to bake fishy cakes and finding fish cake pans at Michael's definitely helped.  I went with good old boxed cake mix, because I decided I actually wanted to spend TIME with little LoLo on her birthday.  (I have been known to bake cakes that take me all day to finish and turn me into a giant ball of stress.)  

Do the eyes look a little freaky to you?  They look a little freaky to me.  And it also sort of looks like the fish have braces.  Or blinged out grillz.  I had to google how to spell that.   

If you care to see the other cakes I've created for my kids, check it out here.

Messy Moments with Wet Ones

Did you know that according to a study conducted by Wet Ones Hand Wipes, 91% of moms say that they have stopped their child from participating in an activity because it was too messy?  Gah!  I am ashamed to admit I have done that on more than one occasion.  Oh, you guys want to finger paint??  Um... I bet you'll do that in school tomorrow!  (Zero points for mom.)  Yet, at the same time, 84% of moms also admit that making a mess while cooking is one of the most fun activities they can do with their kids.  And I am happy to admit that I also fall into this category.  When I let my guard down, and allow them to crack the eggs (resulting in a gigantic mess), the joy on their faces says it all.

I adore cooking for my family and it's even more fun when my children can help out, but the struggle is real.  I feel like I often miss out on great moments with them because I'm so concerned with cleaning as I go.  Therefore, I'm so happy to be partnering with Wet Ones Hand Wipes this back-to-school season (omg, already??) to help parents embrace those messy, memorable moments in the kitchen.  Wet ones Antibacterial Hand Wipes are a convenient 2-in-1 way to wipe away dirt and messes and kill 99.99% of germs when soap and water aren't readily available - and as parents, that is often the case!

Below is one of my new favorite meals to make with my kids, and it's perfect for creating messy moments with the fam.  So get in the kitchen, get messy, and know Wet Ones has you covered.  You can even share your messy moments at WishIHadAWetOnes.com for the change to win prizes!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Cake

When is your birthday?  Is it lumped next to another holiday, like Christmas or Halloween?  My mom's birthday is Cinco de Mayo, which always lands relatively close to Mother's Day.  When we were kids, our neighborhood held a block-wide garage sale, and so just as my mom was attempting to rid her house of junk, we went to other people's homes and bought her junk... for her birthday and Mother's Day... one big lump of junk.  Happy Mothers-Birth-Day!  She really deserves an Oscar for her thank you speeches.  Similarly, Carson's birthday is June 22nd, which usually falls extremely close to - if not on - Father's Day.  I think I have guilt over buying my mom someone else's hand soaps, or worn tennis t-shirts for 75 cents, so I make an EFFORT to separate the two for my husband.  I capitalize "effort" because it's not always easy.  This year for certain reasons we had to celebrate both in one weekend, so I knew I needed to bake an epic cake.    

This cake, THIS CAKE!!!  (Imagine I'm violently shaking your shoulders and shouting in your face.)  It is just absurdly good.  It's my friend Audra's recipe (Audra, it's cool that I call you my friend even though we've never met, right?) and she basically NAILS IT as my son would say.  If you like the chocolate and peanut butter combo, then you will die over this cake.  The chocolate cake layers are perfectly moist, and in between each is a layer of thick chocolate ganache and peanut butter frosting.  Nothing is overly sweet, but it is rich and indulgent and a chocolate lover's dream.  Please bake this for the next lumped celebration in your life, or... for no reason at all.      

Recipe HERE.

Spinach and Shrimp Risotto + TODAY

Ohhhh, here we are again.  Morning time.  For those of you with kids, when you hear that pre-6am "mama, mama, mama, mama," do you ever think, hmm, maybe today the breakfast fairy will whisk them out of bed and change their diapers and prepare a meal and I will be able to sleep for another 20 minutes.  Do you ever think that?  Yeah, me neither, that's weird and silly.  Anyways...

We're up!  And it's all good.  I actually needed to get up early to prepare for Father's Day weekend, which is also Carson's birthday weekend, so tonight I'm baking him a cake and I can't wait to share it with you next week.  In the meantime, if you missed my Father's Day segment with Carson on the Today Show yesterday, you can find all the recipes here.  Easy surf and turf... our kind of meal!

p.s.  That is a risotto my mom made while she was visiting last week.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!  She followed this recipe but added peas and pancetta (the latter she cooked in the beginning and added at the end).  I hope you all have lovely weekends celebrating the dads in your lives!  Go dads!  

BB8 Cake

Well, my son turned seven last week.  I don't know why this birthday seemed so significant to me... seven sounds so old!!  This means eight years ago, I was nearly pregnant with him (I'm good at math).  Which means I've been a mother for almost a decade.  WHICH MEANS I'M ALMOST 40!  Ok, it doesn't really mean that, but seven does sound old, right?  He had a Star Wars-themed party this weekend with some buddies (at one of those places where hundreds of kids bounce around together and share puke germs) so I made him a BB8 cake.  Which yes, I realize may have been better suited for his 8th birthday, but I never said I was good at math.  

I made two circle red velvet cakes (following this recipe), cut one cake into a smaller circle, and then in half.  I formed the robot's body and head, slathered everything in cream cheese frosting, and decorated it with candy melts similar to the Transformer and Power Rangers cakes below (click on those links for more info).  As you can see, I've had fun with cakes for my kiddos in the past!  

And by "fun" I mean lots of panic attacks and beers.     

Rainbow Cake

Brobee Cake

Transformer Cake

Frozen Cake

Minion Cake

Funfetti Cake

Polka Dot Cake

Power Ranger Cakes

Wubbzy Cake