Kenzie's cooking -- again!

When I posted yesterday about the Monkey Bread Kenzie just made, I realized that I'd forgotten to post about the day she made the New York onion buns and an entire dinner.  Here are the pictures -- hope you don't get too hungry!!

 Kneading the bread.......

 for 10 minutes!  It's a long time!

 Almost done kneading.

 Forming the dough into bun-sized balls.

 On to dinner -- chopping an onion for the meatloaf.

 This requires some concentration!

 Cut up red-skinned potatoes, prepared meatloaf waiting to go in the oven, and chopping up fresh rosemary!

 The rolls after being topped with the onions and after rising -- ready for baking.

 The chef with her baked goods!

And the entire dinner, done by Mackenzie!!  Yummy!!

Bread baking success!

Kenzie and I are taking an on-line bread baking class.  Today was Kenzie's first attempt at making bread; she made a delicious honey-oatmeal bread.

 Mixing the dough.....

 ......and more mixing.

 Kneading the dough.

 Dough is kneaded, rolled into a ball, and ready for the first rise.

 After rising, Kenzie rolled it into a loaf shape....

 placed it in the pan, and allowed it to rise a second time.

 After the 2nd rise, look how big it  was!  Kenzie made slits on the top of the loaf, brushed it with egg white and sprinkled rolled oats on top.

 After baking, here was the final (delicious) product!!

And here's the very proud baker!  Great job, Kenzie!

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Wedding Cakes -- Part 3

These are NOT my cakes!! These are royal wedding cakes from Kuwait! I just WISH I had the talent to make them -- plus an oven large enough to do these!! But following along the theme of cakes, I wanted to share these, because they are SPECTACULAR!! Enjoy!!

If my link above doesn't work, trying going here: http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2009/04/royal-wedding-cakes-in-kuwait.html

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Anatomy of a wedding cake -- Part 2

I wanted to follow up the previous post with pictures of a different cake. Here's a very elaborate cake I did last year for some dear friends of ours -- Ron and Cathy Sams (who just celebrated their first anniversary -- congratulations!!!) We were able to take a lot of pictures during the baking and decorating process, so this really shows the work that goes into one of these wedding cakes. No wonder the ones from the store are so blasted expensive!!!

~~Some of the layers, glazed to keep in the moistness, and cooling on the kitchen table. The largest circle is also a marble cake, which explains the funny coloring you can see on the side of the cake!


~~Getting a cake nice and level is tricky and is a skill I've never been able to master -- so I CHEAT!! I overfill the pans, let them rise nice and high, cut off the tops, and turn the whole thing upside down, making the flat bottom the nice level top!! Voila!! Pretty cake and lots of leftovers for my family to munch on!


~~This cake was unusual. The bride pretty much turned me loose to create whatever would fit their wedding, so I was free to experiment. This is the first time I'd ever made a cake with small multiple cakes as the base. It was a bit time-consuming, as I had to bake so many small layers -- but I really was pleased with the end result! Here are the layers being arranged for me to double-check size, arrangement, placement, etc., before beginning the icing process.


~~Getting started with the icing, surrounded by all my paraphenalia.


~~A small arrangement of silk flowers my daughter Morgan created to go in between some of the layers of cake. Very pretty!!


~~Doing the flat icing can be a long, tedious, boring process -- and I do look tired here, don't I? Unfortunately, I was nowhere CLOSE to being done at this point!!


~~The bottom layers are now done with the flat icing -- and they still don't look like much, do they??


~~Amazing what some decorating and the addition of color do to a cake!


~~Building upwards!! You can see the arrangement Morgan made is added here.


~~The center section, with another, smaller arrangement that Morgan made.


~~And the final product!! What do you think??


~~Close-up pictures of some of the details!










~~The decorating team!!


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Anatomy of a wedding cake -- part 1

One thing that many people do not know about me is that I used to make a LOT of wedding cakes in the past. I don't make too many nowadays -- life is too busy, my kitchen's rather small, and the whole process is rather time-consuming and messy. However, once in a while, I'm talked out of "retirement" to make a cake for a friend of the family or a relative. Here's the cake -- in progress -- that I baked and decorated yesterday. This is for a very small wedding and the couple didn't want anything too elaborate. What do you think of it?

~~They don't look like much when you are getting started......


.....but a little bit of decorating starts to turn them into something prettier!


~~Then adding the flowers starts to make it really look like a wedding cake!


~~A close-up of some of the detail.....


~~My daughter holding the cake topper to show the effect. The topper and some minor decorations will be added once the church is at the church; the whole thing travels much more safely that way!


I'll have to post a picture of the truly finished product sometime soon!!

"Back to Basics"

I've been on the lookout for some kind of homeschooling materials, videos and the like to help me put together a nice, basic cooking class for Mackenzie. And just this week, I found this:

http://www.oneroastvegetable.com/backtobasics.htm



Mackenzie and I have signed up for this, and we'll have to let you know from time-to-time how it's working out. The actual cooking classes begin next week; however, the teacher e-mails three short lessons in advance as preparation: one on the kinds of kitchen equipment you'll need, one on how to measure correctly, and one on how to check the temperature of your oven WITHOUT a thermometer, by cooking an egg in the oven. As an incentive, she said that the first two people who completed this assignment and e-mailed her a picture would receive a really cool salt and pepper grinder that she uses in her kitchen. Mackenzie prepared the egg, I took a picture, and voila!! She's one of the two prize winners! We can't wait to see her prize!! Here's Mackenzie and her egg:





Looks pretty good -- and she says it tasted yummy, too!!