The Christmas Collection
Once upon a Christmas
A Partridge Family Christmas Card
White Christmas
Walking with God: Talk to Him. Hear from Him. Really.
Prayers That Rout Demons
To the Lion: The Christian in Tension
Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God
Polka-dots and Brazil in Flour and Eggs and Sugar
Posted on Saturday 15 December 2007 by Jeanie @ 7:58 pm
Filed under: Birthdays/Anniversaries and Garden/Food and Marriage and Mi familia and Photos of the Fam and Stuff I actually think
This is it. These are the final cakes of 2007, I am telling you! Even Jesus will not be getting a "Happy Birthday to You Cake" from me this year and I think He is happy to allow me that!
Each year when the kids were little, we acknowledged Christ's birth with a red and green jello-infused white cake topped with whipped cream confection. Though that "tradition" became more sporadic as they got older, it has not been unusual to have one of them ask yearly if I'll be making one. I am planning to resurrect it with vigor for the grandbabies, but not in 2007. OK? OK.
However, for Jovan's baby shower last week, I made a cake at her request. The thing about Jovan is first, she actually LOVES cake! Second she loves to dream up fancy cakes so she is challenging me, pulling me in deeper to a land of flour-and-eggs-and-sugar-and-buttercream-and-extra-ordinary-flavors-and-extracts-and-exotic-fillings I never knew existed. So, for sweet Jovan, whether I feel I can do it or not - I try and she rewards me with oohs and aahs and "I love it"s and so I attempt again, even though right in the middle of the process I am always wondering what am I doing????, to create the cake she has envisioned!
This one was much smaller than the wedding cake from the previous week. It was a 10" lemon-poppyseed with lemon-curd filling and an 8" chocolate butter cake with fudge filling.
The whole shower, thrown by her mom and sisters, was pink and brown and polka-dots at Jovan's parent's home in Frederick. It was "Jovan!" through and through.
This other cake was actually Tara's brainchild. Her good friend, Marianna from Brazil (www.thewakefields.wordpress.com ), who moved here in the spring when she married a worship pastor from Northern Hills Christian Church, was having a birthday and Tara decided to honor her with a cake of her homeland. Tara drew Brazil on foamcore, cut it out and covered it in foil. Then she baked a 16" x 16" chocolate-swiss cake (3 augmented Duncan Hines mixes). After it cooled, we placed it on the "Brazil-board" and cut the cake in the shape of the country. It was iced in the colors of the Brazillian flag and a replication of the flag was done on top in tiny stars. We wrote Marianna's name on the flag in place of the word that is usually there and Tara presented it to her, a cake that could have fed 36 people, for Marianna's and Dan's own quiet celebration. Yowzers!
I hope Duff from Ace of Cakes is happily busy while I am semi-cake-retired…until the New Year!…Jeanie
