Have you guys heard this story about the mayor of an Alaskan town being a cat? When I leave for work in the morning and see the cats lounging around, I joke around that they should get jobs to help earn their tender vittles. I even had a dream once that I had to help Camille rebalance her 401k. So maybe the dreaming Jodi wouldn't have been so surprised to hear about this very career-oriented feline.
Apparently Stubbs has been the mayor of Talkeetna for 15 years, so I'm surprised this is the first time I'm hearing of it. Yep, nothing but breaking news for you here at 2P4C!
I'm a little late with the Pinterest challenge this season. We've been off hobnobbing with celebrities (and their pets), but we'll get to that in future posts. I'll give you a little hint for now, and that is, "Hey, where's Perry?"
For those of you who don't know, my inspiration for starting this blog was two of my favorite blogs, Young House Love and Bower Power. Randy knows this, but thinks they're imaginary friends when Ashley and I get together and say things like, "Hey doesn't this remind you of the penny tile in Sherry and John's kitchen?" or "Has Katie found out if the baby is a boy or girl yet?" I don't flatter myself that our little blog is anything like Sherry and John's YHL or Katie Bower's, but Ashley introduced me to YHL about a year ago on our family trip to Hilton Head and I've been hooked ever since.
Katie created the Pinterest Challenge to challenge them to "stop pinning and start doing". This summer, what better challenge than to use this cake as inspiration for the 60th birthday and retirement party cake for this lady:
Mom's favorite cake is strawberry shortcake, and every year, I make something a little different for her, but all based on the strawberry shortcake theme, like this strawberry genoise from a couple of years ago:
Or this strawberry cake from last year:
Admittedly, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of variation here, but the cakes, fillings and icings are completely different. I knew for Mom's 60th, I wanted to do something big, something special, but still with the original strawberry shortcake theme, when I came across this a couple of months ago:
It is an almond paste corn meal pound cake with mascarpone cream and strawberries on top. I had zero experience with almond paste before I made this cake, so it was a perfect new challenge.
My original intention was to follow the Martha Stewart recipe perfectly, but as I was shopping for ingredients, I realized I needed to make this cake with less fuss, less muss and less $.
I couldn't find almond paste at Wegman's, which as anyone who has been to a Wegman's knows, if they don't have it, you're not going to find it locally anywhere else. So I followed this recipe to make my own. I didn't have Kirsch on hand, but I did have Amoretto instead, and found it to be necessary to get my little food processor to mix up the almond paste without grinding to a halt and burning out yet another kitchen appliance motor. This is how it looked when it was done. Probably not as smooth and perfect as almond paste you could buy, but at about $18/cup, I was glad I didn't buy it... and for my purposes, it worked in the texture of this cake with the stone-ground corn meal.
I tried to find a good, sturdy cake stand with the columns for the three tiers (for my cake, I made a 6", an 8" and a 10" tier) online, but these cake stands fit my budget, and the tropical paradise theme better. I bought them here, and was very pleased with the darker teal color you see below:
That's my Aunt Donna, my cousin, Heather's mom, and my mom's sister. She took the rest of the cake prep pictures and helped Ashley to assemble the cake while I took my mom out to tea to get her out of the house, but we'll get to more on that in later posts.
I used the Martha recipe for both the cake and the filling, with some minor tweaks. Make sure you spray and flour your pans really well, because if the cake sticks to the pan and falls apart, it won't work for this stacked approach. You can always brush off that extra flour with a pastry brush later. Instead of baking one large cake for each tier and torting them to make 3 layers for each tier, I would definitely recommend following the directions and using 3 different pans and baking 3 separate cakes. I know, more pans to wash, but totally worth it. I just made sure I put enough batter in so it could bake up to what I hoped was an inch thick, so I didn't have to trim any of the layers.
If your oven is like mine, a little crooked, (I'm sure there is a way to fix that but I haven't actually looked into it yet), and your cakes turn out a little thicker on one side, just stack them so the thicker side is on the opposite side of the one on the cake below it.
When I went to buy the mascarpone cheese for the filling, I realized it was $6/cup, and I would need 6-8 cups for it. I didn't want to cheap out on my mom's birthday cake, but I was on a budget. The package literally said, "Sweet, italian cream cheese," so guess what I did? Yep, threw 8 packages of Wegman's brand cream cheese in my cart and called it a day. Don't tell Randy, he would flip. He is a born-and-raised Philadelphia cream cheese man. I can't tell the difference, but I guess it is like Heinz vs store brand ketchup. They just don't match up. So if you are looking to make a smaller version of this cake, go for the mascarpone, I'm sure it's fab. I was making this cake for 60 people and just couldn't see spending almost $50 on the cream cheese for the filling. Or if you are a Philly purist like Randy, go with the Philly cream cheese, it's not that much more expensive. I just made sure to taste the filling and added extra powdered sugar until Donna, Randy and I thought it was sweet enough. Honestly, I'm not sure how different the mascarpone would have tasted, but the Wegman's cream cheese filling was wonderful.
As I played with the cake stands, I realized why there were 3 sizes for $30. They were extremely cute and the color was perfect for the luau-type party, but they were kind of flimsy. When I imagined stacking them on top of each other with 3 layers of pound cake on each tier, I started getting cake-tipping anxiety. So, I told Ashley to feel free to arrange them next to each other rather than stack them, and she and Donna agreed it wasn't worth the worry.
So while I did dowel-rod the bottom two tiers, we didn't even try to stack them, and we were all fine with that. And the result? Yum! Make sure to whip up some real whipped cream to serve as a garnish on each piece. Heavenly.
Anyone else participate in the Pinterest Challenge or bake a huge cake for a big, family event? Please share!
Apparently Stubbs has been the mayor of Talkeetna for 15 years, so I'm surprised this is the first time I'm hearing of it. Yep, nothing but breaking news for you here at 2P4C!
I'm a little late with the Pinterest challenge this season. We've been off hobnobbing with celebrities (and their pets), but we'll get to that in future posts. I'll give you a little hint for now, and that is, "Hey, where's Perry?"
For those of you who don't know, my inspiration for starting this blog was two of my favorite blogs, Young House Love and Bower Power. Randy knows this, but thinks they're imaginary friends when Ashley and I get together and say things like, "Hey doesn't this remind you of the penny tile in Sherry and John's kitchen?" or "Has Katie found out if the baby is a boy or girl yet?" I don't flatter myself that our little blog is anything like Sherry and John's YHL or Katie Bower's, but Ashley introduced me to YHL about a year ago on our family trip to Hilton Head and I've been hooked ever since.
Katie created the Pinterest Challenge to challenge them to "stop pinning and start doing". This summer, what better challenge than to use this cake as inspiration for the 60th birthday and retirement party cake for this lady:
 |
| Mom- I won't give you the year because that's me on the right |
Or this strawberry cake from last year:
Admittedly, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of variation here, but the cakes, fillings and icings are completely different. I knew for Mom's 60th, I wanted to do something big, something special, but still with the original strawberry shortcake theme, when I came across this a couple of months ago:
 |
| marthastewartweddings.com |
My original intention was to follow the Martha Stewart recipe perfectly, but as I was shopping for ingredients, I realized I needed to make this cake with less fuss, less muss and less $.
I couldn't find almond paste at Wegman's, which as anyone who has been to a Wegman's knows, if they don't have it, you're not going to find it locally anywhere else. So I followed this recipe to make my own. I didn't have Kirsch on hand, but I did have Amoretto instead, and found it to be necessary to get my little food processor to mix up the almond paste without grinding to a halt and burning out yet another kitchen appliance motor. This is how it looked when it was done. Probably not as smooth and perfect as almond paste you could buy, but at about $18/cup, I was glad I didn't buy it... and for my purposes, it worked in the texture of this cake with the stone-ground corn meal.
I tried to find a good, sturdy cake stand with the columns for the three tiers (for my cake, I made a 6", an 8" and a 10" tier) online, but these cake stands fit my budget, and the tropical paradise theme better. I bought them here, and was very pleased with the darker teal color you see below:
That's my Aunt Donna, my cousin, Heather's mom, and my mom's sister. She took the rest of the cake prep pictures and helped Ashley to assemble the cake while I took my mom out to tea to get her out of the house, but we'll get to more on that in later posts.
I used the Martha recipe for both the cake and the filling, with some minor tweaks. Make sure you spray and flour your pans really well, because if the cake sticks to the pan and falls apart, it won't work for this stacked approach. You can always brush off that extra flour with a pastry brush later. Instead of baking one large cake for each tier and torting them to make 3 layers for each tier, I would definitely recommend following the directions and using 3 different pans and baking 3 separate cakes. I know, more pans to wash, but totally worth it. I just made sure I put enough batter in so it could bake up to what I hoped was an inch thick, so I didn't have to trim any of the layers.
If your oven is like mine, a little crooked, (I'm sure there is a way to fix that but I haven't actually looked into it yet), and your cakes turn out a little thicker on one side, just stack them so the thicker side is on the opposite side of the one on the cake below it.
When I went to buy the mascarpone cheese for the filling, I realized it was $6/cup, and I would need 6-8 cups for it. I didn't want to cheap out on my mom's birthday cake, but I was on a budget. The package literally said, "Sweet, italian cream cheese," so guess what I did? Yep, threw 8 packages of Wegman's brand cream cheese in my cart and called it a day. Don't tell Randy, he would flip. He is a born-and-raised Philadelphia cream cheese man. I can't tell the difference, but I guess it is like Heinz vs store brand ketchup. They just don't match up. So if you are looking to make a smaller version of this cake, go for the mascarpone, I'm sure it's fab. I was making this cake for 60 people and just couldn't see spending almost $50 on the cream cheese for the filling. Or if you are a Philly purist like Randy, go with the Philly cream cheese, it's not that much more expensive. I just made sure to taste the filling and added extra powdered sugar until Donna, Randy and I thought it was sweet enough. Honestly, I'm not sure how different the mascarpone would have tasted, but the Wegman's cream cheese filling was wonderful.
 |
| Making sure my tiers were even |
So while I did dowel-rod the bottom two tiers, we didn't even try to stack them, and we were all fine with that. And the result? Yum! Make sure to whip up some real whipped cream to serve as a garnish on each piece. Heavenly.
Anyone else participate in the Pinterest Challenge or bake a huge cake for a big, family event? Please share!
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