Nanny Day

My grandmother recently turned 91, quite an accomplishment.  Realizing that we do not have much time left with her I decided to organize a special day in her honor.  I made invitations and mailed them to a small group of family and friends.  I based all the decorations on variations of orange, her favorite color.  I made a sign with my Cricut out of different orange papers.  We painted bottles, pulled out of the recycle bin, pasta jars, beer bottles and salsa jars, to use as a centerpiece filled with flowers.  I got orange and white plates from a party store and made place cards with stamps and paper.

Based on my grandmother’s heritage, I chose a Jewish themed lunch, with all the delicacies we associate with that.  We had bagels, lox and cream cheese, smoked whitefish, pickled herring and onions, gifelte fish, red horseradish, sardines, chopped liver, rye bread, goulash and egg noodles, macaroons, halava, jelly roll candy and cake, just because.  

We made 2 cakes, my Chocolate Raspberry Cake(recipe in previous blog) and a Chocolate Triple Sec Cake (recipe in next blog).  I made sugar flowers out gum paste and food coloring.

We decided to have presents for her as well, much to her surprise. It was a great day and all enjoyed it very much.

Credit Card Guitar Pick Flowers

On a field trip with my school last week all the moms were talking about wallets.  I mentioned that mine is full of rewards cards taking up tons of space.  One of the mom's, Angela, mentioned an App that I could get to store all the cards.  I was so excited!  I downloaded it immediately and spent that evening putting all the card info in.  Now, what to do with the actual cards.  Most people would probably cut them up and throw them away.  Not me, of course, since I keep everything to use later.


After cleaning off my desk a few days later I saw the pile of cards.  I remembered that my husband had a guitar pick maker, the light bulb went off.  I started punching picks out of the cards. 

Now I had a pile of picks.  What to do next?  I played around with the picks and noticed that they were the shape of flower petals.  I laid out picks together that matched.  How was I going to put the flower together?  The first thing I though of was wire.  I nailed holes in a few and tried to wire them together into a flower with a decorative bead in the center.  Fail.  The petals were all floppy and wouldn't stay in place.  This was not working.  Back to the drawing board.  I thought about gluing them to the wall, but knew from prior experience that I would regret it. 

Finally, I decided to glue them to matching paper.  I laid them out and traced them, then cut the pattern out of the paper.  I glued then to the template and put a large bead in the center with the hole facing out.  Then I glued small seed beads around the large one.  Once the glue died I trimmed off any excess paper and nailed them to the wall.  Very cute.  My only problem now is that I need more cards to cut up.  Anyone have extras? : )

Chocolate Raspberry Cake

In 2005, when I was married, my close friend Joanne made my wedding cake.  It was a "Chocolate Chambord" Cake.  Honestly, it was the best cake I have ever tasted: moist, rich and flavorful.  Years later I asked her for the recipe, I was surprised at how easy it was to make.  My sister-in-law, Chelsea, and I made it for her wedding and it came out great.  I have made some changes to the original recipe and am quite happy with the outcome.

You can use any chocolate cake recipe that you like.  I found a Dark Chocolate Cake recipe from Grandma's Kitchen that I really like.

Dark Chocolate Cake

From the Kitchen of: Grandma’s Kitchen, modified

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 2 cups Flour
• 2 cups Sugar
• ½ cup Butter, melted
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 cups Water, boiling

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  2) Grease pan(s) and sprinkle additional Cocoa Powder on bottom.  3) Dissolve Baking Soda into boiling Water.  4) Sift remaining dry ingredients into bowl.  5) Add wet ingredients to dry mixture.  6) Mix.  7) Bake approximately 30 minutes. 8) When cool top with desired frosting.

After you make the cake let it cool completely.  Use a wire cake cutter, if you have one, to make the layers level.  Now you can begin to assemble it.  Put one layer on your plate.  Using a pastry brush apply Raspberry liquor to the layer.  Don't be stingy with it.  Any brand will work, Chambord will probably be the easiest to find. 

Next, smooth a layer of seedless Raspberry preserves over the liquor, about 2 tablespoons.  I use Polaner All-Fruit brand.  It has a good consistency and flavor.

Now add fresh Raspberries.  With you fingers open them up by tearing in half so they will lay flat.  Do not chop them, they will bleed if you do and discolor your frosting.

Next, add a layer of butter cream and top with the other chocolate cake layer.  Frost cake and top with remaining raspberries.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake 

From the Kitchen of: Joanne Sappo & Rebecca Molinari

Ingredients

• 2 layers Chocolate Cake
• 2 Tbsp seedless Raspberry Preserves

·         2 Tbsp Raspberry Liquor

·         1 box fresh Raspberries

• Buttercream Icing

Directions

1) Make cake.  2) When cake is completely cool brush raspberry liquor onto one layer.  3) Spread thin layer of preserves over liquor.  4) Break raspberries in half so they lay flat and place over preserves.  5) Spread layer of buttercream over raspberries.  6) Place second layer of cake and frost.