Lamingtons and December Fun

I swear that Lamingtons transcend the sum of their parts. Look, they’re just sponge cake, jam, chocolate, and coconut. But all together they’re amazing. I borrowed a cake pan from Kelly and Adam (super cool owners of Honest Works Island Pottery in Key West). So, when the Lamingtons were done, I took them some cakes and modeled them on one of their lovely turquoise plates.  Recipe Here.

On the way home I saw this big truck parked across the sidewalk and it made me laugh out loud. I can just picture my DVD remote control running out of juice and me calling these guys for some spare Triple A batteries, Pronto!

I strung the advent calendar up in the kitchen. Each day I try to think up some free or cheap activity. Last night was “go pick up dad from the airport and raid his suitcase for presents!”

Saturday’s advent activity was the Key West Holiday Parade. Here’s the haul. We threw most of this away, but kept enough to eat one piece every Monday for a few months. (That was the deal the kid came up with, after I said one piece each day was Too Much Candy.

Sunday’s activity was free locals day at the aquarium. This sweet pigeon ate from our hands!

They have a fish there that looks like a PUPPY. It’s called the dog-faced puffer fish. We couldn’t get a great shot, but I wanted to pet him, he looked just like a beagle.

Here are the finished sugar skulls from my sister-in-law Noemi in SLC! The Boogedy believes he won the contest, for Most Use of Frosting. Zach believes he won for best disco lips.

Snakes and Frogs Birthday

The Boogedy’s 2nd birthday was actually in February, but the house was in shambles under construction, so we opted to wait and hold the party once the house was decent again. It was part birthday, part grand re-opening of the house party. The theme was snakes and frogs, inspired by this great hat I made for the Boogedy and a cute froggy invitation we sent to everyone.

Here is the awesome coral snake I made using two chocolate bundt cakes and cream cheese frosting. This was ideal for our family, most of whom do not care much for frosting. The dark sections are unfrosted. This snake is enjoying his frog dinner.

We played a great balloon stomping game where everyone tied a small balloon to their ankle and took off their shoes. Then, they tried to pop everyone else’s balloon while keeping their own balloon safe. The last person to remain unpopped is the winner. This was really fun, but the little kids in attendance were a bit overwhelmed.

Then, we played pin the fly on the frog, using a frog face modeled on the invitation we’d sent out and using hand-drawn flies.

We had visited the wine store the day before and picked out wines based on their labels (the wine specialists on-site do not approve of picking wine by our criteria). Here were some of the possibilities:

We couldn’t find any with snakes on the label! Lots of bicycles and kangaroos. Lots of estates and abstract color blocks. Lots of hoofed animals. But no snakes. So we went with the Nathanson Creek because they had white and red wines for a good price.

We put out some decorations:

And I made a baked potato bar with lots and lots of toppings. About halfway through the evening, Zach lit a bonfire in the backyard firepit and sent someone to the store for s’mores fixins. The weather was just right for sitting outside at night, just nippy enough to appreciate a fire.

It was the nicest (and biggest) party we’ve ever held, and the Boogedy received so many adorable presents. Thanks everybody!!

Early Valentine’s present

So, Zach sent me such a cool early Valentine’s Day present:

Personalized m&ms! But he didn’t want them in those sissy pink and red v-day colors, so I got primaries instead.

And, the m&m company wouldn’t put his preferred sayings on the m’s, citing their policy against threatening or vulgar language.

So I got these instead:

The first is because I always tell him I love him so much that I’d like to cut off his arms and legs and keep him in a box. The second is because he figures I’ll believe it if I see it in writing. The third quantifies our love…at level 7… 7 out of 10… 7 of 7…7 of 100…who knows? And the fourth is what he says every time he gets me a totally cool, but expensive present.

They wouldn’t print “die sara die” or “love of my butt”.

A little TOO experimental

I love cooking for company. When friends ask what they can bring, I usually say I’ll make the main dishes and sides and they should bring dessert. Last week I had visitors and decided to make a small, simple cake to serve with coffee. I modified this Orange Yogurt Cake recipe to use lemon zest and juice instead of orange. It was delicious! I made it again for different visitors later in the week…again, delicious!So last night, when I went to a friend’s house for dinner (chicken mole and fresh guacamole and tortillas) and mah jong lessons, I decided to get creative and make two modified cakes: cinnamon-chocolate and key lime…

Zach has decided that we are cutting out refined sugar, so I made the cakes with local raw honey.

Unfortunately, I don’t know much about substitutions in baking, and the cakes lacked depth of flavor, and were rather dense and low. I didn’t sub 1:1, thinking the honey would be too sweet. So the flattish cakes were pretty, if unexciting. If you have ideas on substituting honey in baked goods, I’d love to hear!