Day 55

Hello everyone!

I know it seems as though it has been a while and to be honest, I have had a little too much on my plate. (get it?)

In the past few weeks my world has had a pretty large shift and I had to take a break from my cake making to attend to family matters that were of the most high importance. My family has relocated to New England, where all my extended family is, there is friendlier medical care for my mother and the great mountains of New Hampshire.  While this is a blessing, it is still difficult to say goodbye to the house I grew up in and to my immediate family who I have always been very close to. But alas, as you grow up things change and its what you make out of situations that show what kind of person you are. Thankfully, there is that wonderful thing called "Skype" so I will at least get to video chat with them and I will get to see them during different parts of the year due to the wonderful invention of airplanes...

Now, on to more pressing items.

I have been able to make a couple cakes from the book during the last few weeks, the first being a Golden Almond cake. This requires a little pre set up as you need to toast unblanched almonds, then let them cool completely and finely chop them. They will later replace some of the flour to make a most delicous crunch in the texture as you endulge in the cake. It is a little denser then a normal cake but I added a homemade chocolate whipped cream to the top and it melded the two textures together for cake bliss. I was able to make this while I had some dear frinds of mine spend the weekend here, as they were going to the Manchester United vs Chicago Fire game (go Fire!). When I came home from work the cake had a single slice left.... I take that as a win for me!

Tonight I made the All Occasion Downy Butter cake. Rose claims this is her favorite cake to make because it is the easiest to work with. I plan of making this a layer cake with a carmel praline crunch buttercream but I need to go back to the dreaded Whole foods to get more hazlenuts to make the praliene bark. So far the cakes look fantastic and I really want to taste them but I must wait for the praliene crunch butter cream.

Until next time!