Lambing Season

 It's easter and you know what that means - thousands of home bakers will be baking a variety of lamb, egg and bunny shaped cakes again. Is it time to go through another round of intense holiday baking? You bet it is!

Three years I was following my Mom's tradition of baking lamb cakes for everyone. The pandemic hit and for two years Easter was a small affair with a lovely small cake from my local Acme. Now that life is back to normal, I'll be back at the Acme in search of cake mixes, Dream Whip for body, confectioner's sugar and flour.This mold will see active duty again this week and next for Orthodox Easter,It also means a thorough oven cleaning as well.

Of course there are questions and planning. For one friend, maybe a vanilla cake with a strawberry icing. For my house - the ever popular chocolate cake with a coffee frosting for a little brown lamb. Greek Orthodox friends always want the traditional  vanilla cake and vanilla frosting - there can be no other.I've been checking out my go to and best website for frosting recipes Two Sisters to see if there's a different type of coating to try. Then there's the question of full vegan for friends. Do I add almond milk and Just Egg to their cakes as well or can I use real eggs and milk for a fuller bodied cake? The decorations also count.Luckily food coloring has an indefinite shelf life so I can use the ones from the last lamb cake frenzy. As for the chocolate lamb, chocolate decorations work best, so it's buying a new tin of cocoa (and plan making and baking everything from mole to chocolate meringues this Spring). I know I'm not doing a tester cake like I did the last time. There was so much cake by Easter time. I will also need cupcake papers because there will be extra batter  and icing. The overage will yield two or three little cakes which are fun to decorate.

Yes, lambing season is here. That means my oven will be busy once more creating the cake everyone loves.It is a lot of work, but to seeing smiles of gratitude are worth all the baking and frosting.

Great Combos Part Two The Sweet Side

 Some ingredients are made for each other. Dessert ones are no different. They make for delicious treats of all shapes and forms On their own they're good. Together, they're phenomenal.

We have French chocolatier Henri Roux who combined salt and caramel together in the late Seventies. This Breton candy maker wanted a treat that would stand out among the competition while making use of the local ingredients. Voila! He used a salted butter in his caramel recipe and it instantly became a hit and in 1980 was named Best Sweet In France. Now it's all over the place. A popular fun dessert to make is salted caramel cupcakes. This is making an almost butterscotch batter with the addition of a quarter teaspoon of sea salt. Another idea is salted caramel frosting, perfect for chocolate cakes and cupcakes.  The Two Sisters website - known for their variety of yummy frostings has a recipe for it , creating a homemade stove cooked caramel from butter, milk, brown sugar. It's added to confectioners sugar along with the addition of sea salt. For any salted caramel recipe use a good flaky sea salt like the British Malden or Celtic's Flower of the Ocean.Another good marriage is chocolate and any berry. You can't go wrong with a chocolate cake filled with strawberries and frosted with a strawberry frosting. Another treat is combining chocolate syrup with powdered raspberry for a delicious topping for ice cream sundaes and parfaits.It also makes for a tasty sauce for crepes. 

It's rhubarb season and that means the stalks are out in full force now.It's also strawberry season too. These two balance out each other's complexities while the sweetness of the berries counteracts the stalk's sourness. Another reason for their combo is that they both come into season at the same time.  The combo can be made into all sorts of recipes. For a lovely Spring dessert think a strawberry - rhubarb pie. This is perfect for barbecues , especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can also put the combo in a rustic galette to bring to a picnic or in a buttery tart for an elegant end to a candlelight dinner. Of course both are perfect in crisps and cobblers. These are easy to make and they easy baked toppings bring out the flavor and juices of both. Strawberries and rhubarb can also be made into a compote. This is incredibly easy to make. Just add half a cup of brown sugar and a pinch of salt to the two. It's then letting the juices flow out and cooking the cut strawberries and rhubarb in them. This ruby red compote is perfect to add to Greek yogurt for a healthy dessert or spooned over pancakes or waffles.

There are some great combos for dessert out there. Try topping a cake with a salted caramel frosting. Top off a parfait with a chocolate and berry sauce. Finish dinner with a strawberry rhubarb crisp or cobbler.These pairings make for a sweet duo.

The Winterscape Cake

This was supposed to be the perfect holiday cake.

Except I made it two weeks after Christmas and a week after New Year's.

This was the cake I had wanted to make, before sickness and life happened. It was going to be a two layer cake with a peppermint buttercream

 icing.

With the way my schedule is I thought a larger one layer cake - about 13  by 9. It was easier to bake

I used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Dark Chocolate Fudge cake

This mix requires three eggs which makes for an incredibly moist cake.

Then it was time for the decoration. I wanted to create a winterscape with pine trees.

This was my first time using fondant

It's a white gummy kind of icing that can be used as a covering for cakes or cupcakes. I just wanted to make pine trees.

This required my embroidery scissors and the mini skewers I used for the Easter.

The scissors are used for making the boughs while the skewers are used to spin the fondant around to cut.

Since fondant is white, green food coloring has to be added.

It's then hand mixing the coloring into the fondant and rolling the fondant into cones.

It kind of looks like cotton candy before it's cut.

This is it. Not bad compared to the other three made. Fondant is temperamental. It needs to be kept in a dark cool place once the package is opened.

The icing was a simple peppermint buttercream that I got from The Two Sisters blog. They have the best buttercream recipes with all sorts of flavors. I've used their cream cheese one already.

It's typical buttercream - although I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, confectioner's sugar along with two teaspoons of peppermint extract.

It's Neisen-Massey's which makes the best extracts. This was blended with the confectioner's sugar , I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and a tablespoon of almond milk to get it creamy.

This was frosted over the cake. The trees were added , along with silver sanding sugar for a sparkly snow effect.

This was my Christmas  - winterscape cake. I will make it again. I love the new Duncan Hines' mix. and there's something about peppermint buttercream that's heavenly. As for the fondant, I will try it again. It makes for pretty decorations.