Rachel's in the kitchen...

This is the season of birthdays in my own family and extended family. It starts with Claire on 4/4, my brothers and dad on 4/23,24,27, Zach on 5/15 and my sister on 5/24. I didn't have to do a cake for my brothers and dad but I did create some for the others. I also made 2 dozen brownies in cupcake tins (yes, rather time consuming but per instructions as ordered) for a stake relief society event and a flower made out of 12 frozen rolls covered with cinnamon sugar and icing for for a stake primary event. Yikes. Every weekend for about 6 weeks straight I was baking something else and I gotta admit I'm more of a grilling red meat kind of gal. Bakery Betty...not so much. I am including pictures of them but don't start ordering them online yet. I was so sick of making cakes I didn't even do one for my own birthday celebration two weeks ago.....

This is Claire's Princess cake. I had gotten a new springform pan with a rose top and she picked that one for her Princess themed party. It didn't turn out as good as I envisioned it, but then again it never does.

Zach couldn't decide on the theme for his second birthday party. We wandered up and down the boy birthday aisle at Party City for 30 minutes as he kept saying yes then no then yes. Really all he wanted to do was use the rolls of wrapping paper as bats and whack the toy balls over the aisles. Finally, Claire chose the "Cars" theme over my baseball theme (I know...I was weak) and so I made the appropriate cake. This one did turn out as I thought it would. Not perfect but pretty danged good. Zach was pleased and kept asking to eat his "Go Cake Now." Notice my cheap $1 black plastic table cover made into a road with masking tape. Go ahead. Copy my idea and take the credit. These blogs have dates you know and I can prove authorship!

Now, my sister, Sarah, turned the big 4-0 this year and I couldn't let that one go by. We used all black plastic ware and tablecloths and I covered the door in black as well. I hung little "Older Than Dirt" signs and such around the room and we all wore black. She had requested German Chocolate cake, thinking I wouldn't be able to do anything with it, but HA-HA. With my handy bread knife and a little wooden skewer I made a lovely natural pine (maybe oak) coffin. My handy dandy computer helped out with the headstone. I think she liked it, even though she didn't quite express that sentiment exactly. Oh well....she'll have her turn at revenge next year. Bring it on.

Who knew Rhodes frozen dinner rolls could be so much fun? We made these for our 11-yr-old girls activity for stake primary. This is a picture of the test batch so I could figure out what we were doing and let the ladies know how to make the thing. The Final Product was much prettier and involved a much more delicate artistic touch on the icing. Normally, we just buy a bunch of muffins, but our budget was chopped in half this year so us Frugal Frans put these together for the big day. Don't worry, we still bought a few mini-muffins. Gotta give the people what they want.