The Cake Adventure

We've had several days when the temperature lingered around 30 degrees and the sky was gray with a steady wind.  Already I'm feeling the hibernating urge.  Zip has been kind enough to make the trip to the library and the grocery store for those two essentials in my life, books and food.

I want to spend my winter in cat mode.

Curled up in the recliner near the woodstove sounds like a plan to me.

No, little sweetheart, I'm not going to attempt dislodging you from the chair!

I haven't posted for quite a while because I really haven't had anything to write about.  Life goes on, same stuff, different day.
Zip's birthday was on Saturday.  Number 71!  Yeesh, how did we get so OLD???
On Friday we went out with Brad and Kami to one of our favorite restaurants, Issei Noodle in Carlisle.
Then on Saturday we had a get-together with our grand-daughter Emily, her Mom and boyfriend at Lincoln Diner in Gettysburg.

The family picture minus me, I'm behind the camera.

 And with Kami taking the picture.
It was also Zack, Emmy's boyfriend's birthday too.

Now for the cake part.  Zip's mom is 93 tomorrow so we had her birthday dinner last evening.
About enough birthdays to make your head spin, isn't it?

Every year a different one of the brothers and sisters in Zip's family are responsible for providing the birthday cake.  This year it was our turn.  I get really tired of cakes from the grocery store with cool whip frosting and garish colored decorations.  All that food coloring can't be good for a person, right?

So I decided I would make cakes.  Even though I haven't baked a cake in years.

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

My first thought was to make them all from scratch, but then I came to my senses and decided to use cake mixes and just make creative fillings and frostings.
My sister Linda had made a wonderful cake with white cake mix and then you poke holes in it and let a can of cream of coconut soak down in it.
Seemed like a good idea until I tried to get the soaked cake out of the pan and it all fell to pieces.

I also found that with some cake mixes the layers can be cut in half with thread and moved to a plate, and others crumble to pieces because they are too delicate.
Several such attempts went into the trash.

I finally made three cakes with successfully divided layers, one chocolate and two yellow.  I think it was the Duncan Hines mixes that worked the best.  Betty Crocker cakes were nice and fine and moist, but crumbled easily.

The fillings and frostings were actually the easy part.  It was fun making lemon curd and chocolate mousse.  And I made some of the most yummy chocolate frosting ever.

Dark chocolate cake with tree layers of chocolate mousse filling and chocolate buttercream frosting.

Yellow cake with chocolate and maraschino cherry filling and white buttercream frosting with cherries on top.

And my personal favorite.
Yellow cake with two lemon curd  layers with vanilla buttercream frosting. and lemon curd in the center of the top.

So you can see how exciting my life has been lately!  ha-ha!

I started another sweater.  Decided cables might be interesting for a change.

Already finding out that it isn't challenging enough to old my interest for long.
This is the back.  I think I'll all two more panels of cables to the front.  Just one panel looks like it will get lost between my boobs.

It's time to bet back to the recliner and that nice warm stove.  With a cup of hot coffee and a good book.

Or maybe not...

Thanks for stopping by!