The plan was to make up some chocolate eclairs for N’s birthday treat. He has asked for these instead of a cake this year. Except instead of using the typical pastry cream I am filling the eclairs with Bavarian cream. The pastry dough recipe comes from the Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook, it is called Pate a Choux.

The Bavarian cream recipe comes from the All Recipes website. The only ingredient difference between pastry cream and Bavarian cream is the gelatin and whipping cream. We like the consistency and taste of Bavarian cream better than other pastry creams, it is not a fluffy, full of air and sweet.

Everly was pretty interested in the baking process. She ate lunch and dinner facing my workspace in the kitchen. She watched me mix stuff, line cookie sheets, pipe dough and she even got to help me “smooth” the tops of the eclairs down before baking. Though she was really interested in grabbing the raw eclair dough and mashing it in her fingers.

Everly and I also dropped some gooey cinnamon rolls off for the neighbor. We I ate many cinnamon rolls, Everly just watched me. It is like a bakery here these days. Yummy and one of my favorite things to do… Someday I’ll open myself a bakery or coffee/ baked treats shop. I bet she’ll want to tag along!

Last week we experimented with another possible first birthday cake recipe for Everly. N discovered and made this one up. Here it is:

Molasses Spice Cake with Lemon Frosting
from Mother Earth News Oct/ Nov 2009 edition

The reason we decided to try this one is because it has no white sugar and it’s made with applesauce (which we have an abundance of thanks to our apple picking and canning).

You’ll need:

2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamom (we substituted with allspice)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses (ours didn’t indicate it was “blackstrap”)
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease yourself a 9 inch cake pan. We used our 9 inch round springform pan. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and spices (all the dry ingredients) and put aside.

Next, whisk together the molasses, honey, vinegar, applesauce and milk (all the liquid ingredients). Then slowly fold in the premixed, dry ingredients until completely combined.

Pour entire mixture into your greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Our cake wasn’t fully cooked in 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before frosting it.

To make the frosting you’ll need:
1/4 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

Cream the butter then add the powdered sugar a bit at a time alternating with the lemon juice. Beat until creamy and spreadable, you can add more lemon juice to thin it if you find it is too thick to spread. Then frost your cooled cake and enjoy!

This cake, unlike the last one we tried out, tastes very good. Not to dry or flavorless. I’ll probably experiment with a cream cheese frosting or a whipped cream frosting since I am not crazy about the lemon flavor and the huge amounts of sugar in the powdered sugar.

As for it being a baby’s first birthday cake it’s a very good option for those who have not had egg added to their diet yet. The only concern is the honey in the recipe. That is something each parent needs to weigh and decide about on their own. For us it is not a huge concern. For others it might be.

The other major baking endeavor I am undertaking is some puff pastries filled with bavarian cream for N’s birthday. Tomorrow I’ll share those recipes with ya!
(

So, N came home from work late X-mas eve (11pm) and we proceeded to bake cookies and frost them. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the sugar cookie frosting recipe we used. It was crazy runny and kind of pissed me off. I yelled “If I wanted runny crap I would have just mixed my powdered sugar with some milk until it was runny!” N just laughed at me and said it wasn’t that big of a deal. I felt like the world was ending.

We frosted cookies and stuffed stockings until about 2am X-mas eve and then fell in to bed exhausted. We slept until about 10am X-mas day which didn’t leave us much time to celebrate before N had to go back to work. We opened presents, ate cinnamon rolls and tried to make the most of our time together.

We left a soccer ball under the tree for Dixie and she was immediately playing with it and having a blast. We also hid a huge bone under the tree for her. The cats got a ton of jingle balls and cat nip filled mousies. We were really pleased that they were having fun with new toys.

N loves his new Wii that I scored for him on back Friday. He hasn’t hooked up or played with the Wii Fit yet, he’s only had about 3 hours of “play time” since opening the gifts thanks to work. I also grabbed him some pastel ties, a dress shirt, pants, ear warmers and leather gloves to keep his hands warm while reporting.

I was especially exited about the sweet lunch box (see it here) I found for him to take lunch/ dinner to work. I also got him a bouncy squirrel feeder (called a Squngee Deluxe Squirrel Feeder), a new wallet, some daddy to be books and a movie.

He got me an external hard drive for my Mac and also got me a new spiffy digital camera that is tons better than the one we currently have.

He also got me tons of stuff from Victoria’s Secret, a new bigger bra, low rise undies for my new preggo body, a fun house dress and some stretchy, low rise yoga pants. From Bed Bath and Body he got be some floofy, fun, no slip socks, nifty microwavable neck and foot warmers and a slew of bath goodies.

Last night, X-mas night, N and I planned on having a nice ham dinner when he got off work. Unfortunately at about 9:30 pm some drunk crazy decided it was a good idea to run from cops, going the wrong way down the road at about 100 miles an hour and he hit a car full of innocent people (including an infant) who were probably just heading home from holiday celebrations (you can read more about it here).

N was sent to the scene to cover the story and was late coming home as a result. That is the nature of the beast though, breaking news happens and covering it is what he does. So I made sure to adjust cooking temperatures so dinner would be hot and ready for him when he came home late.

I managed to make a ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing and a maple cheese cake from scratch without getting all tired and loosing energy, and I did it in only 2 hours. Dinner was great, then we played the Wii for about an hour before heading off to bed at 2am again.

N is back at work again today, then we’ll have 4 days together starting Saturday and we plan to play the Wii like crazy, spend some quality time together finally and to get in touch with the family back in Arizona. All in all we had a great holiday together. If you didn’t see our holiday carol that was posted in Christmas day you should stop by and read it now. I thought it was funny.

We have quite the car repair bill to work in to our budget now which is sucky but that is life. We are also optimistic about The Farm birthing options and are trying to see if our insurance does indeed cover their services like we suspect it does. What is new with you? How did the holiday go and what is on your mind now?

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
A garage cat with some fleas.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Two broken cars (poor Nissan and Amigo!)
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Three months-of-pregnancy (almost 4!),
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Four petri dishes of growing mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Five feet of soaking, nasty basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Six days of rain (and no freaking snow!),
Five feet of soaking basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Seven pans of cinnamon rolls,
Six days of rain,
Five feet of soaking basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Eight pounds of baby weight,
Seven pans of rolls,
Six days of rain,
Five feet of soaking basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Only nine checkers checking (at Walmart yesterday, what a joke!),
Eight pounds of weight,
Seven pans of rolls,
Six days of rain,
Five feet of soaking basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Ten packages shipped to loved ones,
Nine checkers checking,
Eight pounds of weight,
Seven pans of rolls,
Six days of rain,
Five feet of soaking basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Eleven poo smears in the toilet,
Ten packages shipped,
Nine checkers checking,
Eight pounds of weight,
Seven pans of rolls,
Six days of rain,
Five feet of soaking basement -Yuck!,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Twelve-hundred-dollars-of-car-repair-work for the amigo. Ouch,
Eleven poo smears,
Ten packages shipped,
Nine checkers checking,
Eight pounds of weight,
Seven pans of cinnamon rolls,
Six days of rain,
Five feet of soaked basement,
Four dishes of mold,
Three months-of-pregnancy,
Two broken cars,
And a garage cat with some fleas.

Whew! That was amusing for me. By the way, after I wrote it all out I also did sing it just for good measure. You know to make sure it all went well together. Hope you tried to sing it too, brought a smile to my face just trying it! Happy holidays all, I hope you are having the best time today!

I know mine isn’t as good as this but it was entertaining!

From the album: Holiday Spirits by the Straight No Chasers

Now, I am not the only blogger who has reworked a holiday song just for their blog, many others have also done so! If this includes you please enter the link to your holiday song post below. We would love to see what others have come up with!

Thankfully I am over the car drama stressing thanks to my therapeutic cinnamon roll baking and my ever fluctuating hormone levels. Once again I am making about 7 pans of Oowey, gooey, heaven in a pan, cinnamon rolls with this online recipe.

If you love cinnamon rolls you have got to try the recipe, trust me! It is easy and pretty basic as far as ingredients go. Go forth and bake rolls, you will not be sorry.

Oh and don’t worry I wont be eating all 7 pans of rolls myself, that would be insane. I would slip in to a diabetic coma and Tater Tot would be bouncing off my uterus walls!

N is taking some pans to work and we are giving some to our neighbors to spread holiday cheer and all that jazz. Plus, I am keeping some for us to throw in to the oven on Christmas morning. Mmmm!

On Christmas Eve (today) we are going to be baking all sorts of cookies. Sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies and a few other fun ones are the goal. N is also working both today and on Christmas Day, he has to be in @ 2pm all week.

He does however have a 4 day weekend as a result, he’ll be enjoying his big present all 4 day I am sure!

I am pleased that I have zero wrapping to do tonight (got it all done in advance, yay!) but I still have N’s stocking to stuff and put out. When he gets off work @ 11pm we’ll have hot coco and cookies, you know try to spend some quality time together. I also want to get to bed at a reasonable time so we can wake up and enjoy Christmas Morning before he has to push off to work that afternoon.

What is your Christmas Eve looking like? Are you like my mom with a closet full of shopping bags that all need to be wrapped on Christmas Eve? What is your Christmas Eve tradition?

Choreographing routines and working band camps has ended for me. If you are interested to see what I have been putting together here is a video:

After the party today N has 1 more day of work left then we focus on last minute packing and cleaning. We move in 8 days it is pretty surreal for us but also exciting! Here we go!

I like the concept of this recipe. It’s a lot like the Amish friendship bread idea.. Its sort of a chain letter but with dough. You can read more about Amish friendship bread at Wikipedea.com. Anyway, this cinnamon roll recipe and the Amish friendship bread recipe are simply a bakers way to share with the ones they love.

This cinnamon roll recipe is my one kind act for today! I hope I can pull it off and that everyone loves it! You should try it too and let us know how yours turns out!

—————————————————————————————

Update @ 5:24pm

I pulled it off and am on my way to burger night with two of the seven pans of baked deliciousness!!