Lemon Filled Cake

My mother's birthday is at the beginning of June and she asks for the same kind of cake each year...lemon.  I usually bake her a lazy cake by dropping the filling into the raw batter and swirling it around and then baking it and icing it.  She reports each year that the cake is not lemony enough.  I don't like cakes with any amount of lemon, so I could care less if it is light on the lemon or heavy. 

This year I decided I would put forth a little more effort and channel my friend Kasey of Kakes by Klassic, who makes all kinds of awesome kakes.  My cake was not even close to awesome, so I cannot call it a kake.  :)  Anyway, I made the huge decision that I would bake a plain yellow cake, then actually cut it in half, fill it and then ice it.  Huge step for Ema and her creative baking skills.  I am sure I would never have tried this if it wasn't for Kasey and all her awesome kakes.  You should really check her out...she rocks!

Now back to my mediocre cake.  I baked my boring yellow cake from a mix, since I am that good, on a Thursday night and let it cool on the counter over night.  The next morning I had the genius idea remembered a tip from the cake shows on TLC that cutting of a cake is much easier when the cake is cold, so I put my cake in the fridge.  Friday afternoon I got it out, said a prayer and began slicing it in half.

Before slicing and during prayer

After successfully completing step one...phew

After slicing the cake in half, I was feeling pretty confident that I was not going to be presenting my mother crumbled cake with lemon and icing so that was a great feeling.  I figured I could salvage something cake like even if I split the top half while putting it back in place.  On to the filling.  Note my very fancy foil covered cutting board.  Stylish!

Lemony...yuck!  I mean yum!

Flipping the top back on the cake was easy.  Woohoo for small victories.

Together again

Once I had the top layer of cake back in place, I decided that the top was a little rounded and since I was rocking the cake hacking I might as well trim the top to make it more flat.  The bonus part of this was I got to taste the cake without any lemony evilness, which was delicious.  The bad part...I found out exactly why the cake shows call that first layer of icing below the fondant a crumb coating.  That's right...crumbs all up in my icing.  And the extra special ability to see the places on the top of the cake that were cut through the icing.  Cream cheese icing is apparently very easy to see through.

See how the cake is lighter in the middle?  Nice.

No, I didn't write anything on the top of it...I just added some candles.  I had already put forth all my daring creativity with the actual filling of the cake.  The great news is that my mom loved it and didn't have to add extra lemon filling to her slice.  Awesome.

Van Gogh and Vino

There is an awesome organization called Charity Chicks Houston and their mission is to help other charities raise money or secure volunteers for projects and events.  You may remember me blogging about their October event BRAtober which benefits a different breast cancer research organization each year.  They had an event this month benefiting Houston Area Women's Center that they called Van Gogh and Vino.  Basically ladies were invited to sign up for an art class at a wine bar and proceeds were donated to the center.  Nice!

I got together with some friends and we went.  Our challenge?  Have fun, drink wine and paint for a good cause.

Have fun, check!

Drink wine, check!  Paint?  I'll try!

There were lots of fun chicks in attendance and it was a very good time.  We even turned out some pretty good artwork.  I am happy to say that I thought outside the box and came up with my own color scheme.  Go me for being different.

The classroom

Our art - mine's the blue one

And can I say I loved this table?  Who wants to help me drink enough wine to make one?

My next wine/art project!

My First 5K

On Saturday, June 4th,  I walked my first 5K.  It was awesome!  First of all, we had a beautiful morning; and in Houston during a record setting high temperature start to the summer that is HUGE!!  Don't get me wrong it was hot out there, but it wasn't very humid which was great.  I picked up our packets the day before, which I was happy about so we had no need to rush in the morning.  My friend Kasey and my husband walked with me.

The start was at Marmion Park on Heights Boulevard, which was a very cute park and it was packed with runners and walkers.

Cute gazebo with hard working volunteers.

Packed park with people stretching.  Look!  Our shadows!

We got started walking a little after 7:30, the line up for the start was slightly chaotic, but relaxed.  There was a man announcing that runners should be at the front and walkers at the back...I think we were all a big mix; we were dutifully standing at the back of the pack, but there were still runners around us.  The man did make sure to continually remind us that the balloon framing the start line was not as wide as the street and we should be careful.  I suppose they have had trouble with people running into the huge yellow and blue balloon in past races.  We had no accidents.

Here we go!

It took us almost an hour to walk the course, which was an out and back around the median in the street.  We could see the front runners headed past us toward the finish line about 20 minutes in, we all cheered for them.

Nearing the finish line with my BFFs.  See the large yellow balloon in the distance?

It was a great way to spend the morning.  I should have eaten something before the race.  That was a huge oversight on my part and I will not make that mistake again, but luckily my body did okay.  We went for breakfast tacos after the race...yum egg whites and potato on corn tortillas with salsa!  Delicious!

My Plate

We no longer have a food pyramid, we have a plate.  I kind of like it...how do you feel about it?

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It certainly makes sense having the food groups depicted on a plate instead of a pyramid...much easier to relate to.

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Now I will admit that I never really visited the website before, I searched it today since I knew we were going from a pyramid to something else, but I must say I kind of like the USDA's new Choose My Plate site.  They have a Food-a-pedia that will let you search for a food and see the nutritional information, where it belongs on your plate and the serving size.  Not a bad reference.

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I personally think that the dairy group, which looks like it might be in a cup should be re-labeled to wine.  I'm on to something here, I'm sure of it.  What do you think?