Rainbow Cake

My little Baby D turned three yesterday. Three. T-H-R-E-E. Three! How did this happen? She was just born 1095 days ago.
After the party, all the presents were played with and it was bed time, I happily sat with her to read several stories and watch her drift peacefully off to sleep, drinking in every moment I could. This has affected me so deeply that I may need to be institutionalized when she hits 18.
Such a monumental milestone deserves a monumental cake. I wasn't feeling any love for fondant because I haven't been spending enough time tackling the tricky topping, so I opted for a popular option, the rainbow cake. It is hard to beat for wow-factor, especially piled six tiers high.

Notice how the balloons make a color wheel? Yeah, that's not an accident.

She's utterly perfect in my eyes.

Now here's the humbling part. As impressive as this cake looks, it is crazy easy to make, just a little time consuming.

Rainbow cake:
(2) boxes white cake mix
(3) 9" round cake pans
(3) batches butter cream frosting (Recipe follows)

For the cake, mix one box at a time according to package directions. (note- I always use applesauce in the place of vegetable oil. It's my preference) Divide batter into 3 bowls. If you have a kitchen scale, it is 12 oz per bowl, otherwise eyeball it. Using standard food coloring create your color layers. I made red, orange and yellow for the first batch. Grease and flour the cake pans and pour in the batter. Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for about ten minutes and then invert onto a cooling rack. Repeat process for blue, green and purple.
(Note: I mixed red and yellow food coloring to make the orange layer, but I used the purple in the McCormick Neon food coloring for the purple layer. You could mix red and blue to make your own purple, but because I already had it on hand, it saved me a step.)
Assemble carefully. I spead a thin layer of frosting over each layer and then slathered a very thick layer on top to cover the imperfections. The bottom layers got a little compressed and the top layer was a little domed and had cracked from the doming. More frosting!
It should go without saying that you need to keep your ROYGBV sequence in your head when assembling. One mixed up layer would kill the presentation.


Butter Cream Frosting:
1/3 cup softened butter
4 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cream butter in mixer until smooth. Add half the sugar, scraping down the sides and mixing for one minute. Add the milk and vanilla. Gradually add the remaining sugar.

Viola!

An impressive dessert for an impressive young lady. Now to go watch my girls sleep and freeze time.

My kitchen helpers

My little helpers, Bean and Baby D.

Bean is just now dragging pots and pans from their cupboards and Baby D is trying to cut up a watermelon with her toddler knife. Such big helpers! I'm glad they are enthused about spending time in the kitchen learning as much as they can about cooking.

Their personalities couldn't be more different. Baby D is goofy and wants to do everything herself. Bean is more laid back and likes to observe and absorb what is going on. As far as eating goes, Baby D eats like a bird and Bean devours everything in sight and wants more.

As much as I love them, they can occassionally derail a planned meal. That's fine, that's what pizza delivery is for.

I'm sure there will be plenty more stories of their antics in the future.

Chicken Consomme

I think Consomme is a french word meaning, "crazy amount of work for a clear broth." It's a wasteful process but the end result is a flavorful broth with rejuvenating powers when you're sick, as I am.
I've come down with a nasty bug and am currently on antibiotics. Usually I prefer to tough it out and get over a cold without using medication but with a toddler in the terrible twos and a teething ten month old, I decided it would be best to get this illness over with as soon as possible.

The neatest thing about this consomme is the raft. You finely chop up ground chicken, a carrot, a leek or onion and some parsley and mix that with one egg white. This makes up the raft. You throw all that into a pot with some chicken broth and let it bubble nicely for about 45 minutes. The broth will bubble up through the raft and purify the stock while adding flavor. It come out very clear and tasty.

Skim off the raft and you are left with a wonderful broth that needs only a little bit of salt to bring out the best of it's flavors.
To give credit where credit is due I also learned this recipe from watching, "French food at home" with Laura Calder. She's awesome.

Wings and Beer!

So simple and so so good. Once in a while my husband and I allow this indulgence which reminds us of all those nights after work when you needed to unwind with friends. More recently we had a weekly tradition we called SciFi Friday. My husband, his brother and I would eat wings while watching the SciFi channel on Friday night. (Buncha nerds, I know) The lineup was usually Stargate and Stargate Atlantis.
Since then, the SciFi channel has turned into the SyFy channel (lame), both Stargates have been cancelled and we started building the house and having kids. This last Friday was the first time in a long time that we've had wings.
The best wings for quality that we've found come from Sam's Club. They are packaged as a three-joint wing which you can cut into the two separate meat sections and discard the tip, or simply bake whole.
We deviate from the bar menu by baking our wings rather than frying them. I find the skin is crisper and it's less work than frying.
If I were back home in the Twin Tiers, the beer in the picture would be Yuengling. Since I now live in the upper Midwest, it's a Leinenkugel's. Fresh local beer -yum.

Baked Chicken Wings and Hot Sauce:
Preheat oven to 400F.
12 Chicken wings, whole or cut apart.
Place on a baking sheet.
Lightly coat with olive oil.
Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Bake for 1 hour. Turn once during baking.

Melt preferred amount of butter in a saucepan. Add Frank's Hot sauce or other suitable hot sauce to desired heat level. Toss wings in sauce while still warm from the oven. Serve hot.

Serve with celery sticks and blue cheese sauce.

And don't forget the beer!!