Playing With Food

Wednesday was my friend Julianne's birthday, which gave me an excellent excuse to ditch work for the afternoon and bake a cake instead.


I know, I know, I promised I'd never talk about cake here...but I hadn't made a cake in forever, and this was really fun! It's butterscotch pecan with ganache filling, homemade caramel frosting (my first time making it, and YUM. That is all.), and then another thin layer of ganache and toffee bits on the outside because the caramel frosting looked ugly as sin. Heh.

And before you go thinking I'm some kind of "baker," I should tell you I use The Cake Mix Doctor religiously, and *always* start with a box mix. Judge away. I'm lazy.


That night we had a small pumpkin carving party. Julianne and her husband Ray are the parents of Ninja Baby (remember the Ninja Nursery?), and they kept to the theme by carving these two mini pumpkins:

I'm actually getting a Ninja Turtles vibe here.

Which only makes it better, of course.

And this is their last name:

Man, why can't my last name look that cool? Maybe I can get Ray to write out Yates in Chinese...

Our friend Mary is a home decor diva, and despite the fact that she and her hubby Jordan had never carved a pumpkin in their entire lives, they still managed to make this:

Sickening. Just...sickening.


I meant to carve that cute Harry Potter design for my own pumpkin, but as I was printing it out I found something else that I knew would make John very, very happy. So instead of Harry Potter, I carved this:

Yep, it's Puss n' Boots, from Shrek. This scene where he goes all big-eyed and cute is one of John's favorites - the only thing that made him laugh harder was the hairball scene, but that would have made for a pretty gross pumpkin. :)

(You can get the Puss n' Boots stencil for free here.)

John, meanwhile, spent this time cleaning and roasting pumpkin seeds, taking embarrassing pictures of the rest of us, and mocking Ray for having such tiny pumpkins:

John [in his Ah-nold voice]: "Ok, now hold up your ridiculous pansy pumpkin and look sad. Ya."

So in other words, John was being John.

So, now all we have to do is buy more Halloween candy (and promise ourselves that this time we won't eat it all) and wait for Sunday! We'll be watching Ghostbusters here with friends while doling out candy to the neighborhood kids. How 'bout you guys?

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UPDATE: By popular demand, here's the recipe for the caramel frosting:

- In a medium saucepan, melt 1 stick butter with 1/2 c of dark brown sugar & 1/2 c light brown sugar. Bring to a boil.

- add 1/4 c whole milk and return to a boil

- remove from heat

- add 1 tsp vanilla & 2 cups of confectioner's sugar

- beat with a wooden spoon until smooth, & use immediately. (If the icing hardens too quickly, you can put it back on the heat to soften it.)