Challenge Update

For this past year, I gave myself an unofficial challenge (unofficial because I wasn't yet blogging, to make it official ;), to finally figure out how to make a delicious, light cake.  I'm a bakestress, and know my way around cookies of all types, yeast breads, quick breads and muffins, rolls, and many other confections.  Somehow I just couldn't wrap my head (or hands) around baking a cake that didn't turn out dense, heavy and unpleasant to eat.  My challenge then: learn how to bake a good cake by the time Snorzy's first birthday rolled around.  Up until late in February I didn't think I would be successful-- throughout the year, for every occasion and sometimes no occasion, I baked cake after cake, following all the advice I could find online and in books.  Still, each of my cakes turned out a bland brick.  Finally, I had a partial success with the Birthday Chocolate Cake from The Mom 100 by Katie Workman-- I made it for my father's birthday on February 19th, and it baked up perfect at first, and then got a little heavier when I put it in the fridge.

For Snorzy's birthday I made Zoe's Cupcakes from C is for Cooking (the Sesame Street cookbook), after a friend came over for dinner one night bringing those and they were the most delicious homemade cake I've had *ever*-- and from a kid's cookbook no less!  I think the secret to baking a tender cake for someone like me who just doesn't naturally have the touch with cakes is this: lots of dairy.  I used whole milk plain yogurt (the recipe called for a full cup, and this in addition to butter, not instead), and they came out soft and pillowy.  I also re-visited the chocolate cake from the Mom 100 (speaking of dairy, it calls for both sour cream and whole milk in addition to two sticks of butter) being even more careful to get all my ingredients room temperature and not over-mixing (my downfalls as a bakestress are absolutely over-mixing and over-baking), the cupcakes turned out lovely underneath but with overdone crunchy cookie-like tops, despite the fact that I baked them for 1 minute less than the minimum time given-- I think it's time to invest in an oven thermometer.  Overall, I was pleased with my progress, and now I believe that I can bake a yummy cake whenever one is called for (though I still would like to learn how to make a perfect butter cake, without all the added dairy).

All this by way of saying-- I can rise to a challenge, even when I don't do so well with it at first.

After a good start on my craft challenge, here have been my contributions to it for the past few weeks:
1. skipped, trying to believe that 'making' the list of curricula we'll use for the year really counts as making something
2. cast on and knit the first few rows of the right, front panel of Snorzy's rainbow sweater-- another case (as when I finished the back panel) of using my challenge to motivate a dull little piece of a project that otherwise would have caused me to stall
3.  used my craft time to send all the pictures in my phone to Walgreens so that I can print them and 'make' photo albums-- I don't know what other people do with their pictures, but I feel like I need an actual, paper photo record of every important moment (and some cute, less-important moments) of my children's lives

So now, I'm determined to actually, factually, un-ironically, make something in the upcoming week, start to finish, using yarn or fabric or art supplies.  Wish me luck and a visit from a muse, pictures to follow.

Pyramid Bean Bags

I'm feeling a little more inspired around the craft challenge this week, since my lovely mother sent me a big box chock full of colorful, patterned fabric remnants from her stash, as well as a bunch of spools of colorful thread.  This week I used some of that bounty and made these pyramid bean bags, as a birthday present for Snorzy (I made a second set at the same time for a little friend, so each set has 5 bean bags in two different fabrics).  I found these on Pinterest as 'pattern weights', which would also be useful next time I sew something with a pattern since I hate pinning.



The very clear and easy tutorial is here, on a blog called Five Green Acres.  In order to close these up with the beans (I used split peas) inside, I had to use a blind stitch.  I have tried to do a blind stitch before, but this time I found a good tutorial here, at Positively Splendid (the directions are for a pillow, this was the same idea but in miniature), and really managed to do it well.  Next time we finish a box of tissues I'm going to convert the box into a little storage case/bean bag toss game to go with these.  Then I'll be all set with a handmade gift for Snorzy's birthday!  I hope he'll like them, I think he will if Radish's reaction is any indication-- he couldn't stop fooling around with these until I put them away.

Cold Snap

One fun thing about this prolonged stretch of cold weather is that we were able to get around to an art project I'd been meaning to do with the kids: an ice chandelier, as seen in The Jumbo Book of Outdoor Art (one of my favorites for unusual art projects).  Primo made the frame by himself (not visible in the picture below, unfortunately-- the kids were the photographers), and we collaborated on a set of colorful ice cubes and a circle, all with small objects (natural and man-made) trapped inside.  We hung it about a week ago, and it's been interesting to see the cubes melt and change, *even though* the air temperature hasn't risen to even close to 32 degrees all week.  How is this possible?  Our hypotheses include heat from the cars passing on the street, and sunlight shining on the ice.



Once again I felt a little 'under the gun' to make something for my craft challenge.  I had the idea to make Snorzy a felt board, but didn't know what to use as the base (without buying anything).  Then I realized we had just thrown a white board into the recycling bin.  I had one of the kids retrieve it, and used it to form the basis of a felt board (with a blue sky and a slight hill made of green felt).  I found that staples wouldn't stay well in the cardboard back of the white board, so I reinforced it with duct tape.  Not pretty, but hopefully it will hold up.  Next mini project: making some felt shapes for Snorzy to use with this board.  No rush, he's still at the age where he's more likely to put the pieces in his mouth than on the board.  Maybe I'll save this as a birthday or even Christmas present.  The important thing is that I *made something* this week, other than the chandelier (with the boys) and various baked good ('Samoa' Brownies, Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake).