Search Results for: volcano cake

Volcano Cake

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Or, Lessons in the Unsustainable Birthday Cake.

by Lisa.  and the husband.

As it happens, we canceled our trip to Kauai this year, and we’re taking a local, recession-friendly vacation instead. But we are all dreaming of Hawaii, including Ella, who decided to have a Luau for her 7th birthday party.

Of course, this got her dad thinking about cake. We said to each other, late one night, wouldn’t it be great to have a volcano cake? Sure, it would be great to have a volcano cake! You should make a volcano cake! And since Kory has now not met a cake challenge he can refuse he began to plan.  I planned the party, which included a simple menu:

Mauai onion chips

Hurricane popcorn

Shave ice

to accompany the sand art…and a simple dinner following the hula lesson by Auntie Iris:

Huli-huli chicken (we found the sauce in SF!)

Baby sausages

Hawaiian sweet bread

Fresh pineapple

Apple & red bananas

Mango

Watermelon

Way too much POG

Much to my surprise, we had very little food left over, which is unusual at parties, though the sausages were a bigger hit with most kids than the chicken.

My deal with Kory was that I would bake a prep the cake, and he would decorate.  I made one large red velvet sheet cake, to simulate the red dirt.  Instead of cream cheese frosting, though, which I feared the kids might be picky about, I filled the cake with chocolate ganache which was supposed to accompany the double chocolate cake which made the foundation for the volcano.  The chocolate volcano was filled with raspberry filling–lava, of course.  The cakes were easily two of the best I’ve ever made, and were topped only by my husband’s incredible art.  Kory used white fondant, which he colored and painted himself, cookie cutters for the stylized palms, and a kind of sprinkle that looked like sand. The flames are construction paper.

The kids ordered their pieces by “sea” or “volcano” paying little attention to the color or flavor (more or less intensely chocolately…).  It was gorgeous, & the only problem is that now he might actually be expected to make one for every birthday.

Below, the results:

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LEGO Cake

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by Lisa

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The boy loved the chocolate card his sister made him, and his shiny new red bike, but most of all he craves one thing and one thing only:  LEGO.

I tell, you, the boy’s passion for the bricks surpasseth all else; the glory of a new kit transcends every earthly joy he has known thus far. In his fifth year, Finn has dedicated himself to the difficult discipline of interlocking  geometry and re-made himself into something of patient zen master. His room has become a shrine, the place he repairs to for the “quiet” he craves in which to build, and when he emerges, sometimes 4 hours later, it is with crazed but beatific look of a saint: utterly otherworldly and fanatically contented.

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And so, we had no choice but to make the boy a LEGO cake for the LEGO birthday party he had with another friend.

He emerged from his domain long enough to help make the cake with his sister, which we did in a floury mess two days before.  We used the Devil Dog Cake from Smitten Kitchen,
which is a moist, chocolate cake with marshmallow filling and which, like all the Smitten Kitchen cakes, was terrific.

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And Kory worked his magic the night before the party.

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He did have a few WWDD moments (What Would Duff Do?), as squares are remarkably less forgiving than volcano shapes, and a less-moist cake would also have helped, but the end result was, well, you can see for yourself:

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It was, as you can imagine, a huge hit with the 5 & under set. And at pick-up, their parents didn’t mind a small slice either.

The only problem is that between this and the Volcano Cake, the bar has been set.  There will be no rest for Kory until the kids can roll fondant on their own.

The Sweet Life

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by Lisa

Caroline is definitely the baker on this blog, but once in while, we bake over here. Mostly for birthdays. Mostly involving my husband and fondant. You might remember the Lego Cake or the Volcano Cake. Not long ago, Finn had a birthday, and he requested a Hexbug cake.  I made the yellow cake from this Smitten Kitchen recipe, which tastes just fine, but is not the best for working with fondant, still Kory managed. The colors were selected by Finn.  The design is all Kory’s.

And then, my lovely daughter (again with her dad’s help) decided to surprise me with a cake from Whole Foods so we could celebrate finishing this book.

Right now, life is sweet.

Dad in the Kitchen: An Acknowledgment

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By Lisa

I’ve been quiet here for the last few weeks because I’ve been working furiously on the final edits to my book (!) , Inside Out,  which won the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Award and will be published by University of Nebraska Press next spring. The book has nothing to do with food. It’s a personal, factual and literary investigation of the profound changes of first-time motherhood.

It’s been an extraordinarily busy, heady time around here, and I’ve still been cooking, just not writing about it.  I’ve had to come up with even more, fast, efficient weeknight meals for the family and I’m looking forward to sharing them here over the next few posts.

But first, I need to give credit where credit is due–and that means to my husband.

Kory does not really cook around here. Yes, he bakes extraordinary cakes and cookies sometimes, and he manages the grill superbly in the summer, and he takes care of breakfast every weekday morning, and makes a mean quesadilla for weekend lunch, and the kids think he’s famous for the kidtinis, but on a regular basis, he doesn’t put dinner on the table.

This does not mean he can’t, not that he won’t if I ask him. Over the past month, I’ve barricaded myself in the office and he has taken care of the kids, cooked them lunch, fixed them dinner.  He’s agreed to eating out several times, which is not exactly in our regular weekly budget, but he knew what a clean kitchen can do for a writer/mother’s peace of mind (also her spouse’s).  He rustled up a lovely pesto dinner for them last week, including this good looking appetizer:

And he cleaned it all up, and he did not complain once.

The best dinner I’ve had in recent memory may be the perfect omelette he whipped up, per Julia Child‘s instructions for a late Sunday night dinner. The kids were in bed, and he left me alone to finish my  work for the day, and when I was done, there it was, the perfect, billowy, tender omelette, much, much better than I’ve ever done.  He made a gorgeous salad with the chicory I’d been avoiding for a couple of weeks, which was still fresh (thank you farmers market) and fresh shelled sweet peas, and a white balsamic vinaigrette. We had fresh bread and a glass of wine, and it was perfect.

So, while he has a proper acknowledgment  in the book, he deserves one sooner than next spring:  Thank you, Kory, for taking care of all of us, for feeding us, and for making the space for me to write when it mattered most.