Double the Pleasure – Double the Fun!

My very beautiful, smart and talented niece, Samantha turned 21 last week. We had her birthday with family on her special day. This is the ‘ice bucket I painted for her in some of her fave colors and it was filled with 6 different fun-n-fruity wine coolers and a bunch of silver, tinsel ‘ice’. Niece was nice enough to snap this pic a few days after her b-day…the wine coolers are gone – although I’m SURE their in the fridge and not all consumed…..right Darlin’??
Then, on the weekend, a few of us ‘already-21ers’ (or should I say over 21ers…WAY over 21ers!) family members went out to have a few drinks with her to ring in this new phase of her life the right way ;-)

About mid-drink #2, we learned that my big bro and his girlfriend of many years were going to get married…..the day after next (Sunday)! They’d been talking about it a lot lately and finally decided to ‘do the deed’ and make it official. It was another fun thing to drink to that night.

The next day (Saturday), I had a free afternoon/evening and wanted to do something fun for the soon-to-be-married couple. Since they’d planned a very private affair between just the two of them, I assumed they had no wedding cake or special sweet to conclude their happy day, so I thought….mini wedding cake? And this is what I made, start to finish in my kitchen Saturday evening (and secretly left on their doorstep at 7:30 Sunday morning) ….a 6’ 1/2 inch, 4-tier wedding cake that was white with lemon curd filling and creamy vanilla icing! I scrolled their initials on the top along with a tiny heart. The cake was simple, pretty and small – a heartfelt gift from me to them to put a literal sweet ending to their wedding day.

Now – as I’ve stated before, my phone stopped sending pics a month+ ago – but with a little extra effort, I found that if I send a pic over and over (read: one million times), it WILL eventually send! Had I know that ahead of time, I’dve had more than these two pics – which are essentially the same.

Here’s one of the inside of the cake (thanks for sending me the pic, new sis-in-law!) – and it’s taught me a lesson……sliver-shave the golden brown flat bottom off the cake! How much prettier it would‘ve been if only the light, yellow of the lemon curd was showing. Oh well….best part is that my bro and now-sis-in-law said it was “soooo good!” That means everything –‘cuz if it looks good but tastes like doodoo – then, what’s the point?!

Anyhoo….I had a fun weekend celebrating my wonderful niece and baking up a very special treat.

Ice Cream Bombe is DA BOMB!

My birthday was last Wednesday. Because my little family of three lives a little ways away from everyone else in our family, we usually wait to celebrate our birthday’s on a weekend so folks don’t have to get stuck in weekday, rush hour traffic and so that when they do arrive, they can stay a while rather than having to do everything in a rushed manner in order to get back on the road towards home.

Anyhoo…..so we had about 20 people out to our house and it was a really fun time. I usually have a hard time relinquishing food items that need to be made as I like to do so much of it myself – but this year I wanted to make several fun dessert items so I turned over most every side dish to others - the hubs and I still did the meat dish (chicken wings! I could LIVE on them!) and it was great to have everyone pitch in – it was all delicious!

My original plan was to make a pavlova, a fruit pizza on a huge sugar cookie crust, an ice cream bombe and a tray of brownies. Then I got to thinking that I was really trying to spread myself – as well as my time – a little thin. And really…did we need all those things? So…I decided on the ice cream bombe. It’s something I’d never made before but had been wanting to try – then, the balance out the cold of the ice cream, I decided to make brownies. I adore my homemade stand-by, cocoa brownies but because they’re chocolate and the bombe would have ample chocolate, I made my first ever Blondies too. I don’t have pics of either…shoulda snapped one- but let me say that everyone LOVED the blondies – I made have with walnuts, have without and the whole pan had white chocolate chips. The brownies were classic, and folks liked them lot as well – and I did half walnuts with chocolate chips throughout.

So…onto the ice cream bombe! Making a bombe is easy and you can get as creative as you want or can keep it really simple. I used a large, stainless steel bowl, sprayed the inside with non-stick coking spray, then lined it with plastic wrap, leaving plenty to overhang the rim all the way around. You need your ice cream to be softened, but still super cold and not melted at all. So, put the ice cream you’re using first, I the fridge for about 15 minutes before using it while al the other ice cream flavors are still in the freezer.