~Have your Cake and Eat it Too!~

Happy Tuesday!

So as promised a weekend recap including my baking fun times.

First off, how was your weekend?  I love to hear about my blog buddies lives so do share

:-)

Ours:

Friday:

Grouting grouting grouting until 10 pm, pretty crazy party animals we are!

BUT the bathroom is looking fantabulous, will share pics when complete!

(For pics from our remodel chk out this post)

Saturday:

BAKING!

Some of you may have read my Strawberry Rufle Cake post . . .

(if not it's here for ya)

So I made this fancy shmancy ruffle cake for my Mom-in-law's birthday.

Baked 5 hours (between freezing to set, layers, frosting, cooling and reading blogs in between!)

And then we met them up for an AMAZING dinner at this cute little Italian place La Rustica in Seattle.

Note to self: scrunchy smiley face: not hot!

I ordered ox tail and polenta . . . mussels for app and some yummmmy vino!

Happy Birthday Maria!

Ok so here's the cake breakdown:

Recipe for Strawberry Creme Filling Cake

Frosting: Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Buttercream

So my very first attempt at a fancy cake turned out ok . . .

the in-laws were so excited and impressed and that's all that mattered!

Lessons learned:

1) Martha Stewart is not always perfect (frosting was wayyyy runny but maybe an operator error?! He he.) Next time: find an amazing frosting recipe.

2) If using lots of frosting, tone down the cake flavor.  A little too strawberry and sweet?

3) Cut of the crust BEFORE layering.  Biggest lesson learned!

So all in all it was so much fun and turned out good, but I'm striving for amazing!!!

Any Master-Bakers out there wanting to share some tips?!

~Ruffle Strawberry Cake~

Happy Saturday my loves!

What are you up to this wonderful day?

Me:

Baking!!!

I am making my mom-in-law a pretty ruffle birthday cake.

(source)

(source)

Using this recipe for

 Strawberry Cream Cake and Filling

And I found this video for tips on ruffle frosting:



Cake has just baked and is in the freezer to set so I can continue . . .

more photos soon!

Don't miss out on:

Giveaway from Tasteful Tatters

 and over on my other blog

Simply by Tamara Nicole

Weddings and Events:

My Vintage Literature Photo Shoot in the Woods inspiration post

Gorgeous white and pink burlap wedding decor

and Mother's Day brunch plans

Have a fabulous weekend my dears!

~Weekend fun~

Our weekend was seriously based around home improvement and FOOOOOOOD!

We are still helping the In-laws: this weekend we tiled the bathroom and painted some more.

Since we've been helping them, we have the remodeling bug!!!

So next up: my bathroom!

We got Travertine tiles, and my inspiration:

Cream clean colors with a little rustic feel . . . maybe a stone wall?!

Any who . . . our food weekend:

I made some yummy seafood pasta . . . with the pasta sauce made from scratch, yummmm!

Throw in some calamari, scallops and shrimp: amazing!

Even Lu Lu loved it.  Ok no we don't let our dogs sit at the table . . . just last night!

It was hilarious, they all sat in their chairs.  What?! They do it in France, and we don't have kids yet so it's funny!

 Then I made my ALL time favorite cookies, Samoas (yes the girl scout cookies!)

Found this recipe over at "It's Simple Love"

Yummmm!

Baking night with 2 of my girlies:

Pho with the hubby:

AND we went to our pub Saturday night for some good English pub grub and a "futbol" game.

I probably gained like 5 lbs lol!

How was your past weekend???

~Tamara Nicole~