Sunday, April 12, 2009

Easter Fun: A New Addition to the Family and Two More Baking Disasters

As my Mom pointed out to me today, I have been procrastinating on my blog for quite a while, so I thought I would share a little about our Easter celebration this year.

First, an announcement: We have a new member of our household! As of this morning our son has adopted a pretty blue Betta fish. I asked him what he would like to name the fish, and he said, "Black." Thinking he had confused the name question with a color question, I asked again. He replied again, "Black." I then asked him what color the fish was. He said, "Blue." OK, so he's not confused. I asked again multiple times before church, after church, before lunch, etc. and each time he told me the fish's name is "Black." Eventually he managed to expand the name to "Black and Blue," and that, oddly, is apparently the fish's name. Friends of ours have a fuchsia Betta named Raspberry, and I guess I was hoping for the same type of creativity. Maybe he would name him Sapphire or even Blueberry. But no, our fish has been named Black and Blue. I bet he's the only fish in the world with that name.



Let's be honest, we all know that I have baking issues. Bryssy passed me the link to a neat recipe idea for Easter morning called, "Resurrection Rolls." It involves telling the story of Jesus' burial in the tomb using a marshmallow to represent His body, and once the rolls have baked the marshmallow SHOULD basically dissolve into the roll leaving the roll "tomb" empty. The only dough needed is crescent roll dough from a can, so I thought I could handle that.



In anyone else's kitchen, this recipe would probably be a great way to share the Easter story with children. Unfortunately, not only did my rolls NOT absorb the marshmallow, thus leaving "Jesus" still in the tomb, but some of the rolls oozed the marshmallow through the cracks. I will let you supply your own sacrilegious jokes for that one. At least our son is only two and hasn't yet reached the age where scarring him for life is a real possibility. Probably.



This final baking problem is a word of warning for those of you who might be using the cookbook The Cupcake Doctor. In that book is a wonderful idea for Easter Basket cupcakes. The cakes are baked in waffle cone bowl "baskets" instead of cupcake liners. First of all, the recipe should yield ten cupcakes because there are ten bowls in a package of waffle bowls. Problem number one is that I found it quite difficult to find 10 basket-worthy bowls in a package. I made six (one for each of us at lunch) and poured the rest of the batter into an egg-shaped pan that I have. A second problem I encountered with the directions involved the amount of batter to use in each cup. The instructions call for 1/2 cup per bowl, but that would be far too much and a messy overflow would be imminent. I found that 1/4 cup was pretty much perfect. The baking part was fine, believe it or not, and having wrapped the bowls in foil they did not scorch. The "disaster" came this afternoon when it was time to decorate the cupcakes. I had stored them in an airtight container to transport them to lunch, and when we opened the container to start our decorating fun we found cupcakes sitting on wilted waffle cone disks. The moisture from the cakes had done to the bowls what ice cream does to them if it isn't eaten quickly. The cakes were sticky enough to mold them back into a basket shape, and they were very cute once decorated, but the taste just wasn't the same.



So, there you go! Still making the hard mistakes so that you don't have to!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter--do you have any stories to share?

6 comments:

Donna said...

Our first Betta fish's name was...wait for it...it was sooooooo creative.......his name was......."Fish."

Also KID 1's first baby doll's name was...you guessed it..."Baby!"

Kids love labeling. They call it as they see it!

I think "Black and Blue" is true to form and can always be shortened to "BB!"

Happy Easter!

Bryssy said...

Rachel, I like the name Black and Blue. Very cute.

Growing up on a farm we had many very original and a lot more extremely unoriginal names for our animals. Like a duck named quack.

We made 2 resurrection rolls and they turned out pretty good. The marshmellow was totally absorbed and the "tomb was empty" but no one in my house wanted to eat them. Successful baking doesn't matter much if it isn't eaten. Oh well. We'll try again next year.

I think that your blog could me the next Cake Wrecks....maybe Bake Wrecks!! You crack me up!

I hope you had a great Easter! We did, but I'll be glad to be back to a few non-event filled weeks!

Liz said...

Bake Wrecks! Bryssy, I love it!
My son isn't that original either. His cat that he carries around everywhere is named Kitty. When he gets new stuffed animals he names them after real animals in our family. I think "Black and Blue" is a great name!

Rachel said...

I stand corrected--Black and Blue is a fine name. And I like the idea of calling him BB later, Donna.

We actually liked the taste of the Resurrection Rolls and ate them for breakfast. I will bake them longer next year and see how that goes--it's such an easy recipe that I hate to give up on it too quickly!

You may have noticed that I added a new key word to my list--"The Trouble With Baking." I was accumulating so many baking issue articles I figured they needed to be easily accessible, so maybe I am on the way to a Bake Wrecks blog! ;)

Pam said...

We are not real creative around here with names either. Alex's favorite puppy's name is Puppy, and panther is named Panther, of course. As for the cupcakes - they are very cute, and isn't that what really matters? :)

Tara said...

I love Isaac's fish. lol That's so cute. I showed it to Cadin. He stills talks about Isaac a lot. The cupcakes look good. lol We decorated a gingerbread house when I was visiting C. We had a lot of fun doing that.