buffet

today will be a "buffet" of topics. i had a nice blog idea about this silly lemon cake i made, complete with pictures, but other things have happened since that should be included and i don't feel like doing a separate post.

the cake

my s-i-l judy gave us a bag of home grown lemons because they literally had lemons all over their kitchen. while i enjoy a lemon or two a week, depending on what's for dinner, 20+ lemons was a bit much. so i was inspired by my other s-i-l jana and juiced all but 2 and put the juice in the freezer for another day. although my nana informed me later i could have put the peel/zest in the freezer too which is what i really wanted, i just didn't think it would last.

so what to do with all these lemons? bake a cake, of course! i can always turn something fresh and healthy into something that will clog your arteries and fatten your rump.

i opened up my trusty better homes and gardens cookbook (the one i use for practically everything) and found 2 lemon cake recipes to choose from. i could have made the low fat lemon flavored sponge cake but i've already done the orange version and wanted a challenge. so i picked the 3 layer lemon cake with lemon curd filling and lemon cream cheese icing.

because i am a newbie at from scratch cakes, i did not realize i was about to embark on a 4 hour adventure. i'm used to the box versions that require 5 minutes of prep and then 30 minutes of baking and then voila! a cake!

so as i am mixing away with the million and 1 ingredients required, lincoln is trying to save the world from zombies in l4d2 with my brother. poor gemma has decided that she could care less about zombies or cake. all she wants is milk. so my project was interrupted a few times. mind you, i didn't start until 8pm but gemma doesn't sleep until midnight.

things that went wrong -

i only have 2 round cake pans. this called for 3. used a glass pie dish for the top layer.

my lemon zest was too large and almost required chewing.

a tiny bit of egg white got into the egg yolks used for the lemon curd (think lemon bar filling) so there was a smidge of boiled egg in the filling.

i didn't have enough time to let the lemon curd set so my cake slipped around while trying to ice it.

i do not own a cake plate or cover. had to use a sloped dinner plate.

all in all, the cake was edible. in fact it was quite delicious. how delicious? well, let's just say 9,ooo calories worth of deliciousness. that's right. 9 followed by 3 zeros.

we didn't eat it all in one day like we would if it was a pan of brownies or a dozen choc chip cookies. no this took us at least a week. and if you had too big of a piece it would actually get your heart beating a little faster like you just took a shot of red bull or something.

the handlebars

lincoln was only working the part time shift at work for most of feb. so he takes this time to save face and stops shaving. i got a little tired of beard and i'm not a fan of when the mustache hair starts to curl over the lip and into the mouth. and i'm really not a fan of when lincoln would lick the hair that curls into his mouth just to get a reaction out of me. he was doing it for so long while i was trying to ignore him that his tongue actually went dry. he eventually settled on some handlebars after trying out some mutton chop action combined with a soul patch of some sort. thankfully, that is all gone and he is back to smooth faced linc.

the cousins

and finally, judy and i got the kids together in matching outfits for a little photo shoot at her house. we had to wait several hours because they were on completely different schedules. whenever vivia was ready gemma was hungry or sleeping. when she would finally be ready, vivia was eating or pooping, her two favorite things to do.

it wasn't much of a success. but still cute. gemma is 10 weeks 5 days and vivia is 5 weeks 6 days.