Tag Archives: spring

Delightful daisy-shaped cake for spring

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While we were visiting Chicago recently, we did a lot of window shopping as we walked along Michigan Avenue. My hubby was hoping I would pass everything by without a second glance. But of course I had to buy something, right!?

As we passed the Crate and Barrel store, I knew the thing that I had to have was this daisy cake pan. Isn’t it cute?

I love flowers, I love cakes, and I loved the price. Just $12.95!

I had planned to bake and decorate a test cake using my new pan early the week before Easter – so that I could create a beautiful flower cake for Easter. Only I ran out of time for my test cake. And I ran out of time for the Easter cake.

Oops! Another lesson that no, I am not as talented as Martha Stewart.

I finally got it decorated so we could enjoy a day-after-Easter daisy cake. Because we needed a sweet dessert to go along with all that Easter candy! (Just kidding. I actually went light on the Easter basket goodies this year, lest you think I’m plying my kids with unhealthy food.)

This cake pan is a lot like a bundt pan except it is solid in the center, so I had to bake the cake a little longer to get it done all the way through. I made a sour cream yellow cake recipe from Food.com that I had pinned to my desserts board on Pinterest. The extra baking time made the cake a bit dark on the outside when I turned it out of the pan – my son actually thought it was a chocolate cake.It tasted great, though! I whipped up a double batch of buttercream frosting and used some cookie cream crunch sprinkles for the center. Delicious!I couldn’t get the buttercream frosting to show the flower petal design very well, so I may try using fondant next time. I’m sure I’ll get lots of practice decorating since this pan makes such a cute cake! My daughter has decided she wants a pink flower cake for her birthday.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

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Celebrate spring with a free printable

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Ah, spring. It was a beautiful, sunny weekend with flowers blooming, birds chirping, and warm weather.

And tomorrow we have snow in the weather forecast. Crazy! It reminds me of a quote by Mark Twain.

In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
~ Mark Twain

I guess that’s just part of the charm of spring!

I decided I needed some more spring decorations, so I designed a new subway art print to add to the spring celebration around our house. I’m attaching it here as a free printable for anyone who loves all these aspects of spring as much as I do.

You can click here to download it. It’s set up as a PDF document for an 8×10 frame. You just have to trim around the border to pop it into a frame.

There are so many wonderful things to love about spring! What’s your favorite?

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Celebrate spring with a Spring It On party!

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Ahh, the first day of spring is here! It’s been a long winter so it’s time to celebrate the change of seasons!

While my hubby and kids were away at work and school today, I set up our first annual Spring It On celebration. I love to plan surprises for them, and I’m so happy to have time for it now that I’m a stay-at-home mom.

I started by making a quick spring banner for our living room fireplace. I chose scrapbook paper in three festive designs and cut two circles from each pattern. For the circles, I traced around my cute little spring candy bowl from the Target dollar spot.

For the letters, I used my alphabet stencil cards from Hobby Lobby and sponge painted them with Folk Art acrylic paint in metallic peridot. It seemed like the perfect spring green. After I hung it from our fireplace mantle on a thin white ribbon, I was happy with the festive touch for the living room.Next I gathered up the tissue paper pom pom flowers that I made for a birthday party last year. They match my daughter’s room, so they’ve been hanging from her ceiling. For today, the spring celebration demanded something fun – and fast – to dress up the dining room.Finally, I made flower cupcakes. I was inspired by sunflower cupcakes a friend’s daughter made recently. I’m not an expert decorator, so I wasn’t sure how they would turn out – but I figured if a 14-year-old girl could do it, I could at least try!

I made the cupcakes from a mix and then placed one side of an Oreo in the center of each cupcake when they cooled.

While they were cooling, I whipped up a batch of my favorite buttercream frosting. I loved the yellow sunflower cupcakes that inspired this dessert, but I didn’t have yellow food coloring on hand so I had to make my frosting flowers pink. I pulled out my Wilton dessert decorator and attached the leaf tip to make the petals.

Although I’ve had this decorating tool for a long time, I’m still not super handy making the pretty decorating effects with it. It’s trial and error each time I pull it out. Plus I didn’t have time to chill the frosting in the refrigerator for long, and it was a little too runny. My cupcakes were generally identifiable as flowers, but far from perfect!

That’s OK. The cupcakes were yummy anyway. I’ll just have to try again when I have more time to dedicate for decorating them.

Everyone was happy with the impromptu spring celebration. I’ve decided to make it an annual event to kick off my favorite season – spring! Do you have family traditions to welcome spring?

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