Move Over Martha!

Happy 4th of July!

This beautiful patriotic quilt was made by my friend Carol as a gift for her Dad. She just finished it this morning! Her cute little poodle Bella, at lower right, is so cute, she looks like a stuffed animal! Carol designed the whole quilt around the flag border print. I think it is fabulous!

Today, it was hot enough to fry a pug on the sidewalk, even at 8am this morning, when it felt like Africa had arrived in Hyde Park. So, after I took the pugs for a walk, I thought it would be a great day to bake a cake!!

Quilt Taffy had mentioned some interesting recipes in a recent blog. I decided to make the Apple Tortellini Salad, the Strawberry Lemonade Cake, and the Rootbeer Float Cookies.

I made the cake this morning. I haven't baked from scratch in a long time. Mike helped me out by making fresh lemon zest and squeezing fresh lemon juice for me. You've got to love a man with his own microplane (this is the tool to make lemon zest). After the cakes were in the oven, I started on the Apple Tortellini Salad. Mike helped me with some of the ingredients--he has mad knife skills--and it was fairly quick and easy to put together.

We went out for a little while in the afternoon to get a few last minute ingredients. The cookies called for rootbeer extract. We went to four different stores, including Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma, and we could not find it anywhere. Finally, I bought maple extract, but by the time we got home, we were tired and I gave up on the cookies since I still had to make the frosting for the cake.

The icing for this cake is just delicious. Of course, most things that involve a pound of butter and five cups of sugar usually are... Unfortunately, I made the frosting too thin, and it was quite difficult to spread on the cake.

My brief Martha Stewart moment.

The final verdict: the Apple Tortellini Salad was absolutely delicious and I would definitely make it again. I thought the lemon cake was very dense and I made the frosting too thin, but it was still quite tasty. Mike liked it and he is not a big sweets eater. I may write to Quilt Taffy to see if I overmixed the batter or if it is supposed to be a dense cake. And I still have to get back to the Rootbeer Float Cookies which are now going to be maple until I can find rootbeer extract.

The pugs also liked the strawberry frosting!

Elvis

Romeo (he's wearing a cone because he had a little surgery on Tuesday, but he is doing fine.)

Larry (usually a camera-hog, but looks like he left the photo a little too soon...)

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy