Jon’s parents have never had a wedding cake before. So I wanted to do something really special for their 30th anniversary. My husband and I decided to work on this cake together. I taught my husband how to make fondant from the recipe I’ve been using. We decorated it with yellow roses because those are his mom’s favorite! Below are the results:
The left side is lemon cake with lemon cream filling and the right side is chocolate cake with raspberry preserves.
The grand opening of Molar Magic Dental Office was held this past Saturday. My uncle, the dentist is awesome with children! There was a huge turnout and lots of parents were booking appointments for their kids. From free food, face painting, video games, Nintendo Wii drawing, to hitting the piñata, there were fun activities that kept the children laughing.
Below is a photo of the fondant cake I made. Keep in mind I’ve never had any training in fondant making or cake design. The fondant was made from marshmallows, water, and lots of powder sugar. The cake was cute, but I definitely could have done better. So I learned a bit more about cake making this time. It was vanilla cake with strawberry preserves filling.
When we arrived at the party, the cake was covered and I told my uncle that he had to fix a tooth for me. I showed him the cake and he laughed!
It's almost 11pm and I can't sleep. I have a 7:30am meeting tomorrow morning. This weekend is going to be exciting and I am sure I will be wiped out! On Saturday my uncle is having a grand opening party for his new dental office. I plan on making a white fondant cake in a shape of a molar. Surprisingly I have not asked him what the name of the new office is. So I just sent an email out requesting for it. I am not sure how I will decorate the tooth yet. I will have to make this tomorrow night!
On Sunday my husband and I are throwing his parents a small surprise 30th Anniversary Party at Munner’s place. Munner is Jon’s great-grandmother. I just adore her! Jon’s parents will be home late Saturday night. They took a week long cruise in Hawaii. So it might take some convincing to get them over to Munner’s place, but I am sure that will not be a problem. Here is the menu that I’ve put together for about a dozen attendees:
Cake:
Two fondant cakes. I will make my own white fondant and decorate with little white dots all over it. The base of the cake will be a rim of pearls. I’ve decided to use pearls because the 30th year anniversary theme is pearls and diamonds! His mom’s favorite color roses are yellow. So I will top each of the cakes with lots of yellow roses! I plan on going to Michael’s after work tomorrow to pick up a tier fixture for the cakes. One cake will be chocolate and the other will be lemon cake with raspberry preserves!
I don’t plan on making any appetizers because I plan on making lots of main dishes for everyone to eat!
-Roasted vegetables (not sure what veggies yet, but we’ll see what’s fresh when I go to the market on Saturday)
-Italian meatballs in meat sauce with spaghetti pasta
-Shrimp Alfredo with linguine pasta
-Italian bread with my special garlic spread
And last but not least is my challenge of the week… homemade ravioli with chicken, spinach, and Parmesan filling in spinach Alfredo sauce!
It’s getting late and it’s time for me to go lay in bed and dream of cooking…
But don’t forget to come back here for photos and the scoop on this weekend’s events!
My good friend Gerardo is spending three weeks in Italy right now and have asked me to attend Malee’s Cooking Class in Scottsdale this past weekend. I received a text from him in Italy on Tuesday reminding me to sign up! Along with teasing me with the fabulous foods he is enjoying! Grrrr… Honestly I’ve never eaten here before, but all my co-workers and friends say that this place is delicious! Normally the class sizes are about 30, but since there was such a high demand for this class, they opened up another 20 seats!!! At the beginning of class they handed out the recipes so we could take notes as we watched the demonstration.
The class started off with Champagne/Mimosas and an introduction to key ingredients used in Thai cooking by Deirdre and Kris. I was very familiar with all the ingredients they presented. But I wrote down the brand names for Gerardo anyways. (I was told to take good notes!) I liked how Deirdre touched upon the “balance” of flavors: Sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. (Pretty basic, but the way she described it was so philosophical.) If you taste sweetness in your first sample, then your dish is not balance. (I guess this really depends on the type of dish you make, but I understand what she means.) I guess the way I would summarize it is: A perfect state of balance where your taste buds says “WOW-YUMMY!” as your first reaction … not “oh wow, does this have sugar in it?!?”
The Chili reduction sauce is their “secret” recipe that is used in a variety of dishes that they offer on the menu. Due to time constraints, they did not demonstrate this. However, Gerardo took that class a couple of months ago. This sauce was used in their first dish – Tom Ka Gai Soup. Delicious! I can’t wait to make this myself!
The second dish was the Thai Chicken Wrap. As Deirdre says “This is not P.F. Chang's!”. So don’t expect the same flavors! I actually prefer this Thai Chicken wrap than the sugary Chinese Chicken wrap.
The third dish was Chicken Pad Thai. I always have to try this dish and red curry at a new Thai restaurant. It was good, but my taste buds were not going crazy. The flavor was mild (not referring to spicy level). It needed a tad more egg and fish sauce… I will have to try this dish again (an excuse to go back to Malee’s). I didn’t drink the wine so I still had the strong and tasty Tom Ka Gai coconut milk in my mouth… OR I don’t know…maybe because I rather eat the Crispy Pla…
The fourth dish was Crispy Pla. This dish was originally made with flounder. However, the restaurant used catfish. She said this was one of her “Thai-Spy” dishes. Deirdre does quite a bit of traveling and found this dish somewhere (I wasn’t paying close attention because I was staring at the food :-x )…froze it and brought it back to AZ so her Chefs could re-create it. Excellent - this and the soup was my favorite!!! The deep fryer they had on the demonstration table was not working properly so they had to take it to the kitchen to fry it. I would have loved to see it fried in the machine…I am on a quest to find a good deep fryer. The basic sweet and sour recipe (clear sauce) used in the Crispy Pla sauce is also used in cucumber salad. At Thai restaurants when you order Chicken Satay and it comes with a little side of sweet & sour cucumber salad…this sauce is it! Super easy to make! As a child, my mom would make me sweet and sour pork with this similar clear sauce. She would dice in cucumbers, green/red bell peppers, onions, and sliced fresh chili peppers.Delicious!
The demonstration was followed by a wine-paired luncheon. Unfortunately I don’t drink – I honestly try and try, but I just get sick to my stomach afterwords so I just avoid it in a glass...using it in cooking and desserts on the other hand…
We also got dessert! Fresh sliced mangos and sweet sticky rice. This reminds of the red and green sweet sticky rice my family makes - a Vietnamese dessert with added food coloring.
All in all, I enjoyed my first official Thai cooking class. For $60, I got 4 (+1 chili reduction recipe) restaurant recipes, lunch, meet new people, and a goodie bag. The goodie bag had a small bottle of fish sauce, can of red curry paste, and also a small can of coconut milk. Of course I could have spent the money towards weekly groceries, but it was a good experience! Something different to do in Arizona. The one thing they could have done was have everyone test the food that they cooked in front of us. (I think Gerardo said they did this for the class he took before...) Except they had samples prepped from the kitchen. I don’t plan on posting the exact recipes that I got from class because that wouldn’t be fair to the restaurant. However, I do plan on making the dishes with my special touches and posting it here for you all! Wish me luck!!!
For our wedding, we had Robert’s Catering make our Wedding Cake. So every year we come back for an anniversary cake - a 6-inch round layered cake. All these are made from a Bavarian cream base. Honestly I go here about 6 to 8 times a year and they know me by name and exactly what I always order. Jon ordered my birthday cake a few months ago and he mistakenly ordered the wrong flavor (Strawberry instead of Strawberry Banana Rum) and the baker had to point it out. LOL I thought that was funny.
