TWD Perfect Party Cake meets Land Before Time

I was pretty excited when I found out this weeks recipe was a cake! Conveniently, our family was celebrating my niece’s 3rd birthday and I had already volunteered to make the cake as Caroline was out of the country! However, after some discussion with my co-workers I decided the cake needed some special touches to make it just right for a 3 year old.

My niece, has a few favourite things right now including princesses and dinosaurs. However, considering her current professional aspirations of becoming a paleontologist, I figured the dinosaur theme would be fun. Plus… I was getting her this really cool dinosaur toy for her birthday and I love themes!

So I picked up some dollar store dinosaurs and food colouring and after making the cake in Ottawa, I took everything home to Kingston for Sundays party. Thankfully Caroline was home so she helped with the decorating as I am not much of a free form artist! The final product was a fun and very yummy cake! I have one small confession though.. I used store bought icing. It was just easier for the busy weekend. However, considering I have already had more requests for this cake again, I promise next time to make the icing myself. However, since I’m not a big fan of buttercream, I will need to do some recipe hunting or use  cream cheese icing I suppose!

I think the birthday girl loved her cake! Thanks to Carol of mix, mix… stir, stir and Dorie for all of the helpful hints! You can head on over to Carol’s site to see this weeks recipe.

Taste testing by the birthday girl

Lemon Squares

I love lemon. Lemon meringue pie, lemon tarts, lemon squares, lemon cupcakes. I even asked Caroline to make this lemon cake for my birthday (which is on Monday) but we will be celebrating it in Toronto this weekend. As for lemon squares, I usually make Caroline’s lemon square recipe but my mum didn’t want a 9×13 pan of lemon squares so I tried this recipe instead!

Lemon Times are Good Times

Lemon Squares
From Company’s Coming Squares by Jean Pare

First Layer
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine

Crumble flour, sugar and butter until mealy.Press into ungreased 9×9 inch pan. Bake in 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes.

Second Layer
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup coconut
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat eggs slightly. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. Spread over shortbread base. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes (note: mine only took about 23 minutes), until set in the centre and light brown in colour. Cool and frost.

Icing
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablesppoons butter or margarine
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine all in a small bowl and beat well. Add more lemon juice a little at a time if needed for easy spreading. Spread over cooled bars. Allow to set.

TWD Cinnamon Squares

This weeks recipe comes from Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures. I am home for a couple of days before heading to Toronto for my graduation and I have had time to get a little baking in! My parents are hosting some visitors this coming week and so my mum was pretty pleased to have these squares along with some muffins and lemon squares ( I will try and post about the other recipes and all the other recipes I have been slacking on in the coming weeks).

Unfortunately, because I want to save them for the guests, I will not be able to weigh in on the taste of these squares but they look pretty darn yummy! Maybe if my mum is cutting them up tomorrow I’ll be able to sneak a bite! I really must get in the habit of baking during the day so I can use natural sunlight… another time I guess!