Baking Bonanza!

Whoo, what a day! My good friend Julia came over this morning and brought her two children and we had ourselves a baking bonanza! Julia had bought a really cool cake pan from William Sonoma (happy sigh) that makes train cars and she wanted to test it out. So we made a pink and purple butter cake and then Mathilda decorated it to take to her family's Fourth of July party tomorrow. Afterwards we feasted on mac n cheese, watched some 'toons, and then played for a bit before it was time to give the little ones naps.

Mathilda dishes batter into the cake pan whilst Billa watches intently. I thought she'd play with Alexander, but if there's food involved, forget it! She did so well that I let her "help" me make cookies later.

Mathilda and I "glue" the train cars to their cake board to prevent them from moving around during transit.

Mathilda shows off her masterpiece! It was very colorful and she had so much fun!

The kids have one last hurrah in the ball pit. Alexander definitely had a blast!

Today reminded me of when I used to work at the Boy Scout and Girl Scout camps with the kids, so I told her mom that if they needed someone to provide for that kind of activity for their Girl Scout troop to give me a call. I miss working with kids sometimes in a teaching environment, but I couldn't do it full time like my friend Kellie. It's one thing to do a small group of kids like 10 to 12 versus 20+. (Hey, I can acknowledge my limits!) All in all, it was a good day. I now have some cookies to decorate for Fourth of July, so I bid you adieu!

Adieu!
Kelly

Daycare and Donut Palace

We found daycare!!! We interviewed a potential daycare lady yesterday and both Michael and I really liked her. The baby seemed to take a shining to her as well, so we've decided to go ahead with her in September. She has a small group of kids and they range from 18 months to 5 years old, which is great for Sybilla. She's been staying with our friend Kellie and her kids during the day and she just LOVES spending time with big kids and watching what they do. And now that she's scooting along on all fours (it varies between the worm and a bear crawl), she can chase them all down which is loads of fun for her! She has started to finally show interest in sitting up, which is relieving and scary all at the same time. Relieving that I don't have to constantly hold her up, but scary since it means she can potentially get into trouble, and she is showing a certain penchant for it these days. I think we are going to drop her crib tonight so that she doesn't get the idea of pulling herself up and over. She's eating solids twice a day and we're still breastfeeding, which I am extremely proud of myself for doing. My goal was six months, and can you believe it, we are almost there!

Most of our activities are centered around food these days… shopping for it, cooking it, eating it, and watching it on TV. I've always enjoyed baking and cooking and lately Dad and I have been hooked on watching the Food Network. I got my parents hooked on the Next Food Network Star, which was really fun to watch. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of reality TV, but that sure was a great program to watch! I totally called it in regards to the winner, although towards the end I wavered just a little since they were all really talented and fun to watch. Of course, watching all of this food on TV has inspired me to be more creative in the kitchen and I've been a whirling dervish cooking things I never would have tried before. I've also been thinking a lot about opening a bakery someday. I'd always had this thought in the back of my head, but I usually dismissed it since I'm not much of a morning person (ha! kids change everything, you know) and I figured it was another one of those little follies that I frequently dream up but never act on. Well, I had an epiphany the other day that made me realize that's what I really want to do. It happened like this:

There used to be a bakery in Buda on Antique Row but it closed down for whatever reason and has been on the market for some time. I noticed one day that the For Sale sign had been taken down and I was excited to see who had bought it and what it would become. Not that long after the sign disappeared, I drove by and discovered that it was going to be the newest location in the Donut Palace family.

"WTF?!" I said to myself. "A Donut Palace? A Donut effin' Palace?!" I was getting really worked up over this and I had to stop myself lest I run over some poor innocent antique shopper while blinded by real estate rage. "Whoa, girl! You are being very silly. Why are you so upset about this? It's not like you had the capital or desire to buy it yourself and…and…oh wait, I guess secretly deep down inside, you really DID want to buy it and open your own bakery in Buda!!!" So, that was my epiphany, the big AHA moment when I realized that I wanted to open a bakery someday, maybe in a small town. (And in case you're wondering what the hell Donut Palace is, it's just another donut chain)

It's not that I have anything against donuts or Donut Palace in general. In fact, donuts from Donut Palace are just as tasty as other donut chains. But it's the principal of the matter… you have a small Texas town with unique local businesses on it's Main Street and then some yahoo has to come in and sully the charm with the addition of a generic donut chain storefront. Grrr…This same principal is part of why I hate the infamous Devil Store, aka Wal-Mart. But that's another post for another time.

So that's my epiphany and I'm sticking to it! We'll keep you all posted as things develop and the baby keeps on growing. In the meantime, here is a little gem of Sybilla at dinner time!

Until next time!

Kelly & the Gang

I finally gotcha Kolache!

Ok, so we're going to divert from baby news for a moment here and talk all about kolaches...

I've been craving kolaches since our last trip to Eagle Lake at Christmas. These trips not only result in visiting Michael's grandparents, but a stop at Weikel's for kolaches in La Grange, TX (They Gotcha Kolache!). If you have not had a Weikel's kolache, you have not lived. There are those that would say that about that the kolaches from the Czech Stop in West, TX, but I've never been there, so until I do, I heart Weikel's!

Since some folks may be wondering what the hell a kolache is, here is the definition according to Wiki (Thanks be to Wiki!): 'a type of pastry consisting of fillings ranging from fruits to cheeses inside a bread roll.' It's then usually topped off with posypka, a topping that is made from flour and sugar cut into butter and then crumbled over the top. They can also be made to contain sausage and cheese, a glorified pig-in-the-blanket. While these are marketed as kolaches, they're really klobasnek, and just as tasty!

Kolache: a Czech pastry filled with fruity or cream cheesy goodness.

Since I am a still a student at the University of Patience, and a pretty damn good baker, I decided to give it a go at making kolaches. It took me three tries before I finally got it. The first two times I used a recipe that was total crap. It's from some Czech woman called Grandma Rosie who lives in Corpus and owned a bakery for years. Either she doesn't really want to share the success of her recipe or the reporter who wrote it down got it wrong, 'cause that recipe was a disaster both times I tried it. I had my mom look over it to make sure I wasn't crazy, and she thought it was off too. So I scrapped that one and found another on a blog by the Homesick Texan: http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2007/03/sweet-escape-kolaches.html The author's a funny gal and if you love food like I do, you'll enjoy reading her many posts devoted to Texan cuisine.

With new recipe in hand, I finally managed to pass go, collect my $200, and actually place dough balls on my greased cookie sheets. After having had to wash my pre-greased cookie sheets from my first two attempts without ever placing dough on them, I vowed that I would not grease this time until I was REALLY ready.

What I learned from this adventure: to mimic the Weikel's kolache, one must make BIG dough balls and place them really close together on one cookie sheet (I got 30 small ones out of the recipe and used up 1.5 cookie sheets). Mine came out a little too dense since I had to keep adding flour to the surface when kneading the dough, so maybe baking on a less humid day might be a good idea too! I have to do some more research on what the consistency of the dough should be like; I was basing my experience off of bread making.

All in all, my kolaches were finally a success and they have made a delightful addition to my baking repertoire. I am one step closer to having my bakery some day! If I can just muster up enough cash and get over the whole waking up before the butt crack of dawn thing, we're in business. In the meantime, back to mommyhood!

Kelly