Coconut cookies

Today we are all about Martha Stewart's coconut cookies.  
I have been getting her emails about the "cookie of the day", full of great  recipes and last week there was an amazing amount of yumminess going on.  
These were baked more for honeypie's pop-pop who is a true coconut macaroon lover.  These cookies are a cross between a macaroon and a short bread cookie... so coconut island goodness in every bite and so easy to make!


Here is the recipe from Martha's site... (here)


and sign up for her "cookie of the day" recipes... you wont be dissappointed!!  (here)
well maybe the thighs will be dissapointed at the amount of cookies you'll now be baking during bathing suit season... 
but how can you say no to macaroon like cookies????  who has that kind of will power?????


^_^

 I scooped the dough with a small ice cream scooper 

so each cookie would be the same size...

roll each into coconut

place them on parchment paper on a cookie tray and bake!!

mmmmmmmm soooo good!!

Ponyo Birthday Cake

I know honeypie's birthday was 2 months ago but i thought i'd post some pictures of the cake I  made....  (mainly for katherine whose little one loves ponyo as much as honeypie does!!)

There was one major mistake and i thought i'd just tell you about it now ... 

what a bad and silly  oversite on my part...but that is what decorating at 3 am does... i totally forgot to put in reinforcing dowels in the cake and that is why we have a green bucket that seems to be wrinkling downwards... :(  i cant believe i would do such a thing.... bummer.

BUT anyhow... it was a lovely birthday and honeypie loved the cake!

 PONYO IN HER GREEN BUCKET!

I used  3,  9" inch round cakes...

stacked them on top of each other with vanilla buttercream frosting

Then came the fondant... i used a light green gel to color the fondant

Rolled it out ...

covered the cake with it...

I added light blue to the butter cream on placed it on top of the cake for water...

NOW PLEASE INSERT DOWELS INTO THE CAKE HERE AT THIS POINT...

;)

now for PONYO...

i made the body out of rice krispie treats and melted marshmallows...

I covered the body with flesh colored fondant and red fondant

and placed her on top of the cake ...I added a handle to the bucket and eyes and hair to ponyo...

The cake was a great flavour of vanilla with vanilla buttercream and chocolate chips... mmmmmm

here is some crafts we made during the party... 

finger puppets on a stick of ponyo and totoro

we also made totoro birthday hats out of card stock paper...

and we had all the kids work on an underwater collaged mural.   We pasted paper on a wall.

It was a great day filled with dancing, playing,  craft making, candy sushi making, and cake eating!!!

ps katherine...  thanks for reading!!!  

^_^  ~birdycake

A homemade life by molly wizenberg

I have been reading "A homemade life" by Molly Wizenberg, the author of the wonderful blog "orangette". What a lovely lovely book!!! Full of really touching stories about her life and family and chuck full of delicious recipes, which she shares!! To try to get some extra reading time in there, in order to finish it, ( what mama has time to read?????) I've been reading the book aloud with honeypie on my lap. She has been enjoying listening to it too... :)
Friday we decided on a nice tea time, just honeypie and I. She requested a full dress up tea, involving crowns, dresses and painted finger nails. ( The last time I painted my nails might have been for my wedding... They are not worthy of polish since I bite them off viciously)...
So we dressed up and I pulled out my new beeeaaauuuuuttttiiifffuullll tea set by Williams Sonoma!!! The honeybee set that just came out... (I'm nuts about bees and honey!!!) It's soooo lovely... You'll see below!! 
Tea is always best enjoyed served on pretty things, while wearing pretty things and eating yummy pretty things!!!
So fully inspired, i decided to make Molly's special "French style yogurt cake with lemon". Molly says in her book, that she owes the cake alot of gratitude, being that it is via that recipe she posted on her blog that she found her sweetheart Brandon ( or rather... he found her!!). It is a great story too and you should read in her book!! (I'm a sucker for romance stories).
It was an easy to make cake and very delicious. Not overly sweet or overly lemony. Honeypie devoured 2 platefuls and left just crumbs. A sign of a great recipe and yummy one at that. The icing the recipe calls for is a must and I would personally double the lemon zest it calls for, if you want a more lemony taste. And don't overbake or it will taste too dry... I did not have whole milk yogurt and used fat free... Which I think was why it was not as moist as I would have liked.









Just thought I'd share a beauty of a cake mold... by nordic ware ... Via my friend Lisa, who is a baker too, over at Bundt-o-licious ... Who not only bakes the most delish bundts  but gave me the heads up on the tea set and this cake mold too! She says she works next to or near a Williams Sonoma store in the city...( I don't know how she can sleep at night).... 
I salivate over cake and cookie molds or sets, as a dying man in the desert might salivate over water for salvation. 
Sad maybe... But true. ;)







Mmmmmm











A new tea too by republic of tea... Hibiscus pineapple lychee ! Mmmmm





Tea for two





Only crumbs!!






Beautiful tea time! Best with my girl!








Next?
I will be trying molly's pink cookies... Which are actually not molly's recipe but jimmy's! ;)
and her cherry, goat cheese and arugula salad along with her pinenuts and golden raisin turkey meatballs for a romantic dinner with daddy followed by scrabble!
(I'm also mad for board games!!)


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Origami day

Today started with sadness over one of honeypie's favorite fruit... A coveted mango, now named "freckles"... Who was forgotten on our windowsill , inside a paper bag, left alone for rippening...
Sigh ...
What a dissapointing 4 day wait...
(notice honeypie's face she drew on him ... And can you tell why he is named freckles??)




(I love you freckles....)




Then... On to origami. A very cute kit I had saved for honeypie.



Making hello kitty






And some more...





Working on a pelican...





And a kitty...


Then on to some letter writing for daddy...
(super cute stationary ... I'm a sucker for paper)










Some beading too...








Great day !

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Today?... I am "smitten kitchen" inspired...

It is a rainy rainy day outside and honeypie and I are recouping from colds and stomach bugs.  Seems like we came back from Mexico right into a toxic wasteland... 
BUT we are on the mend!
Today finds us painting on easels, reading lots of books and baking.  
(and I'm sneaking some cleaning in there too...)
and since we are talking of baking... 
have you been to this awesome, delicious, mouth watering blog called "Smitten Kitchen"?  
It was created by a gal named Deb who says she is a writer, cook (in a tiny tiny kitchen) , photographer and occasional dishwasher ! ;) 
She has an impressive list of awards and press... but personally I am just plain in awe of her food recipes and photos...  (the photos are dreamy in a hunky Marlboro man kind of way food can make me dream...)
Deb says she likes "bourbon, artichokes, things that taste like burnt sugar and baked goods with funny names" and I must agree that definitely so do I!!!
Today we made 2 recipes from her blog.  
Her "raspberry buttermilk cake"  cake  (except i used strawberries instead) and 
her "avocado salad with carrot ginger dressing", the dressing was AWESOME but i think i made mine a little too chunky...need less carrot i guess.
MMMMM both were delicious!!!
though my photos are NOWHERE near as beautiful as hers... 
her recipes were sooo easy and sooo good.
Go on and take a peek at her blog.
  
Can't wait to try out more!
Here's my carrot ginger dressing.... sooooo gooooood!!!


  

and my strawberry buttermilk cake of yumminess!

MMMMMmmm!!!!!!

Thanks smitten kitchen!!

^-^