Hey goodlookin'! Whatchya got cookin'?

This weekend my Mom and I headed up to my sister's house for a nice family get together. The weather was just gorgeous, as was the drive! Check out the view...

I had told my sister that I would make her, her husband, Mom and myself dinner when we got to her house. I had bought chicken drumsticks and some Arborio rice with which I planned to make a balsamic vinegar glaze and some lemon risotto.

Which I did... only Mom and I ran late getting to my sisters....and as you may know risotto just cant be rushed.... or so found out... after an agonizing amount of time spent stirring.... so we didn't eat until after 10.

I had also promised to make a pineapple upside down cake for dessert.... which I did... and which we didn't eat until 12:30am.

Our day of cooking had begun.

By 10:00am the next morning Mom, Sis and I were all hard at work in the kitchen getting ready for the 12 guests we were expecting around four. Mom made her delicious cheese white sauce and cut up the cauliflower, carrots and onions to go with it (a heavenly concoction). Sis got started on the pavlova (a light and airy dessert made of baked stiff egg whites) while I made a lemon curd sauce to go with it (another heavenly concoction). A massive prime rib roast and yams waited to go in the oven and my mom prepared the batter for Yorkshire pudding (my all time fav!) Is your mouth watering yet? 'Cause mine is!

But then there was another order of business yet to be dealt with.... My sister had asked if I could help her make a cake for a friend's baby shower that was the next day. She had found a cake online that she really liked, shaped like an old baby carriage, and hoped that we might be able to duplicate it... but the problem was that neither of us had ever made anything but a simple, square and plainly iced cake before. Thank goodness Mom was around to help us out.

We started with a plain 12x8 sheet cake (that split!... but that's ok!) which we carved a little at the bottom to make slightly round and cut out holes to fit the wheels....

And then used two 9 inch round chocolate cake's to make the wheels....

But we felt the wheels were too large so we cut them down a little and then used the cast off outside rounds iced together to form the "hood".

We then lightly iced each piece separately and placed them on a board together to form the foundation of the buggy...

I then got started on a basket weave pattern for the icing that I had seen once on some cooking show....

Which I thought turned out surprisingly well!...

My sister then went to work on placing mini marshmallows (a great idea she came up with) on the "hood" ....

Mom also went to work on icing the wheels and did a fabulous job.... she also supervised and helped shape the cake and helped doll out the color pattern for the marshmallows. It was most certainly a group effort and made for a lot of really good laughs...

The bulk of the cake was then done... which left me to go to work on the little details in an obsessive sort of way that Mom and Sis couldn't help but laugh at. I cut little yellow marshmallows into thirds and filled the wheel wells. I added little pink marshmallows to finish the trim on the basket and the handle. By then people had started to arrive and I had to stop.

The result was pretty darn nice if we dont say so ourselves!

Dinner was excellent but I have to say that the company was even better!

Hope you all had a great weekend!