As you know, I discussed my past cake creations earlier and it was within the comments of that entry that the suggestion came in from my good friend Luis to make an Xbox controller cake. I instantly agreed that would be the perfect idea for my Xbox Live-addicted 11 year-old. It also seemed like it could be do-able with some fondant and a little creativity. So last night, I embarked on the journey to create the ultimate Xbox 360 controller cake! (Thank goodness I had the help of my husband or I’d still be working on it now.)
cooking
Ace of Cakes & Cake Boss Watch Out!
Actually, I kid. A lot. Charm City Cakes, Buddy from Cake Boss and any other bakers, with or without tv shows, have absolutely NOTHING to worry about. However, I am in need of their creative thinking right now. I’ve sort of built up a reputation of making fun and exciting cakes for the two big kids birthday parties and now that I’ve sent out invitations for my baby’s 11th birthday party (I still remember MY 11th birthday like it was yesterday…how can I have an 11 year-old son?!), I am drawing a blank as to how to compete with prior years’ creations. I took a year off for C’s last party because I was still adjusting to having a baby around and the place we had the party offered ice cream cakes, so it seemed to work. However with S’s last party, I upped the ante with the famous Spaghetti & Meatballs Cake for her Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movie party, so I feel it’s only fair I get back on track for C’s party in 2 weeks.
Goat Cheese in Puff Pastry with Balsamic Vinegar
A little while back my friend wanted to come over and make a Beef Wellington for the first time ever. I’ve seen enough Gordon Ramsay shows to know that dish was a bit too intimidating for me to even attempt. Not wanting to be completely useless, I decided to make us some appetizers using the goat cheese we’d just brought home and some frozen puff pastry shells we had. Now before you think, wow, Zanna has written a whole paragraph and there is no mention of Disney – what gives? Well, I’ll have you know that whenever I think of goat cheese, I think of Tony’s Town Square restaurant in Magic Kingdom, which at one time served a baked goat cheese appetizer and it was divine. So that’s what made me decide to whip this up that night. I posted a picture on Twitter and got many compliments and requests for a recipe, so I thought I’d share.