Easter Cake and Divine Mercy Cake

Here are two cakes I made during the Octave...

  I threw this together at the last minute...which is obvious!!! :) I had promised my kids a cake for Easter Sunday but was soooo very busy with many things to get ready for the kids in our program entering the Church on Easter Saturday Vigil. I was also making Sacrament Cake Topper pieces (which I forgot to photograph...go figure). I did manage to get this little cake iced and decorated. It is not really a great design: but the kids do not care about such things the way that I do!

Divine Mercy Sunday occurs the 2nd Sunday of Easter (the readings for that weekend are very much about Mercy already and go so well with this theme) and since Sundays are my baking days during Easter after giving up baking for most of Lent, I decided to make a small cake again to celebrate. I really wanted Easter to be very different from Lent and the "feasting" aspect of this for us is usually tied to cakes/cookies and the like since Momma's a baker! Divine Mercy is a beautiful devotion started through a favorite saint of mine Saint Faustina. She was a Polish nun who Christ gave a mission to that she should proclaim His love and mercy to sinners that He comes to us first with love and mercy before the day of judgement. There is a lovely prayer that accompanies it called the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I took my daughter to our Parish's afternoon prayer service for Mercy Sunday and then we prayed the short prayer at home before having cake. This design is so simple but very strong in impact. The kids enjoyed deciding which "color" to eat and it emphasizes the teaching of Divine Mercy without too much hassle. I really just spread the frosting on and scraped across it to make the red/blue rays. Here's a link to more info on the Divine Mercy devotion:
Divine Mercy

For this past 3rd Sunday of Easter I made some GF/DF Krispy treats...no photos of that though...not really a lot involved! :)

Easter Blessings,
Evie

Monster Truck Cake

Making this cake was a gift to me. I think that whenever the Lord gives us an opportunity to serve others He gives us tenfold from that service. I really enjoyed making this cake and praying for the family as I worked. Work with prayer is twice as sweet. I made this cake for Evan and his family. Evan has many challenges being an older sibling to a handsome little brother with many medical needs. As a new volunteer with Icing Smiles I was honored to make a cake for Evan. You can read about this beautiful family on Facebook at the below link. Please like their page and show your support! Team Hayden

 Icing Smiles is a great organization and if you are a baker who is interested please check out this beautiful charity here:  Icing Smiles

I didn't get to attend the party but I was really blessed to meet them and become a part of the community support network in our area.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Evan's Cake was Monster Truck themed and based on his favorite truck. I made this cake Gluten-Free with Gluten-Free Krispy treats to make the truck and wheels. I have never had so much fun playing with crumbs of cake and frosting!!! Making mud mountain was a challenge that took time (a deliberate mess always does) and ended up being quite enjoyable. :)

                                              This all was very emotional for me and I really enjoyed the process and the joy in Evan's response to seeing the cake. I always wondered if I couldn't sell my cakes what I could do with this love for baking and I think this experience has shown me that God has a plan for our gifts and finds the right time for them to be given to others. 

This week's Office of Readings had the following scripture from Peter that really came at the right time and touched my heart: 

 "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God; whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ..."

Easter Blessings,

Evie 

Rainbow Pony Cake

   Here is the latest baking fun from my home!
I had a very specific request from my daughter to make a Pony Cake based on her favorite toy and that it should be inscribed in exactly the way she directed. Hmmm...I think she gets this from me!

  So I made a very small cake (it was Palm Sunday when we had cake) as we were starting to the holy week fasting/prayer. However telling a girl she can't have a cake for her birthday was not really an option for us. I enjoyed making the very anime-esque eyes and thought it looked as close to her toy's match as it could in the time I allotted time to work on the cake.

 This was a new recipe I found for homemade chocolate allergen free cake that used vinegar and no eggs. I was somewhat happy with the  taste, but I think that it called for not quite the right amount of sugar. Next time I will up the amount. My hubby saw me making all the swirls and was somewhat confused. I did use them, but I made way too many!  I love this design. I think it could have more color (white clouds/white cake sort of bothers me) and if I had thought it through a little more and had the time I might have made the cake blue but I was thinking it would conflict with the blue on the pony. I covered a bunch of mini marshmallows with fondant to make the large cloud and then piped the smaller clouds from buttercream.

She loved her cake and even though it was a quick and short celebration (the cake didn't last more than a day since it was small) she was happy and that made me happy with it. :) :)

Easter Blessings from our home to yours!