A Rainbow Cake! Not Sure What I Was Thinking.

The big brother around here recently turned 5. He is a fan of all things rainbow, so I decided to make a cake based on a Leprechaun Trap Cake I saw at the Not Martha blog. It is terribly dangerous to be on maternity leave- too many blogs with amazing party ideas out there. I had never made a cake from scratch before, so of course I thought it would be perfect to try this crazy cake first. Took me most of the day! Yikes.

I made a Golden Layer Cake from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, the best cookbook ever. It was a bit thicker than I was imagining, which made pouring the rainbow layers a bit tricky. I did some vaguely mathematical calculations and weighed different portions to get the amounts for each layer before adding gel coloring to each. The colors were intense!

Of course I didn’t butter the pan well enough and had to pry the thing out. Apparently this is what frosting is for! Turns out I loooooove frosting cakes. I can’t believe I have never done it before now. It’s oddly satisfying.

There had to be sprinkles. The Big Bro would have it no other way.

And now for the moment of truth:

Alas, not the classic rainbow shape I had been shooting for.

Still tasted delish.

A Dancing Horse Mobile

Pregnant ladies who love horses, I have one more thing to put on your to-do list:

Become friends with my dear friend Jill.

Pronto.

There are a zillion good reasons to befriend a person as kind and fun and thoughtful and interesting as Jill, but recently I uncovered a thrilling bonus reason:

Jill is capable of making this outrageous adorableness, a dancing horse mobile!

Jill and I primarily hang out side by side on our horses or lounging on a dusty set of camp chairs beside a dustier trailer. When we get together the horse related chatter is so enthralling we don’t often discuss other pursuits, so when I invited her to make a square for baby R’s quilt I had no idea she was such an amazing craftsperson.

Turns out she is! A crazy amazing craftsperson, in fact. This mobile was also accompanied by a CD of horse themed songs with liner notes that include all the lyrics. Oh yeah, and a beautiful quilt square of a lacewing. Apparently Jill is just awesome like that.

BTW, the photos do not do this masterpiece justice. Baby R’s room does not have generous light and this thing really works- moving all the time with whatever minor air currents flow through our house. Bad combo for getting great images.