Wedding Day

Take a deep breath. This is it.

(Oh, maybe that's just the way *I* was feeling!) It was Wedding Day, and the day this momma had to let go. Well, sort of. I guess you're never really "let go" out of the family. The day dawned sunny and hot and beautiful. In the hotel room, there wasn't a trace of jitters... everyone is all smiles!

Brandon and Cecilia chose to be married in the Mount Timpanogos Temple, which is located in American Fork, Utah. Because of the sacred nature of the temple ceremony, no cameras are allowed inside. We were happy to see that the couple's closest friends and family that could make it were inside with them. It was beautiful. Trust me. I think I cried all the way through it. (Isn't that the mom's job??)

Once again, the pictures will mostly tell the story, as the happy couple came outside to join everyone:

Three generations on the groom's side:

Three generations on the bride's side:

These close friends were a big part of Brandon & Cecilia's experience at the temple. We're so glad they could come:

Huffaker parents and grandparents of the couple...

A favorite cousin and their little ones. With an Emma-sized photobomb, too:

Extended family on the groom's side:

(No, this is NOT all the Huffakers. These are the ones that were at the temple that day)

Cecilia and her mom and grandma share a fun moment:

(That's sooo typical of them!)

On to the Utah reception that evening....

These are some of our great friends, who have moved to Utah. The amazing coincidence: we invited them to the temple, but they had to turn us down: they had a family member getting married in the exact same temple and at the exact same time as Brandon and Cecilia! What are the chances?? It was still so wonderful to see them at the temple, though they were going to a different room for a different wedding. We love these guys!!

This wonderful couple traveled down from Idaho to be with Brandon on his big day. He had a lot of experiences with Brandon during his youth and Scouting days:

The cake feeding may have gotten a little rambunctious....

But that's ok, because she got him back:

(and we didn't forget the tradition of decorating the getaway car .... ummm, rather creatively!!)

We're glad to welcome Cecilia to the family. Brandon can use someone keeping him in line! (heh, heh, heh)  Really, we wish them all the best in their lives together!

P.S. The wedding festivities are not yet over.... the happy couple spent several days at Glacier National Park for their honeymoon, and then this coming weekend is their local Idaho reception.



Let Them Eat Cake!

One thing I've been spending too much time doing is blog stalking. Sometimes I hit "next blog" at the top of the screen, and sometimes I pop from one to another from my friends' blogs, which has led me in some fun discoveries. People are just so creative! I love the ideas I get -- some I've used right away for our ward's ladies' activities. Some I file away for future possibilities. Some things I just have to try for myself. So here's my first feeble attempt at an idea I found on a blog that I now stalk fairly regularly. They're cake pops. I would give you the link to the blog, but that would show you how bad my first shot at this was. I don't want to burst your bubble about me! Anyway, here's what I did:

I started with a chocolate cake. How bad can that be, right?

You take the whole thing and crumble it up into a bowl. Yes, the WHOLE thing.

You need a pretty big bowl. I used my big Pyrex mixing bowl, and I wished it were a little bigger. Then you add cream cheese frosting. Best thing about this is there's no measuring. One whole cake. One whole can of cream cheese frosting. (and there's no reason why you couldn't mix flavors here) You could probably make your own frosting if you wanted... buy why?

Mix all the frosting and cake together until you get a mush ball in the bowl. That's a technical term. Mush.

Then you roll it up into balls. You could use an ice cream scoop, but I felt the need to be a part of this experience. Yeah, right -- whatever. It's a little messy. She says you get about 45-50, so I made 4 dozen. I'm thinking they were a little big, and I'd probably make them a bit smaller the next time.

You're supposed to chill these babies for a couple hours or so. I went for the speed method of putting them in the freezer. I put the sucker sticks in first. (Think about it -- how would you get the stick in them if they were frozen?)

Then you take that candy coating stuff you can buy in the cake decorating aisle. I was going for a classy Valentine look, so I used pink. Melt that in the microwave. I did a little at a time, but still ended up reheating several times. I've never worked with this stuff before, so it was new to me. My first ones I tried to spread it on the ball... not such a good idea. Then I re-read and you're supposed to pour or spoon it on and tap off the excess. This is all fine and dandy, until I tapped and my stick moved and the ball started spinning on it. Fine. Back into the freezer they went. That's all fine and dandy too, until you try to put warm candy coating on frozen cake balls. The coating hardens up way quickly then. Hence the multiple reheatings in the microwave. This was a process!!



By the way, you need 2 packages of the candy melts. One doesn't do it. Then, I had to sample a bite of one of these babies... I couldn't help myself. Mine in no way looks anything close to the originals, but if you don't know what the originals look like, then who's gonna tell? Not Me! (Ok, so I'm telling now.)


Since I'm not up to elaborate decorations -- I obviously need a cake decorating class -- I just drizzled mine with melted chocolate.

If you stand them in some styrofoam, they can cool and dry really well. I took some to a lunch with some friends, and they went over ok-pretty well. At least, there weren't any left to take home afterwards. I can't say I totally love the texture -- it's kind of like when you mush cake and frosting together, you know? I've seen something similar done with Oreos and cream cheese, to make a sort of bon bon or truffle. I think I like that better for taste. I guess you

could dip those, too.

And in case you're wondering, yes here is the link to the original blog. I love Bakerella, and she certainly deserves credit where credit is due. Check out her blog at www.bakerella.com. You'll agree that I need more practice. A LOT more!

It Takes the Cake!

This blog would not be complete if I didn't include some entries about Brandon. Although he is not at the Haven these days, he is in our daily prayers, and we miss him here. It's a little bizarre to have "just" one person missing from the Haven, and yet it sometimes feels like more. Somehow, Brandon is more than just one person when he's not here! (This tells me he leaves a pretty big void!)

Of course, you can find up-to-date information about him at http://www.huffakermission.blogspot.com/, my lone other blog. His weekly emails with news from Jamaica go there. I don't post all of his emails, sometimes I edit what he sends, and some of them are meant just for us. This last week, he sent an email to me with a list of requests for information and recipes. Part of what he is looking for is to be able to substitute ingredients when things are either unavailable, or expensive for them.

So among his requests was to know how to make a cake from scratch. I assume he either can't find mixes or they are cost prohibitive on a missionary's budget. (Some of his other questions were for recipes for things that are commonly found here as mixes or ready-made.)

This posed a dilemma for me: I've never made a cake "from scratch." Seriously.

Stop laughing!

I think part of the reason I've never done it is because I seem to remember my mom telling me it was difficult, time-consuming, and in general, not worth it. Looking back, I suspect she just told me that to put me off so I wouldn't pester her to try it!!

So, I couldn't, in good conscience, send Brandon a recipe that I'd never tried, right??? Surely I would have additional tips and comments to add, if I'd made the recipe myself, at least once.

Not wanting to make things too complicated for him or for me, I reached for my battered (no pun intended), and well-worn copy of Betty Crocker's cookbook. This thing has whole chunks of pages falling out; it's in a pretty bad state. Many of the pages have notes alongside the recipes -- but not in the cakes section! So, knowing that Todd is not a big fan of chocolate (all the more for me anyway), I made a basic white cake, called "Silver White Cake". The one adjustment I made was to cut the recipe in half and do just one layer. I didn't see the point in a whole cake for no-particular-reason, especially when I had just gotten off the treadmill to work out that day. Inspiration at the time was running along the lines of weight-loss and toning the body, not cake, frosting and adding pounds on!

(In the background, you can see the garden tomatoes that are just begging to be made into homemade salsa.)

If I had been Martha Stewart, I wouldn't have used "butter-flavor" shortening. I sure like it for pie crust (which I do make from scratch, thank you!) and cookies, but when you're going for a white cake, the yellow shortening kind of defeats the purpose!

I love, love, love pure vanilla extract. I have to take a sniff every time I open the bottle. Once I was out on my own, it took me a little while to get away from the fake stuff (a hangover habit from my frugal mother), and now I'll never go back! It's so worth it for real vanilla. Martha Stewart would also have used the special clear extract instead of the brown stuff I used, but oh well.

Separated eggs, and adding the whites. The recipe didn't specify, so I added them all at once, but to do it again, I'd add the egg whites one at a time.

I hope Brandon has a mixer, because I don't think you can reasonably do this by beating by hand.

Disappointment! It's sunken in the middle! Whaaaat????? This is the complete opposite of what happens when I make cakes from mixes. Not sure what I did wrong. Maybe it was those dang egg whites? I also took it out of the oven earlier than I expected to, it obviously cooked faster.

Well, a homemade cake-from-scratch deserves homemade frosting from scratch, too. I'm fine with this, because I've made frosting a lot. Ok, well not a lot, but enough. So in keeping with my little white cake, I did a basic Vanilla Butter Frosting to go with it. Sprinkles on top is colored coarse sugar.

Emma tried some of the frosting, too. Look at those eyes! Could you deny her frosting with those eyes looking back at you like that???

We didn't taste the cake until the next day; with ice cream, of course. It tasted good, but I don't think it would win any prizes. I thought it was a bit coarse textured, and not as soft and tender as I would have liked. Like the cake version of an artisan bread.

Better luck next time.

I'll still send Brandon the recipe, but with a few comments and notes for him!