Farewell Marika!

The highlight of my week for over a year and a half now is teaching a small group of kindergartners at KidsQuest, which is the McLean Bible Church version of Sunday school. About six months ago, I was asked to also help out in the large group production--where a group of about 100 kindergarten and first graders come in assembly style to hear a bible story and sing worship songs. Wow! You wouldn't think it, but they are an intimidating group. Their attention span is about 0.5 seconds and definitely let you know if you aren't interesting enough or are just downright boring.

Thankfully, I had an awesome partner on stage who really bolstered my credibility with these youngsters!Marika and I would feed off each other's energy and it really showed when the kids would get fired up for her stories and the songs we'd lead together. Sadly, she recently had to return to her home country of Moldova. To send her a fond farewell (or rather, "see you soon"), we had a party with board games, and a cake that I made.

How often do you let the frosting dictate the cake? Well, I did. I knew that I would be frosting the cake with mousseline buttercream (what else of course!) And when I do, I'll have egg yolks leftover. Is there a cake recipe that only uses egg yolk? YES! It's called Golden Layer Cake, and I found it in The Joy of Cooking.I filled the cake with peaches and cream.Then I decorated it with peachy flowers that are slightly tinged with red at the edges.

"Pink" Velvet Cupcakes

My friend Khanh was visiting during a stop on her tour of North America, and we made sure it was a special visit for her. First, we ordered up fat snow--in the order of 20-something inches worth over less than 24 hours.Then, she remarked that she had heard so much about red velvet cake, but had never had it. Well, I had never made it. So I thought, why not give it a try? Not having much experience with it before, I picked a recipe from Food Network.Somehow, it didn't quite turn out the way I expected.They turned out rather pink, instead of red. Nonetheless, they were yum.I later spread them with cream cheese icing that I had leftover from some strawberry cake that I had previously made. But first I ate a couple naked. I mean, the cakes were naked...as in, not frosted. Oh whatever, you know what I mean: