Pear Cake

This cake started as an Apple Cake but since I had pears and not apples in the house, it became a Pear Cake.  My sister had been talking about making a pear cake as she had picked up pears at 9 cents a pound in Ontario!  Yes, nine cents! 

Pear Cake 

• 1 c white flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 c butter
• 1/3 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 3 Tablespoons Maple Flavoured Rye
• 2 -3 pears diced

Prepare 8 to 9 inch springform pan

Preheat oven to 350 

Mix dry ingredients

In mixing bowl; mix butter, I used shortening add sugar and beat until light and fluffy

Add egg one at at time and beat until light

Add in vanilla and flavoured rye

Mix in chopped pears

Spread batter evenly into prepared pan

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. 

Dust with icing sugar

The kitchen smells divine, telling me that the Maple flavoured Rye and pears go well together! 

High Tea held in honour of the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate

A tea was held in June in honour of the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate who have played such a vita role over the years in the prairies.   Sadly Calgary's Ukrainian Catholic convent closes after 62 years. It's hard to imagine that they will not be part of the community. 

Salads, open faced sandwiches, Tea sandwiches, Charcuterie board and a cheese and fruit platter were beautifully arranged on the tables in buffet style with two platters of each dish. 

Pizza open faced sandwiches

Cucumber open faced sandwiches with fresh dill

Potato salad  with chunks of ham and capers

Charcuterie

Watermelon and Fresh Basil Salad, very colourful

Colourful Greek Salad

Smoked Salmon with capers and fresh dill

Cheese Spanakopita

Rose Radishes decorated the plates.

This was my plate of goodies!

In the Hall was a display of Korovai along with painted Easter Eggs.

Korovai, or Wedding Bread is a traditional centerpiece at Ukrainian weddings. It's round shaped with a twist or braid, then decorated with sculpted dough: doves to symbolize love and faithfulness. 

Barbie Doll Cake

Buttercream Frosting was made for the cake that was baked in my Bundt pan

It's been a while since I have made buttercream icing and I remembered how after all the fall birthdays and making this icing for all the birthdays, I couldn't look at icing until the next set of birthdays in the fall.

The amount of fat and sugar that goes into this frosting is mind blogging, 4 cups of sugar and 1 cup of fat.

4 c icing sugar

1 c shortening or butter or a combination of both

2 T milk

Beat the shortening until fluffy

add the milk

slowly add the icing sugar and beat after each addition

add 1 tsp vanilla

Since there was an Irish theme, I decided to do a poke cake using green lime in the white cake.  My husband heard one of the kids saying "I don't eat green jello!"

I started by decorating the cake with white icing

Red Wiltons food dye was added to the white frosting until a shade of pink was made

 I can tell you that I was pleased that I did not have to make more icing.. the amount made easily covered the bundt cake, a small cupcake and Barbie's bodice.

Sparkers  always made a Birthday cake look more festive!

Sweet Potato Cake

The inspiration for this recipe is the Korean Sweet Potato Cake that is so popular at Korean celebrations. A sponge cake is layered with sweet potato cream filling. The sweet potato is cooked, mashed and added to the whipped cream. Cooked sweet potato  can also be added to the batter. This cake is not a favourite of mine nor my son.

I have wanted to make a sweet potato cake for some time and decided that I would for my grandchild's birthday as only her grandparents were coming for supper. The birthday party had been cancelled due to rain weather.

I was pleasantly surprised with the texture and the flavor of the cake.  The cake tasted very much like a carrot cake but seemed heavier in weight, although still moist and light.  In fact, my grandchild's grandfather instead it was a carrot cake and not a sweet potato cake.. Well in a way he was correct as it definitely was not a Korean Sweet Potato cake!

Most of the cakes I looked at on the web, cooked the sweet potato first and then added it into the batter at the end, much like a pumpkin cake.   I used a carrot cake recipe that I had made before. 

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups canola oil
• 3 cups grated sweet potato
• Walnuts would be nice to add.
• Preheat oven to 350
• Prepare a springform pan or  9x 13 pan
• Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl
• Mix wet ingredients in another bowl
• Add dry to wet gradually, stir to incorporated everything
• Stir in grated sweet potato 
• Bake for 45 to 60 minutes until golden brown 

A cream cheese frosting was used to cover the cake

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 2 T soften butter
• 3 -4 c of icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix ingredients well.  Frost the cake when cool. 

Since this was a birthday cake, I added mini bear cookies around the edge of the cake. This pleased my grandchild, as she ate only the frosting and the cookies.. then quietly asked me if I still was making her Barbie Doll Cake that I had been promising her for her party.  

This last picture is the funniest as her little sister who is 18 months, really wanted to be included in the photo!