Christmas at The Olvera House...Gingerbread House Competition!

It's a tradition at my house to watch The Christmas Story ("you'll shoot your eye out kid!") on Christmas eve, open gifts at midnight after reading the birth of Jesus in the bible, eat Christmas lunch, pop Christmas crackers together, sing "Happy Birthday to Jesus" & eat the cake we make him, and have a gingerbread house competition! Guess who won that?! 

"Today in the town of David a savior had been born to you; he is Christ the Lord".  -Luke 2:11

I had a very blessed time with my family! Here are a few highlights from the day: 

(Jesus's Birthday Cake I made him)

(prayer and christmas poppers)

(all of our houses)

(Mine and Joel's house! We WON!)

Garden Cake

Here's a garden cake I just finished up yesterday! It's a three layer butter pecan cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I used fondant only to decorate the top of the cake. I used butter cream to decorated the edges with grass and leaves. 

My niece came over while I was in the middle of making the cake and she wanted to do her own again. Love it!

These are some pictures of her at work. She's a pro & she's only 4...TALENT! 

Butter Pecan Cake Recipe

I made these cupcakes using butter pecan flavored cake and basic vanilla buttercream frosting. I garnished the tops with halves of pecans. 

Butter Pecan Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of chopped pecans
• 1 1/4 cups of softened butter
• 2 cups of sugar 
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake 1/4 cup of the butter with the pecans in a baking dish for 20min. Stir frequently.

In a large bowl cream together sugar and remaining butter until light and fluffy. Add in one egg at a time. Stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed mixture alternatively with the milk. Stir in 1 cup of the roasted pecans. 

Pour into cupcake tins or into 9inch round pans.

Bake at 350degrees for 25-30min. 

Let cool and then add frosting. 

Vanilla Frosting:

• 1 cup softened butter
• 8 cups confection sugar
• 1 can (5oz) evaporated milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract 

Beat together butter and confection sugar. Add milk and vanilla; beat till smooth. Stir in remaining remaining roasted pecans.

Spread frosting between cake layer or pip onto cupcakes.

Mini Anniversary Cake

I was asked to make a small anniversary cake for my friend's parents. She wanted it to be so small that it only fed about two people. So I made this mini three-tiered cake (it's about as tall as a pencil). It's a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I covered it in blue fondant and pipped white buttercream around to decorate it. 

I was also babysitting my niece while I was making the cake and she saw what I was doing and wanted to make one herself. This is her lovely masterpiece! It's a cake made out of blobs of blue fondant and decorated with buttercream pipping and checkers. 

Birthday cake pops

The cake flavor is vanilla with vanilla icing. I dipped the pops into red candy melts and added the black candy melts and piped on white melted candy melts to spell out "Happy Birthday".

Thanksgiving desserts & Pumpkin Pie recipe

For Thanksgiving this year I made pumpkin rolls, no-bake cheesecakes, and a lot of pumpkin pies! 

My family is HUGE so I had to make enough to feed an army! 

Thanksgiving was so great! And I'm so very thankful for the family I was blessed to be born into. Couldn't have asked for a better day. 

(*Scroll down for my awesome pumpkin pie recipe)

Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2 large eggs
• 15oz. fresh or canned pumpkin
• 1 can (12 fl. oz.) evaporated milk
• 1 deep dish pie shell (frozen, unbaked)

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 425degrees F.

Mix together the sugar cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in a bowl. Beat the eggs in another bowl. Stir in spices, pumpkin and evaporated milk to the egg mixture. Whisk together until all of the ingredients are evenly distributed.

Pour into pie crusts.

Bake in pre-heated 425 degree oven for 15min. Lower temperature to 350 degrees after the 15minuets are over and bake for 40-50min. Cool on wire rack for 2hours. Refrigerate after it cools or enjoy immediately.

Enjoy!

Army Cake for Veteran's Day

To help celebrate my sister Veronica being a veteran I made an Army symbol cake for her. It's a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting colored yellow and black. I used fondant to make the letters and star. I normally would've layered the entire cake with fondant, but she likes buttercream more than fondant so I decided to put as much frosting as I could. I tried to smooth out the frosting enough to make it look like it's fondant. 

Happy Veteran's Day, Sistah! We love you!