November 15th, 2014
National Bundt Cake Day
I baked my first bundt cake this week for Cuisine Kathleen's Bundt Cake Challenge on Wednesday November 12th. It was not a pretty site, the two pieces of my pumpkin shaped cake did not fit together properly so I hacked at them with a long knife until I could get them to fit together (kind of) and the frosting turned to fudge before I could pour it onto my cake. I surgically improved it by amputating the bottom of the cake and gave it a face lift in order to be able to participate in the challenge. Let it be said that I was rather disheartened by the dismal appearance of my cake and needed some time to reconcile myself to the fact that I am not much of a baker. I needed a little time to go ahead and fix my cake as best I could, set the table that I wanted to do for a fall tablescape, and then swallow my pride and fess up to the fact that I did not have any idea what I was doing. But first before I get to the cake I want to show you a place setting from the vintage tablescape I did for late fall. I used the beautiful place mat's I won from Fabby's Blogging anniversary give-a-way to set the tone for the rest of the table.You will see that this post is very similar to
Vintage Early Fall Tablescape .
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| Late Fall table setting |
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| Early Fall table setting |
On to the cake!
When Kathleen first announced her bundt cake challenge I immediately went to Pinterest and started pinning bunt cakes and then I came across my dream bundt cake...... I was in love! I do not know who originated this post but you can find this picture and a pumpkin bundt cake recipe at Top Graduation Cake Ideas
here.
Once I knew the cake style I wanted to bake I turned to Ebay to find the perfect bundt cake pan.
Before I even received my new cake pans I started looking for the recipe I wanted to use for my bundt cake. I narrowed it down to two recipes (both found on Pinterest), one was a pumpkin based recipe and the other was an apple recipe. Dearest hubby made the decision for an apple cake. You can find the recipe for this cake from Tracy's Culinary Adventures
here.
My cake resembled neither of the Pinterest posts, I had to cut the bottom half of my cake off because of it's hideous appearance and then fix the frosting (it literally turned to praline fudge while I was trying to "drizzle" it over the cake). The frosting may look thick and chunky but it is delicious. The cake is really tasty too. After surgery, the face lift, and adding nuts to the top, it did look kind of like Tray's cake. I have learned a lesson from this experience - move really fast if you want your frosting to drizzle.
My cake
After a lot of work it is now presentable enough.
(kind of)
The pecans on top really did help to smooth out the icing on the top of the cake. The "drizzle" down the sides peals off like praline fudge and boy is it tasty. Not a gorgeous cake but it is ok enough. If I ever make another bundt cake it will not be frosted or drizzled, only lightly sprinkled with powder sugar.
I placed the cake under a glass dome and centered on the table behind the dining table and proceeded with taking the pictures for my tablescape post.
I love the wood look of this pilgrim set.
Dear Hubby got a kick out of the place cards on the table.
The dinnerware, flatware, and water glasses are all vintage.
The dinnerware is Santa Anita Ware - California Trellis
A warm buttery yellow color with a lite spatter of brown speckles with a brown trellis pattern in the middle. I have had this set for a while and have periodically looked it up on Ebay but have not seen it for sale. I had a hard time getting the color to show up properly. In the picture below the color looks more creamy than it's true yellow hue.
The vintage amber water glasses have been collected from thrift stores over several years. I have a few of the wine glasses but not enough for a tablescape yet. I remember my mother having these glasses (a whole set, wine glasses and all) in the kitchen cabinet during the sixties. They were premiums from a local grocery store. The store was also offering a dark gold scrolled pattern of dinnerware that mother was collecting - I still see that plate pattern at the thrift stores now and then it, sells very quickly.
The flatware is from Interpur the INR2 Pattern. I found 20+ place settings and some of the serving pieces at the Goodwill store near where I worked. All of the flatware pieces were in new condition and still in the original wrappers. I bought them all. I love this pattern with it's 1960's look.
The napkins were a thrift store find (I think) that I did not remember buying. I like finding surprises in my stash that I don't remember I have. This looks like a Vera pattern but it is not marked as such.
I have been emptying the china cabinets out to get them ready to move before the new flooring is installed after the holidays. I arranged the shelves for the upcoming holiday season with some of my winter looking china.
Almost everything in the cabinets was thrifted. I did buy some more of the aqua swirl bowls off of Ebay to add to the ones that I had found to Goodwill a couple of weeks ago (I bought four, only three survived the post office). As luck would have it I did find another set at Goodwill the following week. I bought them. Now I have 11 of these pretty little bowls plus three of the serving bowls that go with them..
On a more serious note:
My cat Baby passed away after two year's of illness with hyperthyroidism. She gave us eighteen years of love. She will be missed
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| Baby |
I will be sharing at:
Cuisine Kathleen's Bundt Cake Challenge (better late than never)
Susan's tablescape Thursday (I'm late for this one too)
Christine's Table It Party
