Pão de mel (Honey Bread)

This is one of my mother in law amazing recipes, and we made this for my wedding, everybody loved, so I hope you guys enjoy this Brazilian treat!!!

2 1/4 cups brown sugar

2 cups of water

  
Pass through a sieve to form a syrup. After that, put together:

4 ½ cup of all purpose flour
4 eggs 
 3 tbsp of cocoa
1 tbsp  of ground cloves
4 tbsp of cinnamon
1 cup of honey
1 cup of milk
1 tbsp of baking powder
1 tbsp of baking soda

Mix everything in a bowl, the dough will be kind of liquid and should be very smooth. Put in pans(for cakes, muffins…) ina 350 F heated oven. Its super fast, so in about 10 minutes you have to check the oven.

 You can cover with melted chocolate and put the “dulce de leche” filling. Enjoy!!

Customize Your Own Super Hero Face Masks

This year for his birthday my oldest son wanted a super-hero theme birthday party. He wanted to fly, fight bad guys and eat lots of cake. Like any good mom, you want your child's birthday to be a special event, and so you begin thinking, "How can I help my son feel like a super hero?".

This post is all about FACE MASKS.

To be honest, when I planned the super-hero theme birthday party, I knew I wanted each child to have a cape (I'll save this for another post) and a face mask. I didn't think it would be difficult to find red capes or blue super-hero face masks either.

I was so wrong.

After searching for two weeks, I, like many of you, decided it would be easier to make my own than to continue the search of the perfect super-hero theme face mask. Here is how mine came to be:

Craft Ingredients:
Black Zoro Theme Face Masks (found at Zurcher's)
Elmer's White Glue, Watered Down
(1) Foam Brush
(1) Small Plastic Container
Glitter of Any Color (seen here in BLUE)
Craft Paper (Keep the work space clean!)
and (2) Paper Plates

Craft Directions:

1. Prep Work: Open your face mask package and get your masks in an assembly-line. Then, layout your craft paper and two paper plates to protect the surface you will work on. Next, make your own glue/ adhesive mix in a small plastic container. The recipe for the mixture is: Two Parts Elmer's Glue to One Part Water. Use foam brush to stir the water & glue together until the mixture is a milky-color. Lastly, open your glitter container.

2. Glitterize your Face Masks: Using foam brush, baste one face mask with glue-mixture while holding on to the sides of the mask. If there is a nose covering (as seen in the my photos), be sure to cover the tip of the nose very well. Then, place the one mask onto one paper plate. Next, sprinkle the face mask with glitter color of your choice until it is completely covered. Lift face mask of plate and shake off excess glitter. You will see at this time if you need to apply additional glue-mixture or glitter to any uncovered part of the face mask. Lastly, if mask is complete, lie mask down on craft paper to dry.

Repeat process for the next mask using the second paper plate to catch the glitter (keep your space clean!) and sprinkle the excess glitter from the previous face mask left on the first paper plate.

3. Let DRY and SET for at least two hours. I recommend overnight, just to be sure.

4. Have fun! Your Customized Super Hero Face Masks are done!

How to Properly Ice A Cake

One thing I get asked a lot is how to ice a cake nice and smooth. As with all things it takes a little patience, technique and having the right tools. There are a lot of people out there who hate the taste of fondant so this is a good option if you want that smooth professional look in your cake but don't want to feel like you are eating chewing gum.

The first thing you are going to want to do is level your cake. To do this you can use a long knife or a nifty little cake leveling tool that you can buy at any craft or baking supply store. They are inexpensive and easy to use. What you want to do is to remove the dome from the tops of your layers. The dome prevents your cake from sitting properly making it hard to fill the middle and making it shift when attempting to ice the top.Cake leveller tool

Before you put your first layer onto your cake board you may want to consider using a dap of icing underneath the layer to help prevent shifting. Also a turntable or Lazy Susan is a WONDERFUL investment. It doesn't need to be a fancy tilting one...as long as it turns it will be your friend in this venture.Once you have leveled your layers you are going to want to make what is known as an icing dam. This prevents your center filling from seeping out into your icing. You take an icing bag with a number 12 round tip and create a bead of icing all around the outer edge. Then you can go and fill your cake with whatever filling you choose.

FYI: on an 8" round a pudding cup is the perfect size for cake filling if you are short on supplies!

The next step has two options. You can do what is called a "dirty ice" which is to take a super thin layer of icing to the whole cake to catch cake crumbs and fill in gaps....but if you did the first two steps nicely you can also do what I will show you here. This tip is called a cake icer tip. It looks a lot like the tip you use to do lattice work but on a much larger scale. It is serrated on one side which helps the icing grip the cake. You essentially want to go around your cake until it completely covered with icing. Should you get and crumbs on the tip make sure you clean them off as you see them so they don't get mixed into the icing.

The next step is to take an offset spatula and smooth out the cake. Again if you see crumbs wipe them off. Crumbs ruin that professional smooth appearance. You want to try to get your icing as smooth as you can. It won't be perfect, not yet. That part comes next.

Here is where patience comes in. What you need to do is wait. Most buttercream recipes will crust over once they have been exposed to air for a while. What that means if they get a little dried out on the outside so you can manipulate it carefully to get it smooth. What you need for this is your offset spatula again or a fondant smoother, and parchment or wax paper. What you are going to do is lightly lay the paper onto the cake and then with your smoother lightly go over the entire cake until it is totally smooth. I tend to spend forever on this part! Don't press to hard or it will break the crust and you will get icing on your paper.

Voila! One smooth cake!

Once you are done you are ready to decorate and serve! It really is easy once you learn the tricks of the trade. You too can make your very own beautiful pieces of edible art! Happy caking!