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Christmas

November 8, 2018November 8, 2018

Naughty Christmas Slush

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. John Wesley

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Just a pause. . For 10 weeks I’ll be joining the inaugural class at The Christ Hospital School of Healing Ministry downtown Cincinnati. . It’s a minimum 10-hour per week commitment + study and homework outside class but after graduation it becomes a simple weekly volunteer commitment. . We all have to find a way to give of our time and as crazy as it sounds it thrills my soul to pray with people. . I love to see God be God defying logic and reason by bending and flexing known science to the point that it becomes wholly unrecognizable. . For the past several years I have been reading Christian books regarding prayer, specifically praying more effectively for others, and what the Bible + great Christian authors have to say about healing. . I’m for all kinds of healing by the way, I love my doctors and rely on prescription medication for an autoimmune thyroid condition. <hashimotos thyroiditis> . . But if someone offered to pray over me and God wanted to simply heal me I’m not going to turn that down. . They have and I’m not healed yet but my faith is most certainly not hindered by what seems to be unanswered prayer. I’ve participated in prayer with miraculous outcome. It’s crazy awesome. ❤️ . God never leaves prayer unanswered. I will happily take His “yes” in other forms, but I’m not above taking His “not yet” or “trust me” either. . And so I cannot commit to bookings greater than 50 people or more than 1 commitment per week. . Currently booked engagements are great and will be accounted for in my time. . I’m sure the people God plans for me to pray with would give anything for me to drop everything to prepare for their divine encounter with His healing power. I shall not do less. . You know all this time I spent reading, going to seminars, attending classes, just randomly pursuing an interest, I really didn’t think I was actually headed in a direction. . So I say if you have a mild interest in a direction run with it. You cannot conceive of the opportunities that might present themselves. . Promise.

The son of a customer wanted some kind of strawberry shortcake birthday cake. . I thought, vanilla cake, a layer of strawberries, piles and mounds of sweetened whipped topping...we can come up with something! . I have a vanilla cake I love. . I am struggling to figure out the best mixing method to produce the crumb and texture I am after, but the flavor {for my own taste buds of course} is exactly what I’m looking for. . Buttery, perfectly sweet, a little dense but not a pound cake and loaded with Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract as well as Madagascar vanilla beans freshly scraped from the pod. . Since strawberries are out of season I bumped up the sweet strawberry flavor with a layer of Smucker’s strawberry preserves. I didn’t really want to sprinkle sugar on the strawberries due to the grit factor. Maybe I’ll look into fresh strawberry pie filling recipes for this purpose, but Smucker’s is delicious and tastes like childhood so win. . At this time the fuss of stabilizing whipped topping is not in the cards as I have no recipe that requires it. . However I do have Swiss meringue buttercream. A smooth and glossy meringue whipped with rich and creamy high fat butter, plus in this case some Nelissen Massey vanilla bean paste. Decadent, yet silky light. . I love every kind of buttercream to be honest. . I sliced the strawberries for the bottom layer but then thought how much I personally hate to cut through chunks of fruits that aren’t softened or cooked when serving desserts so I chopped them finer for the remaining layers. . If they were in season a wide base with a thin layer of buttercream to hold piles of different sized strawberries {greens on} for serving would be great. . Now to practice another mixing method for my cake. It’s amazing what tiny changes will do, I love kitchen science!

No more fooling with labels on portions of leftover ingredients! I discovered last night through educated guess that straight 91% isopropyl alcohol dissolves Sharpie off plastics. The one I cleaned last night was from early December! It was Ziplock, but this test off far cheaper disposable plastic from GFS worked just as easily though I just wrote on it to test. . You know what’s crazy? I actually get a lot of fascinated pleasure out of researching or discovering ways through trial and error to be more efficient, less wasteful, and more productive. . #toeachtheirown #efficiency #forthewin #smarter #better #faster #finding #joy #gracecakeslive #new #cincinnati #bakery #inthemaking

STUFFED!!!!!! Thanks once again to @tonysofcinci with desserts by none other than our local much beloved @cocoa_bites for a fantastic start to our Valentine’s celebration. Which that was pretty much the celebration. 😂 And so worth it!!!!!! Now time for a cigar. Too bad Tony’s doesn’t have a cigar patio. *wink* *wink* #loverules #steak #chocolate #trufflefries #woodfordreserve #doubleoaked #arturofuente #hemmingway #boneinribeye #allthatjazz #valentines #forthewin

A little secret about me. . In 26 years of a cake decorating hobby I have NEVER baked any type of cake just for fun, they all had a purpose. . I hate the mess in the kitchen and baking is mess personified. . Many holidays, birthdays and special occasions have gone by where I haven’t turned on the oven for a single treat. . As canvas for art? Cake is my favorite medium. Never a day goes by, like never ever, where I don’t look up photos of cakes for the pure joy of appreciation. . If I could wake up to a kitchen filled with cakes and buttercreams to my specifications and simply do what I love??? But that’s not how this starts. . I’m passionately fascinated with cake as art. . Recipe creating also, that’s something I didn’t know about myself before starting this journey. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the science behind getting cakes, fillings, and buttercreams to perform to my vision. The more skills and precision required, all the better. . Since God told me to open this bakery, a task that pretty much requires doing a ton of something super messy, I asked Him to please, literally, change my heart. Give me a passion for baking that matches my passion for cake art. If He does the ovens will literally never be off!!!! Mostly. . Do you know how exciting it is to pray a prayer you know God intends to answer? . I’m like a child perpetually staring at twinkling tree lights close to bedtime Christmas Eve. There’s a change in the atmosphere and I can feel it. . That butter cake I made Sunday was the first time in forever that I made something not intended for a specific goal. Even I was aware of my joy in the process and anticipation of the outcome for the pure sake of cake. . And this butter you see I set out has been teasing me all day because it knows I want to play with it right now but don’t have the time. . God is faithful. He is so, SO, faithful and true. I think it’s so appropriate on Valentine’s to express gratitude to the One who loves completely, wholly and unequivocally. No strings attached. Matchless love. . A love like that is truly worth celebrating. . #happyvalentinesday #onetruelove #heisfaithful #keepwatching #❤️ #PS #lovemyhusbandtoo

Seriously delicious first attempt! . The cake recipe itself is not new for me at all but the praline candy topping was. . My guess to cook the candy to slightly under softball stage so it remained sliceable absolutely worked! {I want the serving of the cake to be attractive and clean and this was that.} . The praline candy recipe I used was good, not great, and I already know what recipe to try next. . Years ago I found a bed & breakfast recipe for pancake syrup online {I think allrecipes.com} and so that year our Christmas morning pancakes were divine. 1000% worth the effort, a new tradition was born. . A couple years later I slightly overcooked it and we had to spread it like jelly {which we sure did!}. I had no idea sugar syrup mixtures thicken as you continue cooking and I NOW realize that the solid bits I had to scrape out of the pans were exactly like the praline candies I had in Savannah a couple weeks ago. . Who knew? . Besides every southern woman ever. And every northern woman who loves to bake & make candy. In fact probably almost everybody BUT me, until now. . Be blessed! . Michelle