Xmas Cake!

This year's cake:



I think this year's decorations were especially cute. Some years Santa is a little creepy looking. But this year he was adorable:



It even came with 3 "fancy candles", which of course we used. And it was as delicious as always! There's even a little bit left to finish off tonight. But right now it's time to batten down the hatches for this blizzard that is supposed to be here any moment. Stay warm!

Happy Holidays!

Hope you're all having a wonderful solstice/Xmas/Krismas/Hannukah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/whatever and New Year's this year! Our decorations are (almost) all up, our stockings are stuffed, our presents are wrapped (well, except that one that Evan hid so well I have no idea where it is!) and we will soon be off to pick up our annual yummy Xmas Cake. Holiday tunes are downloaded to the car, featuring our house's favorite holiday single of 2010:



From us to all of you --
Happy holidays!

dala horse cakes!

Like a lot of people I know, I bought those IKEA dala horse DRÖMMAR pans when they came out a while back, but I never actually used them. Yesterday, I saw this adorable stocking design on the allsorts blog, and thought "aha! I'll decorate the cakes like that! And make the red and white with red velvet cake batter and powdered sugar!" And voila, red velvet dala horses:


That's the little one, the big one is here. He's not as cute because he baked longer and isn't so red. But still, cute xmas dala cake!
The pans really are non-stick, I was impressed. I may have to get more bakeware from IKEA in the future. The design I made by cutting a stencil from typing paper based on the allsorts dala horse, putting it right on the cake (not reusable, obviously!) and sprinkling the sugar over it. Emily looooves them, and I think they will be reappearing all this month.
I only wish they had a set of little pans to make lots of individual horses!