✬*•.¸¸☆¸¸.•*✬ Mason's Birthday ✬*•.¸¸☆¸¸.•*✬

Hi sweet lovers!  

So, here it is another Tuesday and you're probably looking for our weekly, Tuesday's Tips & Tricks blog post.  We are very sorry but today we will not be doing a post as it is our son, Mason's, 2nd Birthday in heaven.  

Mason's teeny little hand in Eric's

If you've read the Squidoo story that our good friend Lori wrote then you know all about our three boys.  If not, this is your chance to check it out!  

This evening we will be doing a balloon release in our backyard with family & friends, having Birthday cake and celebrating Mason's short time with us.  We also have many friends & family members across the USA lighting a candle in honor of Mason.  

I realized yesterday in coordinating everything for our balloon release & candle lighting that we have a lot of people that love & support us.  That is something we are eternally grateful for and blessed!  We love you all and thank you so much for sharing in our journey!!

~Anne

Tuesday's Tips & Tricks

Everyone loves layer cakes, am I right?!  I mean seriously, how can anyone resist the cake, frosting combo that sometimes includes ganache, fruit or even a scoop of ice cream?  *drool*  

Chocolate Cake with Kahlua Buttercream & Ganache

We make layer cakes all the time, and all different shapes & sizes too.  Here's the biggest issue with making a layer cake though (at least in my mind), having multiple cake pans!  And don't even get me started on trying to find a place to store all these cake pans.  So I don't.  What?  What's that I said?  That's right I keep 2 pans of very common sizes and just 1 pan of any rare or hardly used sizes.  But that makes it really hard to do our Lemon Meringue cake that's 5 layers of sweet, citrus goodness right?  

Lemon Meringue Cake

Oh no!  Not if you know what I have learned over years of baking.  Ha ha ha, don't you just love it when I share...  

When your cake layer comes out of the oven give it about a minute and then turn it out on to your wire cooling rack.  Sometimes I'm rushed and don't wait at all and it still comes out great, but you didn't hear that from me.  ;)  As soon as you turn the cake out, put your pan in the sink with some warm water running into it.  Our kitchen faucet has an attachment on it that allows it to swivel and spray water all over the sink. I use that to rinse the whole pan for a minute or two.  After that's done I can usually touch the cake pan with my bare hand (be careful) which means that I can wash it, dry it, grease it and get another cake layer baking.  It takes all of 5 minutes, maybe.  

Just remember to thoroughly dry your cake pan, even on the outside.  Water is a great conductor for heat and you don't want excess water on the outside of your cake pan making your cake layer cook unevenly.  

Now get baking!!