blog revamp, chocolates & a cake

I feel as though I’ve neglected my blog for the past couple of weeks…

But I haven’t … I swear!

I’ve just been a little busy.

First off … have you checked out my new awesome blog layout?  Doesn’t it look swell?  (please be patient as I update the recipes page …)

I heart the new look.  And I have one amazingly talented and wonderful friend to thank for it … Ms. Lindsay. You might know her from her blog ORGANIC PIXELS … where she wrote one of the nicest posts about me.  Seriously … I blushed as I read it … and I’m completely flattered that she thinks of me that way.  I think she’s pretty darn incredible as well.

Seriously Lindsay.  You are TOO SWEET.

Then … it was valentine’s day.  I don’t usually celebrate February 14th … except this year I have a manfriend who gifted me the bestest box of chocolates a gal could ask for.  (Thank you Justin for hooking the manfriend up … and claps to the manfriend for doing so well).

I have to admit I LOVED each flavour … I mean … the salted caramel exploded in my mouth … one bite and the gooey caramel escaped the chocolate casing.  AMAZING.  It was the manfriend’s favourite too … plus it was covered in edible gold.

Nuff said … this one’s a winner.

The mexican hot chocolate was smooth and spicy.  I originally tried it at Justin’s chocolate & wine event … (I strongly recommend it with a good glass of red wine)  … the chocolate was so smooth and thick it was a little ridiculous.

The raspberry chocolate was … beautiful.  Justin created a work of art with this one … the dark chocolate exterior, the layer of ganache and then the layer of a raspberry gel (almost a purée).  It was the perfect balance of sweet fruit filling and bitter chocolate.  I heart this one.

And then … there was the one inspired by me.

For REALZ!!!

Justin made a chocolate truffle inspired by me.  He filled with lemon.  Obviously.  And  then limoncello.  Another obvious choice.  The white chocolate ensured the tartness wasn’t too over bearing … This one was brilliant.  That’s right … I’m declaring the “lynne”spiration chocolate brilliant.  Available for order at Easter.

Then thirdly … and to be honest … my absolute favourite part of the week.

The penguin cake.

I’d been asked to make a penguin cake for a co-worker’s sister-in-law’s grand-daughter’s birthday (did you get that???).

All you need to remember from that sentence is that I made a penguin cake.  Chocolate cake with a penguin on top.

I accept to make this cake figuring Emily would be doing the decorating.

Only … Em ended up with a bad case of strep throat.  That left me with a cake that needed to be decorated …

I decided to use the same logic as “colouring within the lines” … I printed up a picture of a penguin, enlarged it, cut it out … and then pinned the stencil to the top of my cake.

After tracing the black outline, I used a star-tip and piped in all the black (body and eyes), yellow (beak) and then white (stomach and the remainder of the cake).  It took me about 45 minutes to decorate.

It looked like this …

I am totally and utterly tickled pink about this cake.

It’s AWESOME.  And I did it on my own.

It’s been a pretty sweet week … and that’s without telling you all about the fun I had on Saturday at the Kelp Records Winter Warmer  (post to follow).