Yay Babies!!

This weekend was the long planned for and awaited baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law. They are having twin boys so my Mom and I planned the theme to be "Two Peas in a Pod". The invitations had them, and the party favors were little peas in a pod candles. To go with it all, I decorated the GF carrot cake my Mom baked with cream cheese frosting to match our theme! I made sure one baby had brown eyes like my brother, and one had green eyes like my sister-in-law. The twins are fraternal so I suppose it's possible....

As to the decorating, here is what I learned about working with cream cheese frosting: Cream cheese frosting is difficult to mix. On top of that, it gets soft very easily so when you are mixing colors you should make little batches at a time. Also, if you are decorating with little stars like I filled in the pea pod, you should only put little bits of frosting at a time in your squeezer. (I have these wonderful little accordian like frosters from Pampered Chef). If you use too much, the frosting becomes soup-like, and that makes for some poor frosting. Second, you should always make more frosting than you think you should make, especially when you have more than three colors to mix. Third, there is no food coloring I can think of that makes brown, but cocoa powder does the trick! Decorating just makes me smile :).

In addition to decorating the cake, I made some spinach and artichoke dip, as well as plated some brie and grapes. It looked so beautiful, I felt inspired to take a picture.

       Spinach & Artichoke Dip
1/2 package of thawed frozen spinach
4 oz of chopped artichoke hearts
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (I used the finely shredded--it works better)
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup parmesan              Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes