Easter all around the house

My Easter decorations are out. I did not go all out this year like I usually do. I am transitioning my house from primitive-ish to I don't know what. Pottery Barn-ish I guess. Here is how we do Easter at my house and by we, I mean, me. My husband and two boys live here too. They have no interest in this stuff. That is why I come here to show you :)

  We are going around the living room. Prep yourself for lots of pictures.

Now on to Easter in the potty:

Everyone needs a duck with a nest of blue eggs on the potty. My 7 year old said, "Mom, what the heck?"

I know these pictures are bad but there is no window in our bathroom.

Another close up of our duck. Do ducks nest? I have no idea but if they do I am pretty positive they don't carry their nest on their backs. 

Now down the hallway to the kitchen.

Remember my Early Spring Mantel? You can see the post here. My fireplace is actually in the hallway leading to the kitchen.

Now the kitchen: Warning..lots of pictures.

 Bunnies hiding :)

Now the last room decked out for Easter is my mudroom.

Now down the stairs to the basement and the back door. I'm not taking you in the actual basement because it is my laundry room and it is not decorated and messy! 

Down that cave-like area is the basement and the backdoor is behind us. Here is a fun fact: my house is really only 950 square feet plus the basement. You can't include the basement square feet though because it is for storage and a laundry room only. So 4 people and 2 dogs live here. I have to keep it extremely organized!

Thanks for checking out Easter at my house,

Stacy 

Easter and a Carrot Cake

Let's make a real "Carrot" Cake today!

Happy Spring. Happy Easter. Happy warm weather?

Well we had nice weather. Then it turned cold with snow flurries. I still have hope that spring is on it's way. Let's stay warm inside and bake today. How about a cake? A "carrot" cake!



Get it now? What better way to celebrate Easter than a huge carrot cake right? It's fun to make. Let's get started. Step one. Bake a cake. I use a homemade carrot cake recipe but we can use a box carrot cake mix here. No judgment. It's more about how it looks anyway ;-)

Here is what I used. 2 cake pans. One oval and one 8x8. Here are some suggestions. You can use two 8x8 or one 9x13 cake pan if that is what you have. I wanted my cake to have layers so I used the two cake pans. I used an oval one because I thought it would help with my shape.

The truth is that it doesn't matter what shape cake pans you use (not round though) because we will be carving the shape of the carrot out. My tip is to try the 9x13 as long as a one layer cake is fine with you. I think the longer the better. This is what I used though so I will show you how I made it with these shapes. After my cakes cooled and I put them in the freezer for a bit, I iced the top of my bottom layer cake with cream cheese icing and stacked them.

Here is my cakes stacked and carved. Next I iced the cakes to prep them for fondant.

I used white Wilton fondant and tinted it with orange tint from Wilton. Then I rolled it out large enough to cover the cake.

As I was making my fondant I had the NCAA games on. Side note here: GO BUTLER!!! FINAL FOUR!!! Okay next I covered the cake with my orange fondant. Smooth it out nicely and cover it all the way to the bottom.

It looks like a giant finger here, I know. I used the back of a knife to make the carrot indents on the top of the cake. For the bottom trim of the cake I rolled out a long ribbon of fondant and lined the bottom of the carrot to give it a finished look. Next I made the carrot leaves. Tip here: I used a ghost cookie cutter for the leaves. The tail of the ghost made it look like the leaf stem. I used a toothpick to make the details of the leaves.

Cute! Here is another picture of the overall cake

And here is why I wanted it to be a layered cake. Yum!

My family has been loving the giant carrot in the fridge. At least we are eating healthy at my house. A carrot a day? Hmmm...

Happy Baking!!



Stacy