Cake, Cookies, Decor and Pizza!

 This, my friend, was a VERY delicious pizza! It starts with a sour dough bread starter! I made the starter myself about a month ago! Then I made batches of the bread, divided them into what looks like a small cantaloupe, and froze them!

 Then you take the dough out of the freezer when you are ready to use it and let it rise all day in a draft free, preferably warm room! I stick my oven temp on warm and place a damp towel over them and they rise much faster!

 Once dough has rise, knead into pizza shape of your choice, don't forget to place corn meal on the on bottom of your nonstick pan! Top with pizza sauce, protein and veggies of your choice! I used 'shrooms, pepperoni, sausage, red and green bells, and red onion! It was DELICIOUS!

 These are homemade chocolate chip cookies and I was playing around with the Easter M & M's! This recipe is soooooooo good! These are, by far, the best chocolate chip cookie if you like crunchy on the outside and softer in the middle! I like mine crunchy all the way through, but bake time is essential for that. Here is the recipe (I omit any kind of nut and add m&m's):

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookies/77c14e03-d8b0-4844-846d-f19304f61c57

 As Sandra Lee says, this is my "tablescape" for Easter Sunday when we also celebrated my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary...but really, what DO you call it?

 We did red and gold for anniversary colors!

 The red was my grandmother's china!

 These are my sour dough yeast rolls!

 This was a lesson in complete experimentation! This is my made up recipe for ganoshe cake! I couldn't find a recipe online for this believe it or not! Not one I trusted anyway! Thanks to Windee Robinson for the BEST chocolate cake recipe! Chocolate Cake Recipe (I ignored the peanut butter part)

 Ok, so I NEVER claimed to be a cake decorator! Actually, I'm a fabulous cook and baker, but I am too careless to be a decorator! I'm fast and sloppy! Anyway, with that said, I think it turned out beautifully! I had to freeze the cake overnight to ice it and I had to apply one very thin coat of ganosh, let it set, apply another coat, let it set, etc, etc....until all the ganosh was gone with the exception of about 1 cup! OHHH, ganosh recipe was 2 cups of cream and 20 oz of chocolate. Steam the cream and off the heat add chopped chocolate! It should melt smoothly!

 

I topped the cake with chocolate covered strawberries, drizzled with more chocolate and at the very last minute powdered sugar (which did melt away)! Then I SERVED the cake with chocolate whip cream (which is also what I FILLED the cake with) and the rest of the ganosh! It was ridiculously yummy! 

Oh and a sprig of mint in the center!