A Little Something I've Been Doing...

It's my birthday next week, so my friends are all being extra-nice to me.  As it happens, near-travel disaster was averted (due to flooding of the downtown core and train station on Friday). Ridiculously, my gambit to cab to the train station resulted in a standstill ride of 30 minutes in heavy rain, till I finally realized I was going to have to walk outside if I wanted to claw my way out of the city. Did I mention my brand new umbrella had broken earlier in the day? As had my suitcase?!!

Finally, after navigating hideous crowds and grossness, I boarded the train to Barrie (where friends were waiting to bring me to Collingwood). It was pretty stressful.

Mind you, once I arrived, the weather did its part to encourage us to stay inside and talk and drink and eat and BAKE.

Sandra and I made these for a fundraiser at work tomorrow:

I want you to know that there's a long, alcohol-fueled story to go along with these. I'll spare you the details. Also, they were perfect - despite some serious experimentation - until we hauled them by warmish car for 2 hours into the city. The well-set, glossy cream cheese icing has suffered somewhat, but they're still cute - if more homemade-chic than they were originally.

They're filled with either dulce de leche or vanilla bean pastry cream - which we also made from scratch. Both of these worked beautifully. (Alas, for icing purposes, this morning I tried to warm the dulce in hot water and the differentiation in temps between the water bath and the glass container ended in a broken glass container with dulce de leche guts astrewn. Such a rookie error.)

We also made Napoleons, although some of us can't remember eating them. Oh well, I've still got the fixings... Why is it that I LOVE to eat so in the spring?? I should have titled this post "I Have to Get a Grip"...