Cakey-cakes

I love to bake and create in the kitchen and in the past few days I've made two cakes that were both a lot of fun to do.

On Friday Aidan finished up a unit on Mexico at school and they had a Mexican Fiesta. When it was time to pick the food item we would contribute I let Aidan take his pick. I should have known he would pick the dessert. I racked my brain and came up with a few ideas but none of them were working out because Mexican food is a little scarce where we live. If we were still living in Houston this wouldn't have been a problem at all. Then I remembered Pastel de Tres Leches-or Cake of Three Milks. I searched on the Internet and found an easy version on foodnetwork.com that seemed perfect for a 1st grade fiesta. You can view the recipe here. I omitted the rum and added a bit of almond extract. It received rave reviews from the kids as well as the moms and Aidan's teacher. Here's my finished product:

Last night we celebrated my sister's birthday and I made a chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Jeremy is really the cheesecake baker extraordinaire in our family but he was unable to do it for this particular event so I stepped in. I had fun making the decorations for the top and it was really quite easy to do.