Grad Party Denial

I know I must be in denial because I'm not waking up in the middle of the night worrying about the graduation party that's happening at my house this Saturday. It's not just a party for Spencer; it's for four boys.
Two years ago at this time, I was in a fully tizzy for Grace's party. I'm pretty sure I even took some time off work to make sure everything got done.
This year, I accepted some substitue hours for Friday morning. I have done nothing for the upcoming party. I haven't started cleaning. I don't have lists of tasks to accomplish. I don't have lists of ingredients for food.
I have ordered a bakery cake and sent out invitations.
I think part of the problem is that I'm throwing the party with two other moms. Two of the boys are twins, which is why we end up with four graduates. I must be feeling like they're going to take care of things. But I know they won't clean my house, so what am I waiting for?
So here's what I better do before I go to work today:

• Make a list of cleaning that needs to get done on Friday
• Make a list of ingredients I need for my turtle cakes and pineapple upside down cakes I'm baking
• Make a list of ingredients for the pasta salad.
• Check to see if I have enough plates and silverware.
• Wine!! I need to buy wine and make sangria.
• Better get some pop, cause the 18-year-olds don't get to drink wine.
• Stop by Sheila's house for the canopy I'm borrowing and drink some wine.

What else? Somebody had better help me get ready for this party.

Baking Day

So, you all know I was in a tizzy about getting ready for the graduation party. The theme Grace and I chose was "Let Them Eat Cake" and I had a plan for 12 different kinds of cakes.
Could I have done this alone? I'm thinking my family would have felt the brunt of it if I'd tried. But I didn't have to.
On Thursday night, Grace and her friend Emily took the ingredients to Emily's house and baked a turtle cake. Turtle cake has a layer of German chocolate cake on the bottom, caramel and chocolate chips in the middle then a layer of German chocolate cake on the top. I made another one of those at our house. Then I made two Cola cakes. Ever take a cake out of the pan and put it on a serving platter? It's very flat looking. So I increased the recipe by half to make it look fuller. For some reason, I kept messing up on the math for that increased recipe. The cakes turned out okay, but not my best Cola cakes.
I also made a carrot cake which is practically healthy enough to serve for dinner. It has carrots, coconut, pineapple, yogurt and golden raisins in it.
I had been to the grocery and had all the ingredients. I was ready for baking day.
Ruth drove down from Michigan on Thursday night, arriving after 11 as I waited up bleary-eyes.
The next morning, Sheila came by 8:30 a.m. loaded down with cake pans and a mixer.
Sheila created a Lemon-Lime refrigerator cake that includes lime jello and lemon pudding. On the day of the party, one niece asked whether we'd injected the cake with Sprite. She thought it tasted amazing. Ruth started making lemon curd for her lemon cake with raspberries. I know. Who makes homemade lemon curd?
"Good lemon curd tastes like sunshine," according to Ruth.
I kind of scurried around getting ingredients and staying ahead of the dishes. I also made the icing for the Cola cakes and had Grace ice them. Grace was so sweet when she got up and saw us in the kitchen. She said something like, "You guys are the best."
The oven was full of cakes and the smells emanated as the air conditioner worked overtime to keep us cool.
Earl and I had to run back to the store three times when we needed extra ingredients, like red food coloring for the red velvet cake.
Sheila baked a chocolate cake with cherry pie filling that was so moist. She also made a chocolate cake with whipped cream and heath bar icing.
A firefighter who stopped by the day of the party said, "That heath bar cake is awful. You'll probably want to donate it to the fire station so no one has to eat it." He had a couple of pieces.
Ruth whipped up a white cake in a bundt pan (because that was the only free pan I had left by then) that we later iced with a butter cream frosting and put strawberries and blueberries in the layers between and on top.
Sheila's daughter Bethany came over and hung with Grace. They made little name cards for each of the cakes and decorated some cakes with their own interesting style. Like the carrot cake. Too cute, right?
Ruth baked the red cake, which is really a buttercream or Italian cream cake with red food coloring added. I don't know why we add the red food coloring, it's just what Aunt Ruby has always done.
Somewhere along the way, I made two pineapple upside down cakes.
My friends oohed and aahed at the pineapple upside down cake and how perfect it looked. It's so simple, I'm not sure how they mess it up, but my prediction is that they don't wait for it to cool before they pull it out of the pan.
All of these cakes we made, plus the bakery cake Earl picked up Saturday morning, and the two cookie cakes we got from the grocery store, made up our selection of the "Let Them Eat Cake" party.
Because Lucia asked for it in a previous post, here's the recipe for Cola Cake from Southern Living Cookbook
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups sugar
Combine and set aside.
In a heavy saucepan, combine 1 cup Coke, 1 cup butter and 2 Tbsp. of cocoa.
Bring to a boil stirring contantly.
Mix into the flour mixture.
Add 1/2 cup buttermilk (Since I don't ever buy buttermilk, I use milk with a tsp of vinegar), 2 eggs beaten, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 1/2 cups of mini marshmallows.
Pour into a greased and floured 13X9X2 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes.
The icing needs 1/2 cup of butter, 1/4 cup of Coke, 3 Tbsp of Cocoa, 3 cups of powdered sugar and 1 tsp. of vanilla.
Cook the butter, Coke and cocoa together and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add the next ingredients. Spread it on the cake and Voila! Enjoy.

Gratitude

Aaaaaah. What a crazy, exciting weekend. And I'm so pleased now that it's all over and everything went smoothly.
There are three posts I want to write: Baking Day, Party Day and Graduation Day.
But first, I have to get ready for my class and get my oldest son to basketball, my husband, father and youngest son off to the golf course and my daughter out the door to work.
So for now, I just want to thank everyone who helped me make it through this weekend -- and you all know who you are.
To Ruth who drove 4 1/2 hours to help me bake cakes then drove back 4 1/2 hours the next day without ever tasting a cake.
To Sheila who forced me to get organized and then baked. She brought pans and mixers, umbrellas and coolers, hula hoops and cake servers.
To Bethany, who decorated and kept Grace calm.
To my neighbor Sandy who let us empty her backyard to create a circus-like atmosphere in our backyard.
To my friends who came to support me as much as Grace, especially the ones I didn't think would show up -- like Pam and Najah. To Noreen, who came 45 minutes early when I wasn't even home, but who brought along her husband who helped us get the DVD of Grace's childhood running.
To my best friend from high school who drove an hour and a half knowing that she wouldn't know anyone at the party and that I wouldn't have more than a few minutes to spend with her, but still she came to celebrate.
To my mom who took pictures and cut cake and washed dishes. To my dad who sat through the party, the graduation ceremony and came out to dinner even though it meant missing the end of a golf tournament on television.
To Pam W-H who stayed and cleaned up the trash and sopping wet plates from the backyard.
To Tracie who took the time to ask me about my writing in the midst of the chaos, and who, when I described the latest book said, "I got chills..." What more inspiration do I need to keep writing?
To the Chelli who came to eat cake and to the Julas who came late but still came.
And to all of you in cyberspace who don't know me but who were sending me good thoughts
THANKS.
I am truly grateful.

Let Them Eat Cake

Grace's high school graduation is quickly approaching. Two weeks, don't remind her, she says as she clings to her childhood. I think she pictures us kicking her out the door when she graduates, but really, we plan to wait until August when she goes to college.
To celebrate her graduation, we're having an Open House, which basically means people are welcome to come and go as they please on the Saturday afternoon before her graduation. We chose that time because my parents will be in town from Florida for the graduation, and my brother in Dayton will be able to come up on the weekend. I already feel bad that she said each family gets 8 tickets for graduation and I said we only need six. Earl and me, the boys and my parents. Really, who else do you invite to sit through the graduation?
I want to make the graduation party fun. I was thinking of different food ideas. Traditional grad party food would be platters of lunch meat with buns for sandwiches, along with vegetable trays and fruit. Then I thought we could do shish kabobs. Then I had a stroke of genius.
Grace at one point had said she wanted many kinds of cake at her graduation party. The memory came back to me, and since it is in the middle of the afternoon anyway, I decided on an all cake party. Thus, the theme, "Let them eat cake," that and the fact that Grace is a little bit like a queen and she loves royalty.
My friend Ruth may come down the day before to help me bake cakes. I want to have at least 10 different kinds.
Some choices are easy. I'll order cookie cakes that look something like this but say "Congratulations Grace" rather than If you give a mouse a cookie.
I'll also order an ice cream cake, but I won't really be able to set that out on the table with the other cakes.
Then I'll bake some favorites. Turtle cake is similar to the turtle candy. It is chocolate cake with caramel and chocolate in the middle. I skip the nuts.
Cola cake is a southern favorite here in the U.S. It has Coke, as the name implies and marshmallows in it. It is one of the moistest chocolate cakes I've ever had.
I also have a great recipe for carrot cake that includes crushed pineapple and yogurt.
I experimented with a Pineapple Upside Down Cake the other day. It was gone pretty quickly. I'd never made one, but it was easy and delicious. What's not to like with all that butter and brown sugar.
Now, I'm stumped. I need some more great cake recipes. Does anyone have any suggestions?