Shower Food (Petite Fors)

We had a great time at the shower last night. The food turned out really good and I wasn't stressed out about getting everything done. I started cooking early in the week because I didn't want to have to do everything the day of the party. My petite fours were a huge success! (See recipe below.) I will definitely make them again. It wasn't hard, it was just time consuming.

The Menu:

Jello Slush Punch / Coffee / Tea / Water / Soft Drinks

Cheese Straws

Toasted Pecans

Spinach / Strawberry Salad

Croissants

Hot Chicken Salad

Mixed Fruit (Thanks to Missy)

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Petite Fors

I found Pink Hershey Kisses at Walmart that said, "It's A Girl." I got a good deal on white roses from Sams. I put pink balloons everywhere, even on the mailbox. I got my plates and napkins from platesandnapkins.com (thanks Jackie). They were pink and brown and they were perfect. We did play one shower game where everyone had to guess the flavors of baby food just by looking. It was fun and a good way to let Sophie be involved in the shower.

Speaking of Sophie, she lost another tooth yesterday. She looks so cute!

I'm heading into the kitchen now to clean up my mess. It's not too big of a mess thanks to my friends who helped with clean up last night. I've also got to get to work on laundry because we have another weekend full of baseball. Hopefully we won't get rained out, but it's not looking good. Have a great weekend everyone!

Jodi's Petite Fors

Pound Cake

(I used my mom's "Five Flavor Pound Cake" recipe and baked it in an oversized cake pan.)

1 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

1 tsp each: coconut flavoring, rum flavoring , almond flavoring , lemon flavoring, vanilla flavoring

Cream together margarine, shortening and sugar. Add eggs and beat thoroughly. Sift flour and baking powder. Add milk and flour to butter mixture and mix well. Add flavorings and mix well. Bake in a greased and floured over sized rectangular cake pan. (I also lined my pan with aluminum foil and greased and floured it again because I wanted to make sure it didn't stick.) Bake at 350 for about 1 hour. Let cake cool in pan for 20 minutes. Grabbing the aluminum foil, pull the cake out of the pan and place on wire rack to cool completely. Wrap cake entirely with foil and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Teacake Icing:

(I used My Grandmother's "Teacake" Icing for this. I just made it a little thicker than I normally do.)

2 lb Confectioners Sugar

6 Tbs. melted Butter

2/3 cup whole milk (heated for about 30 sec in microwave)

2 tsp. vanilla

Few drops of Food Coloring

Mix everything together and stir until smooth. Don't add all the milk at first. You will need to add it gradually until you get the consistency you are looking for.

Icing the Petite Fors:

This is the time consuming part. First, I trimmed off the edges of the cake. The scraps are a good treat for the cook:) Then I cut the cake into squares, as consistently sized as possible. ( I used the bottom of the cake as the top of my petite fors, does that make sense?) I then spaced three cake squares out on top of one of my wire racks. I placed a large bowl underneath them. Then I poured the icing over the cakes one at a time. I made sure to put the icing on top pretty heavy and it dripped down the sides. The leftover icing went into the bowl and the rest stuck to the cakes. I did need to use the back side of a spoon to make sure the icing was covering the sides of the cakes evenly. This took a while and I had to stop several times to empty the icing from the bowl underneath my wire rack. I also had to make sure there were no cake crumbs in the icing, because that's just not pretty. Finally, for decoration, I made another batch of icing and colored it brown with cocoa. I put about a cup full into a plastic baggie and poked a whole in the bottom. Then I made stripes on the tops of the Petite Fors. (I tried to make polka dots but I couldn't make them not look like yummy, pink and brown dice.)