tea and cake

So the girls played together for 7 hours yesterday and it was wonderful. Paul was on bedroom restriction so he was of no bother to them at all. The day started off at 11:15 with a bit of dress-up then they had their peach tea with a piece of chocolate and a Fig Newman. Giselle finally got to use the tea pot that she got for her birthday and she did all the pouring herself. Later they were pretending that they were taking their babies to a wedding and they asked me to be the priest. I said all the usual wedding mumbo jumbo (the bride and groom were named Snowflake and Jonathan, in case you were wondering) and asked for a piece of the wedding cake as payment for my services. They said "Cake?! We don't have a cake!" I told them that it's not a wedding without cake (silly girls) and then they asked me if we could make one. I had nothing better to do than join in on the play date so I became the caterer also. I printed out Garden Gnome's TNT recipe (Tried aNd True, not explosive) for White Cake and the three of us set to baking up a wedding cake. The recipe was super easy and it conveniently only makes one layer - perfect for making a kid cake. I followed the recipe as I should since it was the first time using it, although I used butter instead of shortning (Garden Gnome said that it was OK to do that) and I used 50/50 flour instead of white. In my new oven I had to bake it for 50 min instead of 45 but it was GOOD!
While it cooled we made The Icing - Mexican Chocolate Butter Cream Icing. I used 1/2 butter, several cups of powdered sugar, 4 squares of Popular Chocolate, 1/4 cup creamy milk and a bit of vanilla extract. Next time I'll use less sugar so that the icing stays creamy and adds a little moisture to the cake. The girls iced it themselves and did a fabulous job. Then they cut themselves some huge pieces to eat and washed it all down with big glasses of cold milk. Paul was released from the bedroom so that he could have a piece too.
At 6 the boys came over and joined in the fun out in the front yard while Marie and I watched them eat the rest of the cake (yes, we shared a piece too). There IS leftover icing that the 3 of us will finish off tomorrow.