Today’s photos are more from the condominium grounds, with a viewpoint on the building next door. The grounds are kept beautifully, with grass cutting weekly. Grass grows year round in Florida, although very slowly in the winter. Between my building and the next is a nice walkway and lots of trees. Florida’s blue skies are really the norm. I hope you enjoy the photos.
The gardenia bush in the garden in the center of my condo building has been blooming for the last five days. It is so wonderful to open my front door and step out on the 2nd floor walkway with a view of flowers. It really makes your day.
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Today I'm sharing more photos of the Golden Trumpet Tree (Tabebuia). Close to my home are several golden trumpets but no pink ones.
The azaleas at the condo have finished blooming. Here is a shot from the balcony taken last week.
Although most people think they normally bloom in the winter, the red amaryllis bulbs at Christmas are forced bulbs. Amaryllis are tropical plants that will flower in late winter or spring when planted in the ground. We plant them in Florida and they flower in April, May.
For those of you who visited last year, you may remember I bought two amaryllis bulbs to pot and grow here at the condo. I had them by my front door until they had finished blooming last spring and went dormant. I kept the two pots on my balcony until the beginning of March. I moved them back by the front door for part full sun exposure. They like bright sunlight. One pot has had glorious blooms for the last week. The 2nd one is just waking up (so to speak), and I expect buds and flowers in another month. I hope you enjoy the mostly white flowers.
Tabebuia, commonly known as trumpet trees, are spectacular tropical flowering trees known for their explosive, often leafless, spring blooms in shades of pink, yellow, or white. Primarily native to Central/South America, these trees reach 20–50 feet tall and thrive in full sun and well-drained soil.
It's spring in central Florida with pink and yellow tabebuia or trumpet trees in blooms. For a brief time, the blossoms appear like magic. I can never get enough of blossoming trees. I just want to drive and hunt for them.
Here at the condo, the garden in the center of our wrapped condo building has azaleas in bloom.
I hope you are enjoying spring in all its new life wherever you are.
Spring time means newborn animals, leaves on trees, grass starting to grow, and flowers pushing up in the garden. It is a time for new life and fun food. I enjoy food art. Spring and Easter are a perfect time to make cute food to celebrate. Last week I shared the classic cute bunny cake for spring and Easter. It is made from 2 round cakes with artistic cuts on one cake. The classic bunny cake has been around since the 1950s.
Today, I wanted to consider some of the different ways to make cakes that look like a lamb. A lamb is a symbol of renewal and has long been at the center of Easter tradition.
This is one of the most popular ways to make a lamb cake. There are numerous posts with a molded lamb cake. Wilton has great instructions on how to make the lamb cake with the Wilton 3D standing cake pan. They decorated the cake with flat white icing first. Then using an icing tip and bag, they added swirls on the body for wool and colored accents. I personally would find this way of decorating hard as I’ve never been great at piping icing details. The face is the flat white icing with colors for lines for mouth and eyes. Their lamb’s face is cute and not hard to make.
Wilton also has a cake iced with a spatula and leaving the face bare. You can make this with white cake or chocolate. I think it’s really cute and Wilton ranks it for a beginner.
If you do a search for lamb cakes, you will find hundreds of posts with varying ways to decorate one. The faces often look very different. Some of the cakes show how hard it can be working with a mold. The faces are distorted. Part of the difference in the face is the brand of lamb mold you are using. Nordic Ware‘s 3 D Lamb Cake Pan is another standing lamb cake. Below is their chocolate version with the body covered in icing and the head bare chocolate cake.
The Farm Wife Cooks has a great post using the Nordic Ware mold pan: 3 Ways to Decorate Your Easter Lamb Cake.
First version: Glaze the cake and garnish with green coconut and jelly beans.
Second version: Dust with powdered sugar and decorate with dusted berries.
I personally love rustic cakes and this beautiful rustic Easter cake is lovely.
A glaze was used on the face. Then using a buttercream icing piped rosettes were placed around the body. A straw was used to pop out the eyes and then a knife was used to make the nose and mouth. Finally pre-made cake decorations from Walmart and green coconut decorate the cake.
No matter the brand of mold you use, the piped icing is probably the most popular decorated lamb cake. An attractive alternative is using coconut on white icing to make a wool coat for the lamb. I really loved this idea as a coconut cake was the first cake I learned to make as a child. It was fun and delicious. Below is a version shared at A Taste of Home with coconut on the body and candy on the face. A lamb cake looks great as a centerpiece for Easter dinner.
I like the idea of not having to spend $20 to $l30 for a lamb cake mold. My small home does not have lots of storage space. There are so many ways to decorate a round cake for Easter with a lamb theme. The easiest is Kraft’s Simple Lamb Cake. Bake your favorite cake and add white icing on the cake. Use miniature marsh mellows to circle the top of the cake once. Then add 2 more rows of marshmallows at the top to make wool coming down to meet his face. Use melted chocolate to make eyes and mouth. A candy is the nose. Cookies are ears. So cute and easy.
One of the most common methods to decorate a round cake is using flat white icing on the whole cake. Then add any decorative piping for a wooly frame for the face. Below is a sponge cake decorated with a cream icing. Melted chocolate was used for facial features. Round small crackers or cookies are the ears.
You can easily decorate a round cake with a cake topper made for the season. Below is a great example from Good Housekeeping. This handmade lamb cake topper is made with a Rice Krispies treat, cotton candy, and marshmallows. Everything is edible and unexpected.
Here is a cake topper from Walmart.
The Food Network has a darling lamb cake you make from 3 round cakes. Complete instructions are givien at How to Make an Easter Lamb Cake. It is a more complex cake design.
The Food Network has another recipe with instructions that makes a lamb cake from cupcakes. It seems much easier to me than cutting 3 cakes like the recipe above. Who doesn’t love cute cupcakes?
Whether you are an accomplished baker or a beginner in decorated cakes, there is a cake just right for you to make. Happy Easter!
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Carol
