Getting Ready for Mother's Day the Final Chapter

We had a great time on Mother's Day! My husband and I had 11 guests of family and friends.  I spent about 6 hours on Saturday preparing food that I could prepare ahead of time, decorating and setting the table. I have included pictures below of the rest of my preparation and the final result. In my blog on Friday, I gave you the recipe for the Lemon Thyme Cakes courtesy of marthastewart.com. If you are interested in the Summer Corn Chowder or the Asparagus Strawberry Salad with Orange Balsalmic Dressing, visit me on Pinterest under Lesley Stansfield. I have a "Soups On" board and a "Salads" board where you will find the recipes. I gave all the ladies and the girls, since they are future mothers, mini bouquets.

I made chicken salad and served it on croissants and made sliders to put on dollar rolls.

It's going fast!!

Over the winter, I cultivated succulents from the plants that I had outside last summer. I gave the 3 other moms, who were our guests, a potted succulent. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing how my family friends and I celebrated Mother's Day this year. Visit me on Pinterest for the recipes that I used.

Getting Ready for Mother's Day continued

It's Friday afternoon and I've decided to go ahead and make the lemon thyme cakes. They should store well until Sunday. There is a glaze that you drizzle over the cakes but I think I will wait until late Saturday evening or first thing Sunday morning to add that.

Below is the recipe. I found it on Pinterest complements of Martha Stuart.com I've just made a couple of slight adjustments, one adjustment to the length of baking time. The recipe says to bake for 40 minutes but after 26 minutes, they were done. I would suggest at 25 minutes to check the cakes. Insert a toothpick and if it comes out clean then remove them from the oven. Depending on how your oven baked it might take the full 40 minutes.

Lemon Thyme Cakes:

18 tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

12 sprigs fresh lemon time plus more for garnish

1/2 teaspoon salt

Finally grated zest of one lemon (about 2 teaspoons of zest)

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

6 large eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter 6, 1 cup molds of a mini angel food cake pan or a mini Bundt pan. Dust with flour, and tapped out excess. Pick 2 teaspoons of small sprigs from the tops of the lemon thyme sprigs and divide evenly among the molds and set aside.

Coarsely chop the remaining lemon thyme leaves, in a small bowl add the thyme to the salt and flour. Set aside.

Put the butter into a bowl and with an electric mixer, cream on medium speed until pale and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl as needed, about 4 minutes. Add sugar. Mix until pale and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl as needed, about 3 minutes.

Mix in vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition; mix until smooth. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until just combined after each addition.

Spoon batter over lemon thyme in prepared molds. Smooth tops using a small rubber spatula. Firmly tap the pan on counter to eliminate any air bubbles.

Bake until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, 25 to 40 minutes. Let cakes cool slightly in pan on a wire rack, about 10 minutes. Running knife around edges of molds to loosen; Unmold cakes. Place each cake on a serving plate and drizzle each cake with about 1 tablespoon of the syrup. Garnish with lemon thyme sprigs.

Muscat and Lemon Thyme Syrup:

3/4 Cup Muscat wine

1/2 Cup + 2 tablespoons sugar

12 sprigs fresh lemon thyme

Store wine, sugar, lemon thyme, and a 1/4 cup of water in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer over medium high heat. Reduce heat to medium low; simmer 20 minutes.

Pour syrup through a fine sieve into a bowl; discard the lemon thyme. Let cool slightly, about five minutes, before drizzling over the cakes. Syrup can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to one week; re-heat over medium low heat before using.

Getting Ready for Mother's Day

I love entertaining and I love fresh flowers. Now I won't say that my flower arranging is as good as a florist but I think I do a pretty good job. I will be adding to this post as the weekend goes on as I prepare food, decorating and gifts for my Mother's Day celebration with family and friends.

Today is Thursday, three days before Mother's Day. I found the flowers that I want to use in vases and to make mini bouquets for the girls and ladies that will be at our home on Mother's Day. I want to make sure that they stay fresh until I decorate and make the bouquets on Saturday. I cut a little bit off the end of each stem, placed them in water in large vases, and made room in my refrigerator to store them for a couple of days.

A florist told me the other day to make sure you do not have apples in your refrigerator. There is a gas that apples release that will cause the flowers to wilt quicker.