debor026

We celebrated my middle child's birthday tonight.  He really wanted his favorite dinner (chicken strips, fries, and corn) and a Minecraft cake.  So here is what I came up with.  I made a cake that is half cake/half brownie and mixed chocolate chips into the whole thing.  Green frosting on top makes it into a huge dirt block (with a few Hersheys for depth and "pixels").  The toys are easily available right now from Target/Walmart/etc.

Erin said she wanted to go to Build-A-Bear for her birthday and to go with that she wanted a "Destruct-A-Bear" birthday cake. She wanted to make a bear at the store and pull one apart with a cupcake cake. I heard a friend talking about putting cupcake papers into a shaped pan to make a cake that was basically precut. She was doing it with a flower shaped tin but said she got the idea from someone else who did it with a round one. I thought that would be a good basis for a pull apart bear and easier to frost than separate cupcakes. I have to admit, it worked better than I thought it would. I frosted everything in chocolate and just put the white frosting right on top of it. For the nose I used a Starburst cut in half. Then, to make the lines for his mouth I dipped a butter knife into the chocolate frosting and drew with the point of it. Add a couple of eyes from M&Ms and two ears from extra cupcakes and you have yourself a very quick and easy Destruct-A-Bear cake...

My middle child is having a birthday and this year he wanted a chocolate cake. On Pinterest I came across this Chocolate Wasted Cake and I knew he would love it! (minus the alcohol, of course, as he's only 9). My pictures (below) do not do full justice to her cake and you should check out the original. Also, hers has a tasty twist if you are making it for adults only. For the chocolate drizzle on mine I melted chocolate chips in a double boiler and used some Torani Almond (Orgeat) syrup to thin it enough for drizzling. If you do it the same way, be careful not to use to much drizzle, as the Almond syrup has a really strong flavor. I was thinking that using peanut butter could be really tasty, too, and would be a little more subtle. Can't wait to try it!

Day 27/31: I swear, sometimes the only way I get through the day is because of this corner of the kitchen. Sometimes I think my dear coffee will get me through anything. Tomorrow the kids have their Halloween parties so today we were making sure costumes are ready and cookies and cupcakes are done. Well, they are now done but it's also 1am. I thought I would make cupcakes in ice cream cones for Erin's classroom as it's a classic dessert that's a little fun. But as I took the last batch of the boys' cookies from the oven I apparently turned the oven OFF without noticing. So the tops of the cupcakes cooked but not the middle. I noticed this and turned the oven on hoping that it would still be okay. But the middle of the cupcakes collapsed like a souffle and settled into a chewy mess at the bottom. When I tried to frost the cupcakes (thinking that maybe I could salvage them somehow?) the tops collapsed into the vacant hole and it all just looks like crap. Think...

First off I LOVE pinterest . I was resisting because I didn't want to transfer my massive idea folder that I already have but now that I have started I just love it. I have part of my idea folder up there now and slowly I'll get the rest up. No more will I have to transfer my idea folder between computers and my backup hard drive as I can just reference it from anywhere and so can any friends who are interested. LOVE!!! Anyway, I mentioned to someone that I could give them the dimensions to make a cupcake tower and then I figured why not just blog it and then I can put more info up on it. So, this is the cupcake/cake stand I made for my wedding last October. My friend Selena (behind the stand) made all of my cupcakes and my cake and she was wonderful. They turned out so nice! My niece Julia was quite the helper for her as was my niece Brianna (Julia's cousin). This is what it looked like before I painted it. I put it all together in the garage to check the fit and ...

A couple weeks ago Amy at the Idea Room posted about an she idea found for a Bread Cornucopia (originally from Taste of Home ). It looked really simple and I really wanted to give it a try. We're headed over to someone else's house for Thanksgiving and I wanted a nice display for some nuts and grapes for pre-dinner munchies. Now, I took the easy way to do this. They actually made their own dough, let it rise and used that, which would undoubtedly be better. But since I'm managing small children and dog-sitting at the moment I bought some in-a-can breadsticks (I know, shame on me) and used that to wrap around the tinfoil form and it was done in about 10 minutes for two of them. Want to see how easy this is to make with just some dough and tinfoil? Take a look over at the Idea Room . I love how it turned out and now I'm thinking maybe there are some uses for this I can do for Christmas. How about making a bread bowl for dip but shape it like a star or snowman using...