Apple Spice Cake

                                              

I've made a cake similar to this in the past but I like this one more. When I make it, I trick myself into thinking it must be healthy because of the apples and spices! And then I eat a lot of it. 

1 spice cake mix

2 tsp cinnamon

1 can apple pie filling

2 eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Mixture of cinnamon and sugar to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first 5 ingredients together and pour into greased cake pan. Bake for about 30 min. Test with tooth pick to make sure it's done. Sprinkle mixture of cinnamon and sugar on top. 

Cam and Ryan's 3rd birthday cake

My twins are 3! And they are in love with cars. Just like their dad. They loved their race car birthday cake. 

Carson's Kindergarten Graduation Cake/Cupcakes

There are always things that I wish I could have done better but I do love how this turned out.
However, the one thing I really wish would have worked was that I planned on having fondant stars on wires sticking out of the top of the cake.  But apparently the wires that I used weren't strong enough and of course I didn't put them in until last minute so I didn't have enough time to properly fix the problem so I ended up just putting the fondant stars on top of the cake to cover the holes that I had made with the wires.

I used my pudding cupcake recipe and my marshmallow fondant recipe

Me and the graduate, Carson.

My husband cut out the wood for me to make the cupcake stand.  He said he felt like he was on Cupcake Wars.  We would make a good team on that show.

Cake Balls and Pretzels

Happy Mother's Day!



Here's what I want to know:
1. Why are these SO addictive?
2. Why is it so impossible for me to make cake balls look decent? It seems like everyone else can do it. When I make them, they are delicious but not so attactive. These were the best of the group.

I think I need a face-to-face lesson from Bakerella herself.

Take The Cake

This is my 6 year old son, Carson who was in his school's Take The Cake decorating competition yesterday. He took 2nd place in the Kindergarten competition out of 7. He came up with the design mostly by himself. It was actually his dad who intervened to try and make it a little better. It's a Black Widow Spider.

They had one hour to decorate. He finished just under 4 minutes. We had 56 minutes left plus 30 minutes of judging so we went and grabbed dinner while we were waiting. We are so proud of him and it was so much fun!

The wedding of Q and U was also yesterday. The kids did such a good job and it was so cute.

The cake did not turn out great. It was ok, especially for a kindergarten class but I wasn't happy with it. It has been very hot here in AZ lately and the fondant was hard to work with. Oh well! I've decided that cupcakes are probably more my thing. It did taste great, though! 

Q & U Wedding Cake

You are going to get a kick out of this.  This is not a real wedding cake.  It's actually a practice wedding cake for the wedding of the letters Q and U for my son's kindergarten class in a couple of weeks.  After school the other day, his teacher and some of the parents were talking about the upcoming nuptials, and his teacher asked who would like to make a wedding cake.  Stupidly, I answered, "I Do!" (No pun intended.)  Have I ever made a wedding cake?  No.  Have I ever made anything that would remotely come close to one?  No.  But I thought it would be fun.  I decided that I wanted to practice first.  So I did.  

Mistake #1. I made the bottom layer out of Rice Krispie Treats, and it's not thick enough.  It's also a different color than the other two layers even though they're all covered in white frosting underneath the fondant.  

Mistake #2. I got impatient towards the end and messed up.  Most of that is either covered up by flowers or in the back.  

Mistake #3. I didn't level the cakes so the top is kind of lop-sided.  

Click here for the cake recipe.

Light Saber Cake & Yoda Soda

My son, Carson, wanted a Star Wars Birthday Party.  This is the easiest cake we could come up with.

The Cake: (try to ignore the seams in the fondant)

Make a regular 9 x 13 cake.  Cut into 3 strips and lay end to end.  Frost the "light" part of the light saber and cover with Marshmallow Fondant.  Then frost the handle with gray frosting (vanilla frosting with a little black food coloring) and pipe black frosting for details. 

This was a team effort with my husband.  He is awesome!

Yoda Soda is this... green Kool Aid.  And if you can't find green Kool Aid like I couldn't last night at Walmart, buy the invisible Kool Aid and add green food coloring.  It was really cool (and simple) and the kids loved it.

Pumpkin Cake

I got this recipe from my friend Angie, who got it from My Kitchen Cafe.  They call them Pumpkin Bars but I made it in a cake pan so then it was a cake!  Either way, it's really really yummy.  I also added some spices that they didn't have in theirs.

I made this for my friend Laura's birthday so there are sprinkles on it in case you're wondering what that is.

Bars:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Icing:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1 cube of butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350. Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda. Mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 x 9 baking pan.  Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.

To make the icing:  Soften the cream cheese and the butter.  Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on the cake.

Fluffy White Frosting

Sorry this is more of a Christmasy recipe. I guess I'm just in the spirit early this year! And yes, I actually did some Christmas shopping today. What is with me?! :)

Growing up, our family has always done Fluffy White Frosting on cakes if your birthday is in winter. Mine is, so it's extra special to me. I love it. It reminds me of my birthday but especially Christmas. Now that I'm in Arizona and we don't have snow, this is kind of like my snow. Except super delicious.


Fluffy White Frosting on Red Velvet Cake Pops

Ingredients:
1 Cup Sugar
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
Pinch of Salt
1/3 Cup Water
1 Tbsp. Light Corn Syrup
1 Egg White (Room Temperature)
1/4 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:
Separate egg white from yolk. Let sit until it reaches room temperature
Bring sugar, cream of tartar, salt, water, and corn syrup to a boil. Boil until sugar is dissolved. 1-2 mintutes tops. Pour that into your mixer and mix while slowly adding the unbeaten egg white. Beat until frosting is thick and forms peaks. Add vanilla and mix.

Our favorite way to top this is with crushed candy canes. It just makes it feel like Christmas.

Cake Pops Take 2

I figured out that my problem was that my chocolate was too thick. So I stirred in a little vegetable oil to thin it out and it worked! But these still aren't up to Bakerella's standards. But I think they're fine for my 2nd try.

Pumpkin Apple Spice Cake

The Before


The After

First, a little back story.
My son's kindergarten class was studying apples last week and we were supposed to take in something with apples for the class to taste. Of course it had to be store bought so I couldn't bake anything but I was inspired to make this.

Ingredients:
1 Spice Cake Mix
1 Can Apple Pie Filling
3 heaping spoon fulls of Pumpkin Pie Puree - probably 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup
1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Eggs

Mix in a large bowl, the cake mix, oil, and eggs. Then mix in the pie filling and pumpkin. Bake at 350 for 35 - 37 minutes.
After 10 minutes, flip over onto cooling rack WITHOUT dropping your favorite piece of stoneware and destroying your cake.

The cake is heavy. The pan is also heavy and very slick especially with hot pads. I totally lost my grip mid-air and dropped it. The cake actually fell out in one piece.  It fell apart when I tried to pick it up. However, I made a "trifle" out of it and it was delicious.

I used this frosting recipe to top it
Frosting:
1 pkg. Cream Cheese
2 cups Powdered Sugar
1 cube of Margarine or Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla

Cream the butter and cream cheese together. Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

This actually tasted a lot like Pumpkin Pie and it was so yummy. Looked AWFUL but tasted great.

Cake Pops

I am a huge fan of Bakerella and her Cake Pops. She makes it seem so easy. This was the first time I've ever made them and possibly the last. However, they are DELICIOUS! So yeah, I will make them again. Maybe it's just me but I found it more difficult than I think it should be. Whenever I would try to dip the cake balls into the chocolate, they would start to fall off of the stick. And this is after freezing them for hours on the sticks.  I ended up just frosting them with a knife.


Instead of doing cake pops, you can just do cake balls.

Oh Yummy.

Bakerella just had a book published featuring her Cake Pops which I'm begging my husband to get me for my birthday. Maybe after I get that I'll attempt it again.

Better Than Sex Cake

If you're offended by or just don't want call it by that name (like if you're making it for your in-laws), some people call it Better Than Anything Cake.



If you're trying to cut calories, this is not the cake for you!
However, if you decide to cheat this cake is definitely worth cheating with.

I'm not sure who came up with the recipe but it wasn't me. I wish it had been, it's so good.

1 box of Devil's Food Cake Mix and ingredients to make it
1 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 jar of Caramel Ice Cream Topping
1 container of Cool Whip or 1/2 pint of Whipping Cream and sugar to make it
2 small or 1 big Heath Bar

Make the cake according to directions on the box. Let cool when finished.
Poke holes into the cake with the end of a wooden spoon. Pour the sweetened condensed milk all over the cake. Then do the same with the caramel. Spread the cream over the top. Crush up the candy bar and top the cake with it. Let chill in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.

Deep Dark Chocolate Moist Cake

Steve and I went on a date (yes, that's my husband) the other night to Red Lobster. They have the deal right now where you get 2 Entrees, 2 salads, and either a dessert or appetizer. Of course, we chose the dessert. It's called Chocoalte Wave and oh my gosh it was good. It was so moist and gooey and rich and delicious. So ever since I've been craving it. I found this recipe online. And although I don't think it comes close to the Chocolate Wave, it's still pretty good.

I got this recipe off of Recipe Zaar.

Ingredients
1 (515 g) box devil's food cake mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup canola oil
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons dark molasses

Directions:
Place the two layer size packaged devils food cake mix in a large mixer bowl, and sift out lumps.
Add all other ingredients into bowl, and beat well, until combined and thick.
Bake in greased cake pans at 350 degrees preheated oven.
Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick or tester comes away clean.
Cool ten minutes, invert onto cooling rack.
Fill and frost with your favourite frosting.

I also cut each layer in half, so there were 4 layers of cake and did frosting inbetween each layer. And this time I was going to try and make my own frosting, but I didn't have some of the stuff on hand so I used canned. 2 Cans actually. I also used crushed up oreos on the side and a little on the top.
Why is it that when you see people put stuff on the sides of cakes does it look so easy? I saw a guy on Food Network last week putting coconut on the sides of his cake and he did the whole cake in about 20 seconds and it looked amazing. There were oreo crumbs all over my kitchen! If you have any good tips, I would love to hear.

Landon's 3rd Birthday Cake

This cake is for our little Rock Star who turned 3 today. I will admit, definitely not my best work. But in my defense, it was 8:00 at night after a long day of partying. Is that spelled right? Looks weird.
Anyway.... again, not a homemade cake or frosting, but I'm kind of proud of my work so I thought I'd post it. I'll have another shot at this cake next week when we have a friend birthday party and I will be privelaged enough to make it again. At least I have a better idea of what I'm doing now. Oh, and if you know what guitars actually look like, please don't look too closely. Thanks!

This was after his bath or he would have still had his mohawk done. And no, it's not a real mohawk, it's a foax-hauk but his hair is just that light and thin so you can't really see it here.

T-Rex Cake

Carson's 5th Birthday Cake

Recipe:
1 Cake Mix (plus ingredients to make it)
3 Cans of frosting
Food Coloring
:)

I took the easy way out.
Ok, again, I had to post it just cuz I'm proud of my accomplishment.
Maybe I should have made part of it from scratch so I could be helpful.