Ladybug Cake

A little girl named Cailyn is turning 4 this weekend and I was asked to make her a lady bug cake. Her mom found a picture on the Internet of a cake she liked and asked if I could make one like it, and here it is:

I added the little flowers and the lady bug is a little different from the original cake.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for waffle cone bowl filled with ice cream and topped with hot fudge, nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream and a cherry!

My baby turned 15 this month! Gulp! Instead of a cake, I thought it would be fun to let everyone make their own ice cream sundaes. I bought some really tasty waffle cone bowls (at Walmart), hot fudge sauce, chocolate syrup, nuts, sprinkles, whipped cream and cherries. Oh and vanilla and Neapolitan ice cream. It kind of shocked me how boring every one's sundae was. I thought that with all those nummy things sitting on the table they would dive right in, but most everybody wanted vanilla with chocolate syrup on top. {yawn} So I had to taunt them a little into putting more stuff on. I mean come on y'all I bought all this junk, the least you can do it eat it right? Anyway, we all had a good time. This is my nephew Luke hamming it up with his sundae.

Dear Frankie cupcakes

My sister is in a film club at work and she asked me to make cupcakes for the movie they were reviewing-Dear Frankie. Here's the plot: Lizzie Morrison, her opinionated, chain-smoking mother Nell, and nine-year-old deaf son Frankie frequently move to keep one step ahead of her abusive ex-husband and his family. Newly relocated in the Scottish town of Greenock, she accepts a job at the local fish and chips shop owned by a friendly woman named Marie, and enrolls Frankie in school.

Through a Glasgow post office box, Frankie maintains a regular correspondence with someone he believes to be his father Davey, who allegedly is a merchant seaman working on the HMS Accra. In reality, the letters he receives are written by his mother, who prefers maintaining this charade to telling her son the reason she fled her marriage.

In a panic when the boat docks at Dreenock port, Lizzie concocts a scheme to hire a man to impersonate Davey. When her effort to find someone at the local pub fails, she enlists Marie's assistance. Marie arranges for her to meet an acquaintance of hers who coincidentally is passing through town at the same time the Accra will be in port. He agrees to spend a day with Frankie in exchange for the meager payment Lizzie can offer him. When he arrives at their home to pick up the boy, he brings him a book about marine life, one of Frankie's passions, and a bond is forged immediately.

Flag of Scotland

Sign Language for "I love you"

Movie Title

Ship that the father is said to be on

Letters to Frankie

Here's the whole set. I don't think the film club liked it as a whole because they felt it was too slow, but I on the other hand thought it was very sweet and touching and I liked it. It also stars Gerard Butler before he became famous.

Decorated Cowboy Cake

I always find it a little difficult to make cakes for men because I'm more comfortable going girlie, but I was happy with the way this cake turned out. I made the "belt buckle", horse shoes, fence and cactus out of fondant.

Quick Italian Cream Cake

My husband's grandfather just celebrated his 80th birthday and he likes Italian Cream Cake. I was asked to make it "western" themed. I'll show you the cake next post, but here is the recipe for the cake. I thought it came out really good. In the past I have always thought Italian Cream Cake was too rich and heavy, but this version was a little lighter and tasted great.

Quick Italian Cream Cake

1 white cake mix (with pudding in the mix)

3 large eggs

1/4 cup oil

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

1 (3 1/2 oz) package of coconut

2/3 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat the first 4 ingredients at medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in coconut and pecans. Pour batter into 3 greased 9 inch round cake pans. Bake for 15-17 minutes. Let cool and sprinkle with rum if desired.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese (cold)

5 tablespoons butter (soft)

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 box powdered sugar

In a mixer beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla. Then add powdered sugar and mix until creamy.

Cheese Stuffed Jalapenos

There is a little Mexican food restaurant in our neighborhood that my husband and I and our friends eat at almost every Friday called Norma's. They have really good food and one thing I like to get is the "hot kisses" which are jalapenos stuffed with chicken or cheese and then breaded and fried. Well I thought I would try my hand at making these minus the breading and deep frying.

First I mixed equal amounts of shredded cheddar cheese and soft cream cheese.

Then I cut slits in the jalapenos and scooped out the membranes and seeds with a spoon.

Next I shoved as much cheese as I could fit in the middle of the jalapenos.

Then I baked them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25-35 minutes until the cheese was starting to get brown and bubbly.

The next time I make these I'm going to put pieces of tin foil in between them to help them stay cheese side up. As you can see mine kind of fell over. I have to say these were pretty darn good!

Homemade Marshmallow Fondant

Making fondant at home is pretty easy but man is it messy! I have made it using a different recipe in the past but this recipe is faster and easier. I took it from The Decorated Cookie, http://chiccookiekits.blogspot.com/ who I think got it from someone else. An awesome added bonus is that you can make fondant for about a tenth of the price of store bought fondant. Here it is:

Marshmallow Fondant

2 cups mini marshmallows

2 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 pound (4 cups) powdered sugar

shortening

Grease a microwave safe bowl with shortening. Add marshmallows, water and vanilla to the bowl. Heat in the microwave for about 45 seconds. Stir well until fully melted and smooth and runny. Sift the powdered sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer with a flat beater (tip: grease the beater with shortening). Pour the marshmallow mixture into the sugar and blend on low speed until dough forms. Knead briefly on a surface dusted with powdered sugar. Then I coated the fondant with shortening to store it.

Marshmallows in the bowl before being melted.

Melted smooth marshmallow mixture.

Melted marshmallow poured over the powdered sugar.

Fondant ball rolled out onto a sugared surface.

Tada, you've got fondant!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing

Peanut Butter and Chocolate are such a great combo, but I have had a hard time trying to find a good peanut butter icing recipe. To experiment I just baked some chocolate cupcakes from a mix and then got the icing recipe off of allrecipes.com. I tastes really good and is very peanut buttery but the consistency isn't great. I think next time I will try Ina Garten's recipe.

Peanut Butter Icing:

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

2 cups of powdered sugar

1/3 cup cream or milk

Cream the peanut butter and butter in a mixer then add sugar and milk and mix until smooth.

Ina Garten's recipe:

1 cup powder sugar

1 cup creamy peanut butter

5 tablespoons butter (room temp)

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon cream

Cream the peanut butter and butter in a mixer then add the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth.

Cake Balls

I apologise for it being so incredibly long since my last post. I have been in some kind of a funk that I can't shake, but hopefully now I'm starting to get back to my old self again. Anyway, I finally tried out making cake balls and man oh man do I have a long way to go. They tasted great but they could be a lot cuter. For some REALLY cute cake balls check out Bakerella.

Making the balls is really easy. First you bake a cake the way you normally would. Any flavor is fine, but I baked a chocolate cake.

Once the cake has cooled, crumble it up. Then I combined 3 ounces of soft cream cheese and 1/2 a tub of icing. Pour the icing mixture over the cake crumbs and mix until all combined.

Next you need to roll the cake into balls. I used a cookie scoop for this. Once they are in balls, freeze them for about 15 minutes. After they are rally cold, melt some almond bark in the microwave and dip the balls until they're coated. Use any decoration you want to make them cute.

I made these for the 4th so I used a lot of red, white and blue. Try different flavors like lemon cake and vanilla icing or red velvet cake and cream cheese.