Those are butterflies, baby!

It's hard to believe, but one of the girls who graduated with my son is having a baby.  Her mom called me up and asked me to make cupcakes.  She asked me for purple and butterflies.  When I initially asked her how many, she said about 30.  That's totally doable.

I scoured through Pinterest for some inspiration and came up with a plan.  I bought my butterfly fondant cutters and all my food coloring.  I stocked up on all my ingredients.  I called Mom again to finalize the numbers.  She quite sheepishly said more people were coming than originally thought....like 78-80!  AAGHHH!  OK, breathe, I can do this.  I said "No problem, piece of cake." On the inside, I was still trembling.

I am a true procrastinator by default.  No matter how I try, I procrastinate.  I drive myself a little batty.  I was determined with this big of an order I was not going to do that.  I cut out all of the butterflies mid week (order was due Saturday) so they would have plenty of time to dry.  I baked all the cupcakes on Friday.  Saturday morning, I frosted all of them.  WOOO, not procrastinating!  I get everything done right away on Saturday morning and I still have lots of time left.  I decide cupcakes are not enough so I make a mini 6-inch cake.  I thought that would be a nice touch and something they could take home after the shower.

I must be crazy.  Why do I do this to myself?  Ugh...here we go.  I make the cake.  While it's baking, I decide the cake will be opposite from the cupcakes.  The cupcakes are frosted with purple and have white butterflies.  That means I have to add food coloring to my leftover fondant to make it purple.  SMH.  Where are the little baking elves to help me?  OK, I colored my remaining fondant purple.  CRAP, I need fondant for the cake.  I make a small batch of fondant to cover the cake.  The cake is cooling, the fondant is resting, the purple butterflies are drying...almost done.  The Heavens were smiling on me because the cake went together beautifully.  By smiling, I think they were just taking pity on me just this once.

I take the cake and cupcakes to the venue with plenty of time to spare, a small miracle again.  I set everything up and take my picture.  Mom is happy, momma-to-be is happy, guests are happy.  I am just too relieved to have any other emotions.

Now that I have had some time to reflect on the way things turned out, I think I'm pretty happy too.

Happy Birthday Mario!

I can't believe, I won't believe it!  My grandson is 3 years old already!

When my daughter called to tell me the party details, I asked her what she wanted for a cake.  She asked my grandson, who screamed MARIO!!!!!!

I did some digging and found a few ideas for cakes.  My daughter had told me there would be several of the neighborhood kids at the party, so I thought cupcakes for little hands might be better.  I decided to do a combination of cupcakes and a smaller cake.

I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe for 1 layer of the cake and half the cupcakes:

2 C flour
2 C sugar
6 Tbsp cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C warm water
2/3 C oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp mint) extract

I then went to work trying to find a white cake to match the moisture of the chocolate.  I have tried and tried with little result.  However, this particular cake came close:

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1½ cups sifted cake flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups sugar
• ⅔ cup vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons good quality vanilla extract (if you want pure white use clear vanilla extract)
• 3 large eggs
• 1½ cups buttermilk

Instructions

1. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside.
2. Grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans and line the bottom with 2 circles of parchment paper.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, shortening and vanilla. Beat well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy
4. Beat the eggs in one at a time.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
6. I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
7. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Now I went to work...I made a standard 8-inch, 2-layer cake and a total of 20 cupcakes.  I decorated the cupcakes like the little mushroom people in the video games.  I then made the actual cake to look like a scene from the video game.  Here's the problem!  My grandson's birthday was in late March, and we were still in the middle of very cold weather for the date.  However, my husband insisted that the cake would be destroyed during the trip unless I held it (umm...think I know how to transport cakes, but whatever).  I wanted to leave for the party without incident, so I gave in.  Big mistake!  It was a rare sunny day that day, and the sun beating in the car started to melt the cake!  My green hills were becoming green puddles.  Luckily, I cheated and used a Mario toy for the top of the cake.  I shudder to think of what poor Mario would have looked like after the trip.

When we got to my daughter's house, I put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes and then did my best to reconstruct my scene.  Everyone loved it, but I was still stewing about my poor judgment listening to my husband.  LOL.  I won't make that mistake again!  

At the end of the day, the most important part was the fact that my grandson jumped up and down yelling Mario cake, Mario cake, thank you Mimi! the whole afternoon.  Some day maybe I can learn to look past the imperfections...

One more Frozen cake

You have to hand it to Disney.  They know how to hook the wee ones with their movies.  When my daughter was young, it was The Little Mermaid.  Now, my granddaughter is 6, and she is obsessed with the movie Frozen.  When I say she is obsessed, I mean it.  The girl is hardcore.  She is about as girlie as they come.  She loves to play dress-up and wear a tiara.  She recites the movie when she is playing with her dolls like she is re-enacting the movie.  Then comes the singing.....oh, the singing.  It's actually more like screaming...like those of you on the West Coast need to hear her singing in order for the world to stay on its axis.  There are arm motions and choreography to go along with the vocals.

So...my granddaughter turned 6 in mid November.  When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she looked at me with that tilted head and her hand on her hip and said "Oh Mimi, you know I want a Disney Frozen cake."  As if there might actually be other Frozen merchandise out there, she feels she needs to specify that it's Disney Frozen.

I asked my daughter to sit down with my granddaughter and decide what they wanted to see on the cake and they were more than happy to comply.  Of course Elsa was on the top, of course it was blue, of course there were sparkly bits.

I was actually pretty excited to make this cake because it gave me the opportunity to try some new techniques.  I did cheat and got the actual dolls to add to the cake as I was not going to take the time or the chance actually that I would not get the look right.  The 6 year-old would call me out in a heartbeat....just as she had when she turned 4 and I made cupcakes with frosting the color of all the Disney princess dresses and I happened to forget the green one, whomever she may be.  Ugh..the innocence of youth.

Anyway...this was the final product.  She loved it.  The other little girls at her party loved it.  I was once again a rock star in my granddaughter's world.....which is the absolute best place to be.

Mermaid cake and cupcakes

My son's high school marching band did a show about mermaids and how they are thought to have lured sailors to their deaths.  At the end of the marching season, one of the color guard moms asked me to bake some cupcakes for their end-of-season party.  I went to work making up the scene.

I decided to do a small cake to look like a rock with some mermaids sitting on it...and then make cupcakes to surround that rock.  I thought it would be cool to add some fondant in the shape of a shipwreck to put in some of the cupcakes.

I cheated and used box mix cakes.  Our local Walmart sells basic chocolate and vanilla for $1.00 per box.  I doctored up both batters so they wouldn't taste like box mixes.  I made both a vanilla and chocolate cake in a 9 x 13 pan, which I would later use to build my rock.  I then covered it with gray fondant.

I molded some teal fondant for the mermaids and used a piping tip to create the scales.  Then, I used a combination of pink, blue, purple and silver luster dust to paint over the mermaids to give them an iridescent sheen.

I baked my cupcakes and decorated them to look like waves.  I even piped white on some of the cupcakes to look like breakers in the water.  I molded brown fondant in my wooden board mold and then gave it dimension by painting over the brown with some black.

My friend, who ordered the cupcakes, stopped by my house the day I was working on them.  She had no idea what I had up my sleeve and she all but squealed with delight.  She couldn't wait to surprise the girls with their treat.  The next day, she came to pick up the cupcakes and promised to call me and let me know what the girls thought.

Sure enough, my phone rang like a half an hour later.  It was my friend's number.  When I answered, it was the entire color guard, 20 girls strong, saying thank you.  It just made my day.  It fills my heart with joy that I could give them a treat like this.

Here is the final product...

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

When my daughter was in high school, she had this little group of girls she would hang around with.  There were 2 of them that were especially close to her.  Now that they are in their mid 20's, they are still very close.  The third amigo is getting married at the end of summer, and the other two were throwing her a bridal shower.  The colors for the wedding are yellow and blue.  Her wedding dress is almost all lace, so I wanted to reflect that in the cupcake theme.

I made both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, put pale yellow buttercream frosting on them all and then decorated them with a blue flower and some pearl dragees.  The girls had given me an idea for a bridal dress on the top of the cupcake tower, so I made a cake using a Pyrex bowl.  I then covered that with white fondant and pressed my lace mold over the bottom of the dress to mimic the lace in the actual gown.

I heard rave reviews from the bride-to-be, as well as the two girls throwing the party.  I don't think I have ever been more nervous or more proud of something I've created.

Here is the final product...

Pitter patter of little feet

My daughter asked me to bake cupcakes for her boss’ baby shower.  I asked my daughter what kind of cupcakes she wanted, but there was no real answer other than “she’s having a boy, she likes teal and she’t not a girlie girl.”  So….this is what I came up with.

I made chocolate cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes.  When they cooled, I colored the buttercream frosting and then put it in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds.  This made is somewhat of a glaze consistency.  I dipped the cupcakes in the frosting and then put them in the refrigerator to harden a bit.

I got a packet of stencils at the store a while back, and I found some baby stuff on one of the stencils.  I could not get the other things to come out in a manner that would be recognizable; so after much trial and error, I decided to make “pitter patter of little feet” cupcakes.  I took white buttercream, put it in the microwave for about 15 seconds and then poured it into a squeeze bottle (you could also use a piping bag and a small round tip).  I held the stencil over the cupcake and then filled it in with the white buttercream (think Royal Icing on cookies). 

I thought they were just about as cute as the day is long…I hope they went over well at the shower.

Minion cake

My grandson recently turned 2 years old, and the term "all boy" could not be more true with him.  My daughter is having a bit of a hard time with this concept because her first child, a girl, is the true definition of princess...not to mention that my daughter was a princess herself when she was little.

My grandson loves trucks, trains and playing in the mud.  What he loves most of all though...are minions.  If you are not familiar with minions, look them up on Google or YouTube.  They are the little yellow guys in the Despicable Me movies.  

The week before I was to have this cake completed, I decided I was not going to procrastinate like usual.  I made a list of things I needed for each layer.  I made a task list for each day during the week.  I was so excited.  I was not going to have to be up until all hours of the night!  About that....nothing got done until the night before the cake was due.  Nothing....well except 1 batch of fondant.  I was up until 3:30 a.m. the night before and then back up at 7:00 a.m.  I had to cut details that I wanted to add.  

All in all, I think my little minion cake looks pretty good.  I wanted purple cotton candy for the purple guy's hair but could not find it.  The purple guy's arms were supposed to be the other direction and holding the candle and sign, but the fell.  I forgot to take the yellow guy's hair with me to the party.  My silver dust filled in all of the stone texture I put into the bottom layer so it just looked poorly covered; but hey, my grandson was happy...and that's just fine with me.

Snickerdoodle cake with cream cheese frosting

It was my dear husband's birthday last week.  In my house, when it's your birthday, you get to choose the flavor and the design of the cake.  I knew he would never, ever ask for anything...it's just the way he is.  I happen to know that his very favorites are cream cheese and cinnamon.  Armed with this knowledge, I went to work finding an easy cake recipe that would combine the two.

Along came the snickerdoodle cake with cream cheese frosting.  I knew he would love it.

From http://caribbeanmissionarywife.blogspot.com/

preheat oven to 325 deg fahrenheit and butter and flour 2 round pans
  (I use 9 inch but 8 inch would be just dandy)

 Whisk together

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

 In a separate bowl cream together  till they are nice and fluffy

2 sticks (softened) butter

1 3/4 cups fine sugar

1 cup sour cream

Add  to cream mixture one-at-a-time

4 large eggs at room temperature

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

1 1/4 cups whole milk (room temperature) 

Don't let this confuse you, 

 add 1/3 cup of flour mixture to cream mixture....a little milk and stir....

1/3 cup of flour mixture.....a little milk and stir.....

etc, until all the flour and milk are added

Bake until a toothpick comes clean.  Mine took a little under 30 minutes.
Cool before slicing again and frosting.

For the frosting, I used this recipe loosely and added cream cheese and cinnamon:

1/3 cup butter

4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

cream cheese (I used 8 oz due to my husband's love of the stuff)

cinnamon (I used enough to sort of thinly coat the top of the bowl  - again due to my husband's love of cinnamon)

He loved the cake.  He made that OMG face and everything.  I think he had a happy birthday.  Mission accomplished.

Ruffle cake

So...this is my first attempt at a ruffle cake.

I guess it could be worse.  It is, however, like a Monet painting.  From far away, really pretty.  When you get closer, you can see aallllllllll of the imperfections.  

I have been baking away this week.  My son's high school is hosting an indoor guard/percussion competition, and we are having a bake sale.  So on top of that, because I am a little crazy, dumb, overzealous, I decided I would make this cake for the judges room.  

It seems that karma/reality has a way of knocking you down a few pegs occasionally.  I was feeling so prepared for this cake to just zip together perfectly.  I was organized, I was prepared, I had allowed myself ample time and then BAM!  Karma, Murphy's Law, whatever you want to call it.  My chocolate cake is super moist and it did not like being stacked and crumb coated for some reason.  It kept trying to behave like an earthquake cake.

I went with my go-to chocolate and vanilla cake recipes.  I used a basic buttercream to crumb coat.  Earlier in the week, I made the marshmallow fondant and then the flowers.  Finally finished fighting with the cake at about 2:30 a.m. and here is the final product.

Happy Valentine's Day...You Make My Heart Sing!

So...today is Valentine's Day.  My husband used to work in the floral industry many years ago.  Valentine's Days were spent in the office.  Because of that, we have never really celebrated it.  However, he gave up that profession and has now moved on to bigger and better things, but we still don't celebrate Valentine's Day....until this year.  I woke up this morning to find a card, a necklace and earrings.  ?????  Don't get me wrong, I love them, but it was totally unexpected and left me totally hanging in the wind.  I did not get him anything.

Well...I got to work doing what I do best, and I came up with this cake.  Music is an integral part of our lives.  It's the reason we met, so I wanted to tie that in somewhere.

Presenting.....Happy Valentine's Day - You Make My Heart Sing!

Inside is a chocolate layer and a yellow layer with peanut butter frosting in between the layers.  These are covered with a basic buttercream.  The flowers are made out of marshmallow fondant I made and tinted myself.  The music notes and staff are black candy melts.  The red hearts are chocolate chips melted and tinted with red gel food coloring.  

It took me most of the evening, but it's done, and I'm pretty excited about how it turned out.  

Hot Chocolate cupcakes...take 1

Have you heard of the movie "A Series of Unfortunate Events" from a few years ago?  This could very easily describe my adventures in baking this morning.  I have been wanting to do a hot chocolate cupcake for some time, so I decided today was the day.  The powers that be in baking world had other plans.

I am still on the hunt for the perfect yellow cake recipe, so I decided to use a box mix and jack it up with butter and milk instead of vegetable oil and water.  That was fine.  They still taste box mix to me, but that's just me.

I tried to put together a chocolate mousse for the filling...and it broke.  I tried to fix it with more cream, and it broke again.  It did, however, taste really good.

Now came the marshmallow frosting.  I found an easy recipe with butter, marshmallow creme, powdered sugar and vanilla.  What could go wrong?  Yep, you guessed it....it did not set up.  I did not have the marshmallow creme, so I went to plan B and just melted marshmallows.  That was fine except I added too many.  Many scoops of powdered sugar later and adding some milk...I finally got something usable.  Again, tasted pretty good.

After all of these unfortunate events, I was feeling pretty defeated but I decided to soldier on and put this mess together.  I hollowed out the center of the cupcakes and dumped in my chocolate mousse mess.  Smeared some over the top of the cupcake.  I then topped that off with the soft marshmallow frosting.  I drizzled on some leftover chocolate sauce from my mousse attempt.  I frosted a few cupcakes, drizzled on the chocolate sauce and threw them in the refrigerator before they melted down over the cupcake.

Now, I am exhausted, but I take solace in the fact that they do not look terrible...and they don't taste terrible either.

Butterfly cupcakes

Butterfly cupcakes

BUTTERFLY CUPCAKES

When my daughter had her second child, I decided that instead of having the traditional girls-only baby shower, I would do a big family party.  As it turns out, she delivered the baby 3 weeks early, so it turned into a “meet the new baby” party.  We also did not want to leave our granddaughter out of the celebration, so we combined “meet Baby Chase” with “Maddie’s a big sister.” 

Since there would be several small children at the party, I decided against a cake.  Instead, I thought about making cupcakes, of course.  I made a chocolate box mix cake (since I had so much else to do to prepare) and then made a basic buttercream frosting.  I used Wilton green gel food coloring to tint the buttercream.  I then used Wilton Candy Melts in light cocoa to trace the outline of the butterflies.  Once these were set, I used more of the candy melts and tinted them with Wilton gel food coloring in pink and blue.  I filled in the outlines with the pink or blue and then tapped the counter to smooth out the tinted chocolate and get out any bubbles.  I then detailed the wings with more melted light cocoa.  The final step was to make the butterfly bodies by making a small line on wax paper with the light cocoa melt and adding the wings. 

Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. My husband asked me what kind of cake I wanted, and I told him I would be making my own.  I wanted to practice my ombre frosting flower technique.  

I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe (click here for the recipe) and then filled it with a peanut butter mousse frosting (peanut butter, butter, Kool-Whip, milk and powdered sugar).  Oh my...almost forgot to fill the cake because the mousse was so good.  I put a crumb coat of this peanut butter mousse on the outside of the cake to keep it neat and tidy.

I should mention with the chocolate cake recipe that you NEED parchment paper in the bottom of your pans.  I ran out of parchment paper, so I decided that Bakers Joy would just have to do.  Nothing against Bakers Joy, it's a fine product, but this cake is so moist that it will stick like super glue to the pan if you don't have parchment paper.

Now comes the part about the flowers.  I was so transfixed with tinting the frosting that I did not realize I did not make enough.  I had to make the flowers smaller than I wanted and could not overlap them like I wanted.  Lesson learned.  Overall, I was pleased with the way it came out, gaps and all.  

I served it to my family last night after our celebratory dinner at Carraba's (if you have not been, you MUST go).  You could almost literally hear my 5-year-old granddaughter inhaling her slice.  Everyone else also loved the cake and gave me great compliments.

Coconut creme cupcakes

I like to take other desserts and turn them into cupcakes. I did it with bananas foster (which I will post later) and I just did it with coconut creme pie.

My husband loves his mother's coconut creme pie. I'm not going to try to compete with that. It's a no win for me...or for my husband.  Who do you tell that the other's was better?  All I will say about that is he LIVES with me.

Ok...back to the cupcakes.




Step 1:  line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. Spread a layer do coconut on the sheet and toast it up.  I did about 250 degrees Fahrenheit just until it turns brown and...we'll toasty.

Step 2:  Make the creme filling. I cheated when I made this and used instant vanilla pudding. I'm sure using the creme designed for the coconut creme pie would make it even better.  At any rate, I added a handful of untasted coconut to the pudding.

Step3:  Make your cupcakes. Again, I'm such a cheater. I was just experimenting so I used a regular vanilla box cake mix. I do boost my box cakes by adding an additional egg, substitute butter for the vegetable oil and substitute milk for the water. It makes a big difference in the taste.

Step 4:  Once your cupcakes are completely cool, dig out the center of each cupcake and fill with the pudding.

Step 5:  Add a buttercream frosting (any white buttercream will do). Then, sprinkle the toasted coconut on the top.

As hard as it is to believe...I do not like coconut. Do you remember the Whitman candy sampler? The one without the little guide?  Yep...nothing was a bigger disappointment in my young life than biting down on what I thought was a peanut butter filled candy and finding coconut.  Ugh!  Anyway, since I don't have any way of confirming that these are good personally, I had to enlist the help of my dear husband. He could not stop eating them. He didn't try to compare them to his mother's pie, but he obviously thought they were good. He gets to stay!

New Year cake

When I think about New Year's Eve, I think about parties.  I think about how I celebrated New Year's Eve in my youth.  One year we played a game where every hour, at the top of the hour, we celebrated the new year as it became midnight in each time zone.  Oh my...what can I say?  We were young and dumb.

Now that I am a little more.....mature and I have a little more common sense, my new year was rung in by planning this cake and cruising around Pinterest (I like to live on the edge these days).  I barely made it to midnight.

This morning, even though not 1 drop of adult beverage was consumed, I still felt like I was hung over.  I decided to cheat on the cake and make a box cake.  I did, however, spruce it up a bit.  I added an additional egg.  I used butter instead of vegetable oil, and I used milk instead of water.  These little substitutions make all the difference if you must use a box cake mix.

When my husband dragged himself downstairs a little later, I asked him what kind of frosting he wanted.  He requested chocolate fudge.  I found a recipe on line that looked perfect.  Something went awry when I made it though.  It closely resembled the fudge batter I made last month for Christmas.  I knew it would not spread to cover the cake so I put it between the layers of the cake.  I found another recipe (here) and made yet more substitutions.  This recipe called for fudge topping.  I didn't have any of that, but I did have a bag of milk chocolate chips hanging around.  I melted them up in the microwave and added them.  I did need to add more milk than the recipe called for after I added the chocolate chips.

I had delusions of grandeur when I thought about the decorations.  I had chocolate fireworks made in about 4 different colors.  I had my confetti.  I had my little rolled up things...whatever they are supposed to be.  I started putting the fireworks on the cake and it looked awful.  Take 2 - get all of that off of the cake and just go with the confetti and those little rolled up things (which I was pretty proud of, BTW.  Fondant cut and wrapped around a straw to dry).

After our traditional pork dinner (minus the sauerkraut), it was time to reveal the cake.  Everyone seemed to like it a lot.  I guess today was not the day to count calories...

Happy New Year!   

Snicker Doodles aren't just cookies anymore!!

My husband and son are cinnamon addicts.  They go absolutely crazy for anything with cinnamon in it.  In stark contrast, my husband does not like things too sweet.  What a dilemma for someone who wants to pursue baking!  I wanted to surprise them with a cupcake packed with cinnamon, and I found this recipe on Pinterest.  Let me just tell you, they did not last more than 2 hours in my house!  My husband told me I could make these often if I wanted.  

Cinnamon is not my favorite, but I tried one of these cupcakes anyway.  Oh my…it was good. Considering you put cinnamon in the cupcake batter, brush the still warm cupcake with melted butter and dunk it into sugar and cinnamon and THEN put cinnamon in the frosting..I thought it would be cinnamon overkill.  However, it was quite the contrary.  The cake was moist and the flavor subtle.  

You can find the recipe here

I guess I’m going to have to put this in the regular rotation….only I might just have to double the recipe so they last the day!

Chocolate, caramel and peanut butter...a perfect blend

What could be better than chocolate, caramel and peanut butter?  To me, not much. I have a particular fondness for all things peanut butter.  A very dear friend has the same affection for caramel. When deciding what to bake for her birthday, I stumbled upon makingitwithdanielle.com, and there it was.....Snickers cupcakes!

They were a bit labor-intensive, but to say they were worth it would be an understatement!  Oh my goodness, I got so many compliments.  Inside the cupcake is a caramel filling.  The frosting is peanut butter.  Drizzle more caramel over that and top with chocolate shavings.

Here is the recipe from makingitwithdanielle.com...
http://makingitwithdanielle.com/2012/08/13/snickers-cupcakes/

Whoopie Pies...the real deal

I am from, and currently live in, Central Pennsylvania.  It's an area steeped in German culture.  We have families of Amish and Mennonite living near by.  Admittedly, I am attached to my cell phone and iPad, but something about that plain culture intrigues me.  Maybe it's the sense of community or maybe it's just the fat and sugar-laden treats.

There seems to be somewhat of a discrepancy as to where whoopie pies originate.  Are they from the Amish in Central PA or from the New England states?  Being that I am here, I'm going to go with the Amish.

As I stated in a previous post, my mother's Pennsylvania State Grange Hall cookbook (from 1972) LEAPED into my things as I was moving into my own apartment.  I always meant to replace it, but I could never find another copy.  This poor cookbook is so beat up and worn out, it's not even funny.  However, it has the BEST recipes for my kind of baking.

I recently baked for a fundraiser for my son's percussion ensemble, Phoenix Percussion.  The fundraiser was for miscellaneous holiday favorites.  I went looking for a whoopie pie recipe and found this.  This one is so "legit" it calls for LARD!  For those of you who may not know what lard is, here is Google's definition...pig fat in both its rendered and unrendered forms.  Lard is not something I have readily on hand, so I substituted shortening.  To make it super simple, I used the Criso sticks.  

Here's the recipe:

1 cup shortening (or lard if you prefer)
2 cups sugar
2 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
1 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour milk
1 cup hot water
2 teaspoon baking soda

Mix the first four (4) ingredients.  Add dry ingredients and liquid.  Drop by spoonful on cookie sheet.  Bake at 450 degrees F for 5 minutes.



The original filling recipe called for egg whites.  I did not see a mechanism for cooking those at all, so that scared me a bit.  I found another filling recipe, this time for gobs.  My husband, being from western PA, like this better anyway.  

1 cup shortening
1 box powdered sugar
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Beat all ingredients until light and fluffy.  Spread filling on bottom of one cookie and place another on top.  

YIELD:  2-1/2 dozen

My little monkey.....cake

Even before my grandson was born, his world was covered in monkeys.  Monkeys on the onesies, monkeys on the bibs, stuffed monkeys and monkeys on the crib sheets.  It only seemed fitting that when his first birthday rolled around that his smash cake would have a monkey.  The only problem with that logic is that Mimi (that's me...to the little ones) didn't know how to make a monkey from fondant.

My answer to my 18-year-old son when he asks me about something is "Google it."  Now faced with my own dilemma, I decided to take me own advice.  I sat down and googled "how to make a fondant monkey."  To my surprise, up popped some YouTube videos!  That's all fine and good, I thought to myself, but can I really get mine to look like the one in the video?  Well, here's the finished product.  Aside from the face looking a little like a cow-monkey combination, I thought it looked close.

The day came for my grandson's birthday.  My daughter and son-in-law took their places in front of him and waited for him to dig into the cake.  NOPE!  This boy proceeded to pick the blue and green circles very carefully and delicately off the cake and eat them.  I have never found fondant to be especially appetizing, but hey, to each his own right?  He giggled and giggled about the monkey and tried to eat him too.  My daughter had enough of this, so she put his hand in the cake and tried to show him how to smash it.  He still was having no part of this, so it was decided to just break off a piece of the cake and let him taste that.

Am I the only one who thinks it's hysterical when 2 adults are outsmarted by a 1-year-old?

Doc McStuffins cake for 5th birthday

Each year, my granddaughter asks me to make her birthday cake.  This year's request was for a Doc McStuffins cake.  It has been quite a long time since I have watched television for the little ones.  I had no idea what a Doc McStuffins was.  I did some research and found out some details.  It's a really cute show!

Something you should know about my granddaughter is she just turned 5, but inside this girl is trapped a 25 year-old woman.  Nothing gets past this child.  Last year, she asked for Disney Princesses for her birthday.  I made her a small cake with a tiara and then made cupcakes in all the colors of the princesses gowns.  I then added some coarse sugar to make them sparkle.  Well, long story short, she was thrilled with her cake and her cupcakes, but then told me how I missed a princess in the cupcakes.  Apparently, there is a princess from the movie Tangled that I did not know about.

Anyway, I'm getting off track.  I did feel a bit of pressure as I started to put the pieces together for this cake.  I am completely self taught, so the thought of making figures for the cake made me quiver.  There are things I would do differently in hind sight; but overall, I am pretty proud of this cake.

The bottom and middle tiers are 3 layers each alternating white cake and chocolate cake.  Cheater alert:  I used box cakes.  They were on sale at the grocery store, and I add thing to them to boost them up a bit.  The top layer, the medical bag, is a total of 4 layers...all vanilla dyed to be purple and pink.