Pumpkin Bundt Cake

The other day I hosted book group. So I made a bundt cake. It was so soothing. I rarely make bundt cakes, and I'm not sure I've ever made one with frosting. Every other year or so I make pound cake in a bundt cake pan for strawberry shortcake (clearly cake shortcake not biscuit shortcake). 

Back to this cake. I thought it looked delightfully imperfect. It was from a box cake favored for pumpkin. It was actually pretty terrible, I would have much rather eaten spice cake then this pumpkin cake. But the cream cheese frosting was pretty yummy.

I had to add this printable because everyone is always on diets so no one ever eats sweets anymore. If you know me you know I love cake. Actually everyone who attended did have a slice.

P.S. If one more person asks me if I went to book group last month I might scream! I hosted it. So yes I went, and yes I know you didn't show up. The three of us had fun without you. I'm trying not to be offended but when the third person asks the same question, my thick skin is feeling a little like my son's eczema. (Rubbed the wrong way.)

More Dessert Recipes

After saying, I always get compliments on my lemon cake and my chocolate cake, I'm embarrassed to post recipes. I don't really have recipes.
 I use cake mixes, and the more expensive your cake mix the better the cake tastes. I highly recommend Duncan Hines Lemon Cake mix.

 Then I add an extra egg to the mix and use whole milk instead of water to the mix. I keep the oil, because I hate butter in cakes. This is not my idea, the internet gave it to me, and it works. My child who never liked cake now likes cakes I make. The cake is a denser.

 When I serve people cakes with an extra egg and milk instead of water they often ask if its a from scratch cake.

For my chocolate cake, I do the same thing. I just buy a decent brand of devils food chocolate cake, and use milk instead of water and add an extra egg.

As far as frosting goes. It depends. If I'm making devils food cake for people who don't like chocolate too much I use cool whip. (Yes these kind of people exist.) If I'm making it to enjoy it or to impress people. I use Better Homes and Garden's New Book Cook Recipe for chocolate cream cheese frosting.

At this altitude (7,000 feet) I honestly can't make buttercream frosting. If I'm making frosting from scratch I have to have cream cheese. A friend of mine that makes nearly professional cakes told me at this altitude you have to use half shortening or your frosting just won't work. The butter melts to fast, or something like that... I can't remember exactly what she said. It was reassuring to know I'm not stupid.

If I had confidence it making buttercream frosting here I would have made lemon frosting from scratch for the cake, at lower altitudes I have had a lot of success. But here, I went for quick and easy. Lemon Pudding Frosting.
1 package of Lemon instant pudding
1/4 cup of powder sugar
mix together
3/4 a cup of milk (at lower altitudes maybe a full cup of milk)
mix together
a tub of cool whip mixed together.

These recipes are extremely easy. So I don't know why I get so many compliments. Maybe because they are practically from scratch?
More likely because my secret ingredients is "love" "dang it"

I find most people enjoy simple homemade desserts, nothing fancy, and mostly not store bought. I do love to bake so maybe that's why. They can taste the love.

Frozen Party

I know there are a million frozen party ideas online, but this is what we did. None of which was original. I have lots of snowflake crafts so it was easy to just slightly change. This was a temporary change. With this printable.

 I printed Elsa on paper, and melted Jolly Ranchers. I don't think any of the kids ate the cake just pieces of jolly ranchers.

 Nat requested pin the crown on Elsa.

 We printed the birthday banner from this site.

 For some reason I made a 6 year old two wreaths, that one in the background too.

 I made the pinata for her. She loved it. Turns out I made it too sturdy. Don't use packing tape, masking tape probably would have been better.

More Dessert

I've only had a few birthdays of late, so I decided to make some extra cakes, know just for the heck of it.

Just kidding, I visit teach two ladies who have birthdays two days apart this week, so I made them some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate creme cheese frosting. This cake it so yummy and I've gotten a lot of compliment on this chocolate cake.

Then for book group I volunteered to make a cake to help out the host. I made a lemon cake with lemon pudding frosting. This is also a very yummy cake that also gets lots of compliment. I decided to go with lemon because we read Persuasion by Jane Austen and I thought lemon cake is something you would have for tea.
When I'm not making cakes I'm making cookies.

I feel like I've put in my 10,000 hours with my chocolate chip cookies. I haven't actually put in that much time into them, but if I do say so myself I get SOOooo... many compliment on my mint chocolate chip cookies. Normally I use a tablespoon cookie dough scoop. It makes making cookies delightful and they come out perfect with airbake cookie sheets. But I wanted to making some BIG cookies, so I used my ice cream scoop, eyeballing it I would say its two tablespoons worth. The big cookies were SO much better. It was like getting a cookie at a restaurant but yummy and soft. I would like to find something that makes EVEN bigger than two tablespoon worth cookies.

Dog Cake

When my third child turned 2, life was in a bad place. We still had two weeks of summer vacation, I had started some medication for depression but it wasn't really working yet. I didn't want to do anything other than yell at everyone. I was mad and angry. But the day before his birthday, I willed myself to get up enough gumption to bake a cake. I threw it in the freezer, the next day/his birthday I willed myself to decorate it. I knew life would go on quite fine if I didn't make him a cake. I knew in the scheme of things no one would care, but I also knew I would regret it for a very long time if I didn't make the cake. (I'm living a life of minimal regrets with the depression, I'm accepting that I'm sick and can't do much, but I knew a 2nd birthday was different then day to day.)

It was a beyond easy cake to make, less than an hour, but considering all that was going on, it was a monumental cake to make. Never has it taken so much courage for me to make a cake. 

 I used pudding frosting, it was beyond easy, if I wasn't in a postpartum depression fog, it would have been beyond easy. Since I was this is a trophy of accomplishment.

I used Kraft's Pudding Recipe, because its easy and delicious. I wondered how it would work as a decorator's frosting. Since I wasn't trying to be professional, and just please three kids it worked great. It has a bit of solid mass and fluffiness anyway because of the pudding. 

what you need

1

pkg.  (3.9 oz.) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding

1

cup  cold milk

1/4

cup  powdered sugar

1

tub  (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

make it

BEAT pudding mix, milk and sugar in large bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in COOL WHIP.

SPREAD onto cupcakes immediately or store frosting covered in refrigerator up to 24 hours.

Crown Cake

For her family party I decorated a crown cake for my 5 year old.  It wasn't an original idea, I found ONE picture online.

7th Birthday

My oldest turned seven. He doesn't really like cake, but he does love chocolate chip cookies. So this year I made a Chocolate Chip cookie icebox cake. It was seriously the easiest thing ever, as long as you planned ahead.

I also borrowed a stamp set from my friend and made him cute little birthday cake bunting for his cake. It was so fun, but also took about TWO hours! I need to get a mini stamp set, it was super fun, I stamped all sorts of things!

Back to the icebox cake, I made the cookies Wednesday, and practically burnt them on purpose, and then stuck them in the freezer until Friday. You want your cookies crisp, to say the least, because by the time you eat your cake, they will be as mushy as mush. I put a ¼ cup less flour in my dough, used butter instead of butter flavor shortening (since it has a lower melting point) and baked my cookies for an extra 5 minutes or so. See the difference.  The top one is what my cookies normally look like, the bottom one is for the cake, maybe I should have used less flour. 

Then on Friday night I made fresh whipped topping, from whipping cream, I made four cups because the whipping cream comes in cartons of two cups, but three would have been plenty for the LARGE cake I made. We fed 14 people this cake, and still had almost half a cake left over. Next time I make this, I think I would only make half a batch of cookies for my cake. Once my whipping cream was made, I covered a plate in one layer of cookies, then put a layer of whipped cream, a layer of cookies, a layer of whipped cream, and on so until it was as big as I wanted. Then let chill over night. Just for the record I was going to make this on a cake stand, it was his 7th birthday after all, but my husband told me to make it on a paper plate. I thought it was weird he cared so I listened, well turns out he thought we were making it for the party we went on Friday night.

So yummy, so much easier than frosting a cake. Next time I want to try with oatmeal cookies. I think it will taste like a Little Debbie Oatmeal creme pie, without all the store bought chemicals. You can also make mini cakes with this. 

For the past two years I've made my son cookie crème sandwiches, for his birthday in school, but to make sandwiches for enough kids you need two packages of cookie crème, and that is almost $6 for just the crème! So I think next year, I'm just going to make sandwiches with whipped cream, and refrigerate over night, I personally like whipped cream better than the cookie crème. Remember my son doesn't really like cake, and he thinks all those cupcakes everyone brings into school are exciting which I get. But at the same time, I don't want to bring in cupcakes for a child who doesn't really like them, normal chocolate chip cookies are too boring for such an event as a birthday, but apparently cookie sandwiches are not too boring.    

I also ate a fourth of the cake in left overs, none one else in my house wanted it, and it was too yummy to waste in my opinion.  (I did give a fourth of it away.) But I got a little sick of the chocolate chips, I'm wondering how it would taste if you either use none or less chips, and made chocolate whipped cream.  Or if you ground up the chips, and then used chocolate whipped cream.  It has so many possibilities. The chocolate chip icebox cake idea I orginally found in Martha, but I found this recipe the most helpful. Back to Martha I did not use mascarpone cheese or whiskey. Mascarpone is apparently expensive and it tastes similar to cream cheese, and my kid doesn't like cream cheese.  I blame that on my husband's genetics, I don't understand how any human being can not like cream cheese. 

Nattie Girl Cupakes

Back in December my daughter turned four. I made Nattie face cupcakes. I saw a similar idea on Pinterest. I made a million of these, including 20 gluten free ones, for preschool. I didn't give her a friend party so I also made them for playgroup.

Mini Candy Cake

We had the Elders over for dinner from our church, and made mini candy cake.  Luckily they were brave souls and didn't think I was trying to kill them with sugar.  Mini cakes are so much more enjoyable I think, 6 inches is the perfect size to get nice mini piece of cake which is a necessity for this cake to prevent a sugar overdose.

 My six year old was very involved in the process.  We started with finding this idea for nerd confetti cupcakes on pinterest. Which is incredibly simple, just add nerds into white cake batter. Then instead of buttercream frosting I had been dying for some pudding frosting.  I add grape kool-aid to the frosting for extra candy taste, and for color.

Don't mind that there is a massive amount of frosting in the middle of my cake.  I live at 7,000 ft and well you try to make a cake that doesn't collapse in the middle at that altitude.  Just for perspective a lot of baking says, for high altitude (3,500 ft- 6,500 ft), and then how much flour to add.  Yes, I live higher than the instructions even list!  

So back to the frosting, in case you haven't had wonderful pudding frosting, here is the extremely simple recipe.  I didn't grow up eating pudding frosting, but luckily my mother in law makes it.

PUDDING FROSTING
1 (3 oz.) pkg. instant pudding, any flavor 1/4 c. powdered sugar 1 c. cold milk 1 (8 oz.) container Cool Whip, thawed Combine pudding, sugar and milk in bowl. Blend well. Fold in Cool Whip. Frost cakes and store in refrigerator.

from cooks.com

Before I added the cool whip I added in grape kool-aid powder.  I got the idea from this nerd cake recipe.

Look at her eyeing that cake, she just wants to smash her hand in it like she is on her first birthday.  By the way the frosting was so good, I probably consumed about 2 cups worth of it after I finished frosting the cake.  It was a mini cake after all and we didn't need all the frosting. 

We actually baked the cake on monday when we also made cupcakes.  I froze the cakes, and we ate a few cupcakes for FHE.  These are the few cupcakes that survived the week, and they ended up with some frosting too. On monday I just put straight cool whip on the cupcakes with nerds, because I didn't feel like making frosting, or have time.

 Overall the project was a success, my son is normally not a cake person and asked if I would make this next year for his birthday.

By the way part of the reason I love mini cakes, is very rarely do you have enough people over to eat a full size cake.  So I bake two round 6" cakes, for a mini cake, then cupcakes, this time I ended up with 24 mini cupcakes, 12 normal size cupcakes after the two 6" round cakes.  Now mind you I get a little bit more cake out of a box mix for some reason at this altitude, but that is two desserts right there.  Cupcakes for one party, a mini cake for the next dinner event.  According to this site you can freeze a well wrapped cake for a month. Not only is it healthier not to consume a whole cake, it saves money and time.

Strawberry Birthday

For the big 3-0 I thought my husband needed an actual cake, so I made him a tiered strawberry shortcake cake (pound cake).  It was very yummy I was pleased with how it turned out.

Butterfly Cake

We had a butterfly birthday party for my three year.  The girls all go butterfly wings, and butterfly wands.  Then we ate butterfly cake.  I made it myself, from a round cake. 

  My son was very concerned about eat pink cupcakes so I made three green cupcakes, which I realized could make into a cute Caterpillar. Not to be conceded but I was surprised at how well my butterfly turned out.  Just so you know if you cut up a cake to form a new shape it is necessary, no vital to freeze your cake, do a frosting crumb coat, freeze again then frost a finished layer.
Even though she was all over a butterfly party, my daughter kept talking about hello kitty cupcakes.  I could not find any cupcake toppers with hello kitty that were actually cute, so I made my own.  They are a little large, I didn't realize that at the time. Problem is you make the cupcake toppers before the cake.

 Hooray for 3rd parties.

A Pinkalicious kind of week

This post was suppose to be posted two weeks ago.

We accidentally had a pinkalicious week (two weeks ago).  We had a party for my daughter's preschool families, there are five girls in the class so I thought pink cupcakes were only fitting.  Then the next day my daughter picked out Pinkalicious at the library, we read it all week long, and which made the left over cupcakes she ate all week long that much better it was a fun week.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Icebox Cake- 6th Birthday

So normally I post what I have done.  But this is a plan.  My son thinks he likes cake, but yet his pieces of cake go virtually untouched.  One day he is going to grow up just a bit more and realize no matter how exciting cake is, he doesn't like it.  What he does love is chocolate chip cookies, so I'm hoping to make this for his birthday next year.  Yeah I'm planning like eight months in advance. Its from Martha Stewart's July 2011 issue.  Its a Chocolate Chip Cookie Icebox Cake.   

Can you believe I couldn't find a picture of it anywhere online?  So this is snapshot of the magazine.  I did find this blog that changed the recipe slightly, seems very useful. I'll have to try it earlier than 8 months from now.

Also, speaking of icebox cakes, I've always wanted to try this one. But it calls for Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer cookies, and considering they are hard to find in a B&M stores, and amazon makes you buy in bulk they are a little pricey and I've never thought my husband would appreciate $53 charge from Amazon for cookie to make a cake.   But then my mom came up with a great idea when I was talking to her about icebox cakes, use chocolate graham crackers, sure it would look different, and might taste different but I don't know what it tastes like anyway.  Although maybe they would go totally soggy.  I don't know, I'll have to try.

Mini Cakes

Mini cakes are my new favorite hobby. I've been interested in mini cakes for a long time now, made my first a year ago, but have recently become obsessed with the functionality of it, especially now that I have two mini (6") cake pans. I use two 6" cake pans from Wilton, with a box mix, then make cupcakes out of the left overs.  I have a beautiful small cake, more than enough cake for us to eat, with just enough left overs.  I freeze the cupcakes providing us with another desert on another day, preferably Monday night.  A mini cake fits on a dessert plate instead of a dinner plate.

Now I don't have to eat a whole cake in one week! I love it.  Plus they are so cute. Notice how that cake is smaller than my child's hand, and he doesn't even have large hands.

Gold Sprinkles

Two weeks ago I made this cake. I needed to pratice my birthday idea for almost 5 year old. I think the gold sprinkles are perfect for our gold birthday party. 

My cake looks a little lopisided doesn't it? I think it is just the camera angle agaisnt the white, I don't remember it shapped like that.

I made whipped cream frosting for the cake, because I wanted it to be fluffy looking.  It was my first time making it and it was so easy!  Everyone liked it in my family, but the downside is the cake has to be stored in the fridge, which can take up a lot of space.  I won't make it for the party though because I'm making cupcakes I think cupcakes are easier for kids to eat.

Here is what the Joy of Baking taught me about whipped cream frosting.

Whipped Cream Frosting:1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream (35-45% butterfat content)1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated white sugarChocolate Whipped Cream: To the above add1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder plus an additional 1 1/2 tablespoons (20 grams) granulated white sugarRaspberry Whipped Cream:Make the whipped creamAdd: 1/2 cup (120 ml) lightly sweetened raspberry puree or seedless raspberry jamStrawberry Whipped Cream:Make the whipped creamAdd: 1/2 cup (120 ml) lightly sweetenedstrawberry puree
Whipped Cream Frosting: In a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, vanilla extract, and sugar and stir to combine. Cover and chill the bowl and wire whisk in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. When chilled, beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.For chocolate whipped cream: Add the cocoa powder and additional sugar to the above mixture and chill for at least one hour so the cocoa powder has time to dissolve.  Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.For raspberry whipped cream:  Make the whipped cream but beat only until soft peaks form. Then add the sweetened raspberry puree, a little at a time, and beat just until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Taste and fold in more sugar or puree, if required.For strawberry whipped cream: Make the whipped cream but beat only until soft peaks form.  Then add the sweetened strawberry puree a little at a time, and beat just until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Taste and fold in more sugar or puree, if required.Makes about 2 cups of whipped cream frosting.Source:Beranbaum, Rose Levy.The Cake Bible. William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York: 1988.

Read more:http://www.joyofbaking.com/WhippedCreamFrosting.html#ixzz1DVrvk2q7

January Cake

Sometimes I just don't think there is enough time to consume all the treats you can make in December. 

So I figured snowman wasn't just christmas it was all winter right? So we made this little number in the middle of January. J couldn't stop asking when we were going to make his snowman cake. 

It was so easy! 

Just a round cake, slathered in cool whip, blueberries for the eyes and mouth, and an orange slice for the nose.

Birthday Treats

My daughter turned 2, so I spent a whole day baking.
First these:

Then these:

To get this:

(she is my christmas baby that is why she has the name she does, so I wanted do a christmas theme cake before she is old enough to talk and request something.)

I left over cake batter so I made a small cake to eat the day of her actual birthday.  Her party was the day before.  Sure its lopsided, part of it didn't come out of the pan... but it tasted good.

I don't know what anyone else thought, but I thought it was all super yummy, homemade gingerbread cookies, with spice cake and cream cheese frosting. The frosting was some of the best I've made, in my opinion, just the right about of cream cheesy, I don't know if all 6 cousin that attended are just polite or if the tartness of the cream cheese didn't bother them. None of them complained!

GoldBug Cake

My brother's birthday is coming up, so I made a cake for him yesterday. His favorite cake is lemon, so I decided months ago when I saw one on the internet that I wanted to make him a goldbug cake. Yellow frosting is so fitting for a lemon cake. If you don't know who Goldbug is from Richard Scarry's Busytown is, you missed out in your childhood. Unfortunately I can't link you to my muse, because I can't find it in google images.  But I did find this fine number, and I'm so jealous of this girl for thinking of it first. I first found that cool shirt when I was making goldbug the stuff animal.

I did goldbug for my adult brother, because J is too old for goldbug at this point, and N is a girl and might never find it cool. I wasn't even half way done with goldbug, when my husband glanced over and said, hey you doin' goldbug? There is a reason I love that man. But this is a picture of not my husband but my brother.

I loved the cake so much, I'm almost sad its tasty and we ate it. Which is why we have pictures, so I can always remember how cute my goldbug cake was.

In honor of the cake, N babe held the goldbug toy all through dinner.  She had just woken up from a nap and was quite lethargic.

A for ...

We have a lot of baby blessings in my family because my husband and I have a lot of siblings so a lot of babies are born.  My sister's daughter was blessed a few weeks ago, I of course made desert, A is for her name, and green because its the new pink. 

 

And why not a chocolate cake because my dad's family likes chocolate cake.

 

 

Before it is Unseasonal

 For the large third of July BBQ we had at my grandma's house, my son and I made Jello flags, with strawberries, blueberries and cool whip.  He had been asking to make these since anyone who gets a magazine for families, children, mothers, women anything has probably seen this design advertised. 

Our of course our jello flags don't look perfect, but at least my kid does (sort of minus the bruised face, messy hair, and dirty shirt). Isn't he cute? My son almost did the whole flag design himself, I helped a little bit with when to start and stop, but he filled it in himself.

Don't believe me, he later showed me this, he made sure to find a white floor to built it on. 

I'm sure my sister in law is grateful for a cameo on my craft blog.  J was pretty disappointed that both things of jello were eaten so when  my sister in law asked me to bring a dessert on the 5th to her house, I quickly made a box cake and repeated the design this time with raspberries, I like the raspberry look better.

In the words of my brother I got a lot of millage out of this design.