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.

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.

Beautiful Frosting

I'm pretty sure there are few things as beautiful in the world as white frosting. What did I do with such pretty white frosting you make ask?

Turned it muddy brown purple for bunnies. Few things in our life is as important as old bunny, so I bought a carrot cookie cutter to complement an Easter bunny. The funny thing is, the other day in the store I was trying to buy lime green frosting dye, when my son asked for brown. I said no, and thought brown is ugly. He said I like brown, he does old bunny is brown, his eyes are brown, his hair is brown. I said I can make brown, a few aisles later I thought hmm, I can't make brown, I can only make various shades of ugly purple hues. I didn't turn around, maybe one day I will buy brown dye if I can remember. He didn't seem to notice the ugly purple hue, he keeps telling me these cookies are very special to me. I can only share them with aunts, and cousins, and etc (listing off every other relative, but never friends).

I kind of agree, I might love them as much as my four year old. Its hard not to eat them while he is asleep. Its soo much easier to eat a pretty cookie.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

For our celebration, I pulled out 5 left over unfrosted cupcakes from my son's birthday from the freezer, and we frosted them with green frosting. We had way more frosting then cupcakes, so we also decorated graham crackers. I'm a fan of frosting and graham crackers. I will admit this was a selfish celebration, I got two new frosting tips last week, and wanted to try them out. First was the basket weave.
Second was the grass/hair tip. This is my favorite tip. Does this look like grass?We also got out the other tips, and played around with the leaf one.I gave my son a chance to decorate his cupcake, before he got too bored with my fun.
It took me forever to figure out how to make a shamrock with the leaf tip. I finally figured out to do it backwards.
My son resurfaced to eat shamrock graham crackers. He remembered they were called shamrocks, from a St. Patrick's Day book we got from the library, it was very informative. We learned all about the catholic/irish holiday.
Here are some finished products of the shamrock graham crackers.
I was thinking it would be fun once my kids were in school, to send them these in their lunches on Saint Patrick's Day. I always liked the holiday a lot, since my middle name is Erin, and my parents always told us our last name was Irish, although I'm not sure if I believe them, I think it might actually be English.
We finished off the day eating, potatoes. Are potatoes Irish? My husband was telling me about the Irish during Europe's Potato famine, so in my mind we needed potatoes.