Chocolate Baumkuchen

My Mom shows you how to make this very impressive and delicious cake HERE. Yum!

April Foolin'!

My camera is broken right now, so I thought I would post some pictures from last year's April Fool's Day dinner.

First - dessert for dinner! "Ice Cream Sundaes" made from popcorn chicken, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a cherry tomato on top.
I really got Logan good on this one! He was so excited to have ice cream for dinner! Then he took a bite, got a confused look on his face and said, "This isn't ice cream! It's smashed potatoes!"
Next - veggies for dessert. This awesome cupcake idea is from the coolest cupcake book ever, Hello Cupcake! The "mixed veggies" are really green Runts candies and cut orange Starburst candies.
The "mashed potatoes" are just vanilla frosting with a yellow Starburst candy "butter" swimming in caramel sauce "gravy." For once, the kids didn't mind eating all their veggies!

Happy Birthday, BSA!

I know this is a little late, but the Boy Scouts of America celebrated their 100th birthday last month. Andrew and I made a cake together for his Blue and Gold Banquet. I wanted to make a rectangle cake decorated with fondant to look like a Scout shirt with the patches and neckerchief and everything, BUT Bryan said I needed to "tone it down a bit" this time. So this is what we came up with. Andrew helped me mix the batter and bake the chocolate cake, then I frosted it with butter cream and piped the royal icing design and Andrew helped me flood the design. Then I added the blue shell border. When we were finished, Andrew asked, "Is there going to be a contest for the best cake? Not that OURS would ever win or anything, I was just wondering." Thanks a lot, Buddy!It's so funny that I have a son in Scouts! I remember going to Pack Meetings and Blue and Gold Banquets with my brothers....and now it's MY SON up there in the uniform doing the silly skit with his den! Crazy! Andrew is really loving Scouting and is especially proud of his uniform. He's even asked me on more than one occasion if he can wear his Scout shirt to school! He has already completed his Bobcat and is working on his Wolf. It's fun to see him so excited about it!

Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake

My daughter is a big fan of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so I decided to make a Minnie Mouse cake for her 2nd birthday. After looking at several cakes on the Internet, I came across this cake by Ban Bakes, and wanted to do something similar.
Notice the sweet little finger pokes on top? They were from the birthday girl, who sneaked up on the table while my back was turned. It was her cake, so I couldn't get too mad at her. ;)
The base is two 10-inch round layers of strawberry cake with butter cream icing, covered in pink fondant with white fondant polka dots. The head is also strawberry cake baked in a little glass mixing bowl on top of a 6-inch round cake and covered in black fondant. The ears and bow were sculpted from gum paste.

Memo to me: Learn how to better color gum paste black! After attempting several methods of dying and painting the ears (unsuccessfully), I ended up spray painting them out of total desperation 30 minutes before the party. I know, it's not edible, how embarrassing! (Don't worry, we didn't serve the top layer of cake!) Gettting the ears to stay in position was also a nightmarish feat of engineering accomplished by my husband, Mom, and Dad. Thanks guys! Next time I'll get longer skewers; little toothpicks didn't do the job very well.


I wanted to pipe, "Happy Birthday, Hannah" in black, but I ran out of time and powdered sugar. I think the birthday girl liked it anyway.Happy Birthday, Little Lady!

CTR Cookies

"Choose The Right" sugar cookies for my son's baptism dinner. Thanks for the cookie cutter, Mom!