Birthday Cake Fun

My sweet Miriam had her 5th birthday! I can't believe it. She is such a fun girl. Since Christmas she has been talking about having a rudolph (family) party and cake. I was kind of hoping that by the time May rolled around she might forget, but she did not. We have listened to Christmas music in the car nonstop for months. So I found myself having to make a rudolph cake. I am not the best at creative cakes in general. I am pretty proud of how it turned out. I went google images and just pulled up an image of rudolph from the movie and used it as an outline. She wanted brownies instead of cake. Awesome! Because I don't really love cake and Brownies were much easier to work with.



I made the extra pieces on top out of sugar cookies dough. I just traced the outlines of the ears, eye, and antlers onto the dough. I used a mini york mint for the eye and a red gumball was the perfect solution for the nose. It was a hit. Gone in seconds, because brownies are so much better than cake and so are sugar cookies. All the kids went crazy over the gumballs, so it is good I bought extra. I love that this girl thinks out of the box and is not afraid to follow through. She was teased by her sister for months that she wanted rudolph, but Miriam stuck with it without a care in the world. Love that girl



The hubby had a Birthday too. Just last week. He made it easy on me (so nice since I am 8 months pregnant and still not on a first name basis with my kitchen). He chose key lime pie, which I made, and a costco bought apple pie (awesome, I didn't have to slave over it, bless him).



The key lime pie recipe came from a Betty Crocker Cookbook that we got for a our wedding, I think it is even the Bridal edition (aka: non baking savvy people).

TWD: Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Muffins

My kids say "a muffin is just an ugly cupcake", but I disagree!! A muffin is so much more... THIS muffin is so much more!! Its rich and dense and chocolatey. Because it isn't so sweet, you can really taste and appreciate the bittersweet chocolate. The flavor is SOOOOO spectacular. I think it really pays to use a high-quality chocolate. Plus, any time you can eat chocolate for breakfast, I'm in!! What? Its legit. Muffins are a breakfast food. They are.

My sweet boy was being so patient waiting for his muffin. We all agreed, it was worth the wait!! It didn't take long though, these came together in a snap!! Next time I may let the kids make them. Thanks Bridget at "The Way The Cookie Crumbles" for this weeks choice!! If you would like to give it a try (and I'm sure you do) click here. :)

TWD-A little late...

This month has been a bit hectic. You would think with Summer and all there would be more time but that hasn't happened yet. I thought one of the other girls had posted already this month, but somehow with one cross-country move and one very pregnant sister things have been a bit unorganized so we didn't have all our ducks in a row. That said, I am going to make the Sour Cream Chocolate Cake Cookies sometime this week. On Friday night I was cleaning the front of my oven with my handy steamer and was trying to get under the glass to get some of the gunk out when the entire piece of glass fell out and shattered all over the floor. Thankfully I was the only person in the kitchen at the time and it only gave me a small cut on the top of my foot. I found a replacement online but can't use my oven until it comes. Ooops! The part should be here tomorrow so my goal is to post but do so a day late.

If you want the recipe now, head on over and check it out here. My review will be coming soon!

TWD-Caramel Pots de Creme

What doesn't sound good about a dessert with the words "caramel" and "creme" in it? I would have been crazy to pass on this one! Funny thing is, I totally forgot that I needed to make it so we had our minimum of 2 posts this month. Things have been busy with the end of school and what not so this afternoon I remembered and got right to it. Thankfully, I had all of the ingredients in the house and didn't have to run to the store. We had whole milk thanks to having a 15-month-old in the house. We had heavy cream thanks to a yummy fruit crisp we had after dinner on Sunday. And, of course, we had plenty of sugar, eggs and vanilla. We keep the pantry well-stocked around here because I can't seem to go more than a few days without getting the baking bug and wanting to make something. It's a good thing we have neighbors who love it when we share our goodies!


I decided to half the recipe so there was enough for sampling but not too much, resulting in overindulgence! The recipe was simple and came together quickly. The most time-consuming part was caramelizing the sugar. I followed Dorie's instructions to use plastic wrap over the top while the custards baked, unfortunately it didn't work very well for me. Maybe my plastic wrap was too cheap? When I removed the pan from the oven, the plastic wrap had split down the middle right between the two holes I had put in it. Thank goodness it didn't melt and ruin the dessert! I pulled off the plastic as soon as it came out.


The pots de crème came out of the oven a bit darker than I thought they were going to be. I wonder if it had something to do with the plastic wrap not really doing it's job? It didn't seem to affect the flavor in a negative way. The custard was creamy and had the a subtle hint of the caramelized sugar. It was delicious!


This is a recipe I would definitely make again when company came for dinner. It was simple, quick and amazingly good. If you are interested in the recipe, which I'm sure you are, head on over to Peggy's blog.


Until our next post! Happy Baking!

TWD: Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

I am not sure why but this one always caught my eye when flipping through Dorie's book over the last few years. Maybe it is because I LOVE brown sugar. It smells good and as a child I used to sneak spoonfuls or finger fulls of brown sugar whenever it was out on the counter. The best part of making this recipe is that my house smells like brown sugar at it's best. Anyone who walks into my house can smell the sweet aroma. I almost don't want to make dinner, because I don't want to mix beef and cumin in with brown sugar. Maybe we will have to stick with something not as smelly....hmmm pancakes anyone.



This cake uses ground walnuts as part of the dry ingredients and I could not help but add some chopped walnuts to the cake as well. I left out the almond extract and prunes, neither are to my liking. The cake tastes as good as it smells. I may have to give some away tonight. A whole bundt cake will not work well in this house. The hubby is trying to lighten his load to say it best and the kids never like anything that is truly delicious. Who can I bring this to?


Now to figure out my next baking adventure. My 4yr old turns 5 on Saturday and has requested a Rudolph the red nose reindeer cake. She mentioned it at Christmas and I thought I would cross that bridge when it came (hoping she would forget), but here I am trying to figure out how to make a Rudolph cake and I am not the best at making decorative cakes. Wish me luck. If you have any ideas please comment and let me know what you would do.

If you are interested in making this bundt head on over to Pantry Revisited by Peggy.

TWD-Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies

When April sent out the email with the April recipes, the name of these little cookies caught my attention. I don't know why but I'm glad they did. They were a snap to put together. I didn't roll them out in a sheet as the recipe suggests, instead I rolled them into a log and then cut them before baking. The sweet, lemony smell was divine. As I write this they are cooling upstairs. I'm not sure if I will get to tasting these tonight or if it will have to wait until tomorrow. With Easter I am a bit sugared out and as lovely as these smell, and I'm sure taste, I just don't have it in me to eat anything else sweet!

If you are interested in the full recipe, head on over to Valerie's blog.

Happy Baking!

TWD: Chocolate Ice Cream Tart

One day Late:

I finally got this done. It took a lot for me to get this done. Between kid craft projects, play dates, playing at the park, and cleaning up after EVERYONE I got this done. It isn't pretty, but it is pretty good. I was a little disappointed that the edges of my crust got a little darker than I wanted. I probably should have covered the crust in tin foil as well as the base. I thought the crust would be hard, but when I tasted it, it was fine.

The original recipe was for Coffee ice cream. I don't love the coffee flavor, but of course I do love chocolate. After I had already made the crust I had a stroke of genius and thought it would be amazing with a butter pecan ice cream and replace the almonds in the crust with pecans. Seriously I have got to try that. I love the salty sweet taste of butter pecan icecream.

If you are interested in the recipe head on over to Domestice Deep Thought of the Day.