M-I-C-see you real soon-K-E-Y!!!!

I know I am showing my age because it’s no longer The Mickey Mouse Club, it’s Mickey Mouse Club House. They don’t sing that any more it’s ‘mishka mushka mickey mouse’ and the ‘hot dog dance’, even with the changes he still seems to very popular. As of February and I have already gotten 2 requests for Mickey cakes.

I was asked to make a Mickey cake and some other kind of dessert for a small family 1st Birthday party. We decided to use small round pans to form and frost as a Mickey head. We finally land on mini-cheesecakes with fruit toppings on the side for the dessert for everyone else.

Girls just wanna have fun.......

So my son goes with my mother, his Nana, on Sunday mornings and my husband had drill this weekend so it was just me and my girl :o) She is forever wanting to help me especially in the kitchen. I found a fun little cake that we can make for dessert tonight after dinner and surprise our boys. Dirt cake, because boys like getting dirt and worms!

We headed out to get the supplies and I wouldn’t tell her what we were up too so she was VERY confused to say the least about our list. Oreos, pudding, whipped cream, gummi worms and a pail/shovel LOL

Once we get home I let her in on the secret. She was excited and on board. I let her do most of the ‘work’ for the cake.

I used some left over buttercream frosting to make some grass. The cake was a hit, mostly the serving it with the shovel :o)

Fudgy Puddles...AKA Chocolate heaven wrapped in a peanut butter cookie!

Ok, really, where could a cookie that contains chocolate and peanut butter go wrong? I don't even think it's possible. I even doubt anyone baking with those 2 ingredients could not get a perfect result.

This time I was searching Allrecipes.com as opposed to Google, surprising I know, when I came across these little gems! 

Have you ever had a peanut butter blossom? The cookie with the Hershey kiss in the middle? These are very similar. These cookies are not coated in sugar though and are baked in a mini-muffin tin. The chocolate center uses chocolate chips as opposed to the kisses. That eliminates the pesky task of unwrapping 48 pieces of candy just to make the cookie. I started all the ingredients for the centers in the 'double boiler' after I was done mixing the batter for the cookie.  (Disclaimer...I don't yet own a REAL double boiler, I will tho *hint to my AWESOME husband that read my blog, Mother's Day is in May* For now tho I use to pans)

So now have everything ready to go your first tray comes out of the oven. While they are still hot you use a melon baller to make the 'puddle'. That was interesting. I figured out you have to be creative with moving it around to get a good divot, just pressing it straight down doesn't work. Then the cool for a while in the muffin pan. Having more then one pan makes this project go quicker. Now to fill...

Anyone that knows me knows that for some reason I need things to be 'even'. When a recipe calls for filling to make 'x' amount I will break out the food scale, a bowl and calculator to even distribute said filling. Well with these you can't. The chocolate would certainly harden before any ever made it into the cookie. So with my OCD screaming 'no this is wrong' I start spooning chocolate into puddles. It wasn't the easiest task but certainly not the hardest either. I will be buying a pouring funnel before the next batch!

All in all, the project was easy and DELICIOUS! 

Ooooops, Did I do that?

So as I create something new (or re-create if I get the idea from Google) I get SO excited and squeal "Isn't that freakin adorable?" as I show my family. Well......

Today my daughter comes home and I am working in the kitchen and as she walks thru she looks at my project and says "tell me that's not freakin adorable". Oh no, what have I started??? My 6yr old has captured my phrase

We had the 'what's Ok and not Ok' to say at school conversation. The last thing I need is her turning in her pictograph asking her teacher "isn't that freakin adorable?". I have a feeling that our next parent teacher conference would be a lot different then the last.

Crisis averted, I think. Times like this just reassure me that the decision we made when she was born to not swear (well do our best) around her and any future children was the right one! Pat on the back for myself and the husband :o)

Who could imagine anything but sweet words from this mouth?? :o)

My First Buttercream Cake

In an effort to learn more and enhance my skill set, I am taking the Wilton Courses at a local craft store. This cake was my final project for course 1. It is a small round cake with buttercream ribbon roses on the top. I am very proud of this, mostly because the frosting on the cake is almost completely flat and smooth!!! The picture quality isn't the greatest because I took it with my cell phone and my cake container was too small so it got squished on the drive home. I will be remaking this again at the end of the month for a friends daughters Birthday. Check back for a better, updated picture.