Baby Gender Reveal Party

For the maybe two readers I have left on my blog here is a post! Very overdue I know but I realize that the more forgetful my mind becomes the more I really need this blog to remember. (I am backdating it to August so it is a little closer to reality)

We decided with this baby to find out what we are having. It has been different with each pregnancy and I do prefer the surprise in the end. But, we needed to figure out bedroom arrangements so did find out. It was very anticlimactic to be sure. I went in for the routine checking dates, make sure baby is growing as normal, etc. The ultrasound was a sleep-inducing hour with spa music in the background, dim lighting, very little communication unless I asked questions or said dumb things which I typically do if no one is talking. And then she told me we were done. But we hadn't found out if it was a boy or girl yet. She went back and checked and kind of murmured, "Oh, it's a ____". That's it? I need bells and whistles going off and a big booming announcement like when the doctor pulls the baby out. Oh well, I had a gender reveal party planned so that would be my excitement.

I first came across the idea of a gender reveal party on pinterest, where else? There are so many good ideas but apparently, not everyone has heard of this because I had some asking me what exactly that meant.

Here are pictures from that night...

Our Smores bar, which is kind of difficult to see and not as cute as I had envisioned but it worked. We had various kinds of marshmallows, chocolates, graham crackers/cookies/granola bars thins and some fruit. 

Everyone marked on the chalkboard what gender they thought baby was. Many people commented that they figured it was a girl because we were having the party. But in truth, I had the party planned before we had our ultrasound. I should have taken a picture of the entire chalkboard. George had updated it to say -- Week 20 baby is the size of a banana which was mid-July.

John cutting the cake to reveal baby's gender. You can see Pete in the background getting ready to spray silly string. I wish I would have taken a picture of that as the boys were spraying it all around the food.

 I saw the idea of making a blue or pink cake but I prefer chocolate so instead colored the frosting between layers, which you can't tell, and put M&M's in the center that were supposed to spill out upon cutting. But, they got stuck on the frosting.

And....it's a GIRL!!! George and I had shopped for the candy center before we knew and it happened to be that the raspberry flavored M&M's were on sale so I bought two bags figuring I would get the blue and white mint ones at another store. But I never needed to do that! The filling was strawberry frosting and the topping was a cooked marshmallow frosting.

Baby's ultrasound picture. I love the profile as she looks just like my other babies and it amazes me that we can already see that. Her nose is slightly turned up just like her big sister's. We had a name suggestion basket and it was quite the interesting selection there. I don't know why but I struggle more with girl's names and actually had two boy's names ready to go.

We had a fun night celebrating our little one to come. If I were to do it again I would have had the baby's gender in an envelope and had my Mom make the cake so that we could have been surprised so I could have had the excitement too.

Oh, and we told our children and my parents earlier because I couldn't wait and bought cookies with "girl-colored" sprinkles on.

February In a Nutshell

Here is our busy yet fun month in review....

Missy was playing outside enjoying all of the ice in our field from the big melt then big freeze. She slipped and fell on her head. But as you can see she healed quickly.

Here she is at a birthday party at an ice skating rink learning to skate. Her brothers are in the background. The kids love skating so I have been on a quest to find skates for them. It also helped that a portion of our field turned into a rink. Pete had the best time and went out every chance he could.  Oh why didn't I get a picture?

My Valentine Chalkboard. Not an original design. I am good at copying things and putting my own spin on them.

I found this idea online (of course) and it was perfect for John. I pretended I was sleeping when he woke for his shower and snuck in the bathroom to put love notes on the mirror. He was so surprised and loved it! Would be fun and such an encouragement for your husband for any occasion. 

And of course our Valentine meal. We also had a "red meal" at my parents house the Sunday before. After all the idea originated with my Mom but the pictures must be on her camera.

And the highlight of our month was the 4H Music and Drama Festival. The kids worked so hard for this and they WON!!! I'll post more on that when the video is online.

Pete and RePete wanted to have a kids birthday party last year for their 10th but being that there wasn't any snow and they wanted to go sledding it didn't happen. Last month when it was their birthday the snow had melted but we were not disappointed and got enough for a lot of fun a month later.

I was looking for a Hobbit theme and came across a Settler's of Catan theme they liked better. She even had printable downloads to use to label the food and such.

The boys (12 in all) and one little girl went sledding first then came back to play Settlers of Catan and snack on food.

Then it was back outside to play "war". A favorite thing to play around here. And of course Little Miss gets in on the action too. John and I thanked Pete and RePete for including Missy and Seppy too in their party and they looked confused saying "Why wouldn't we?" I LOVE that everyone is included!

Here she is with her pink gun in hand. Makes me smile. :)

Maybe next month I'll actually get my pictures into individual posts. Haha!

Lego Hobbit Birthday Cake

While I love to celebrate birthdays it is not always the easiest having children that share a party and each want their own cake. January is especially difficult in that three boys share the celebration. Pete and Re-Pete have never had a problem sharing a cake but Tank really enjoys his own. Only one year they shared a large castle. This time we searched pinterest of course and found ideas for a football layered cake for Pete and Re-Pete and a Hobbit hole cake for Tank. But as the day drew nearer I dreaded having to make two different cakes and came up with the idea of making three hobbit holes. Afterall, John had just taken the four older boys to see the movie which they thoroughly enjoyed. Thankfully we convinced the three boys that it was a good idea also. In the end, I am not sure that it was any easier than two different cakes but it was fun and turned out better than I had hoped.

The boys and I all collaborated on various ideas to add or change things based on the Lego Lord of the Rings game and pictures of Hobbit holes. Each boy would have a door in a favorite color (Re-Pete decided on blue instead of his favorite orange).

Now, the hardest part for me is all of the baking and frosting making. That was especially the case as Re-Pete and Tank wanted chocolate and Pete wanted carrot. And according to the boys, in the movie Bilbo has a green door which is at the top of the hill but we could not be technically accurate on this point because Pete wanted a green door but in keeping with the different flavors of cake his had to be in the middle. I don't know that it really matters.

I am posting a few pictures of the assembly as that is what I always wish I would find when looking for ideas online. Here is the chocolate side. You can see that it doesn't have look nice as one of my layers didn't come out of the pan very well (or rather I was in a hurry and didn't let it cool long enough). The hobbit holes are made out of round layers. So for the chocolate side I baked two 9X13's and one 9 inch and one 8 inch round.

For the carrot side I baked one 9X13 and two rounds the same as with the chocolate. I cut a portion off the back of the 9X13 and added it to make the back of the hobbit hole. If I was doing only one hobbit hole I think I'd try baking it in a batter bowl instead to avoid having the tiers which I suppose I could have leveled out. The chimney's were made out of scraps from the chocolate cake. The reason the chocolate side has frosting is because we were waiting for the carrot cake to cool and didn't want to waste time. George and Pete took turns piping on some grass after I put a thin layer of green. Didn't get this all together in time to freeze it first to avoid crumbs but that is the beauty of piping. It covers crumbs quite well!

Here is the next day -- cake complete! Next time I really, really need to bake a week in advance! 

Let's go on a tour. We'll start at the bottom which is Re-Pete's door. We all liked this hole the best in how it blended into the "hillside" so well. Re-Pete put Sam at his door sweeping up the gravel. You can see I was getting lazy as the grass is kind of crazy in places. But the boys reminded me that Hobbits don't have lawnmowers so that was okay. :)

Next we have Pete's green door which is Bilbo's door. At this point in time though we didn't have Bilbo so this is Frodo I believe (if it matters to you). The doors were made out of Wilton candy melts. I put 5 in a circle on wax paper, melted, and spread out then put a cookie cutter over to make the perfect shape. It has to be cut out before it dries or it will break. We lightly cut the lines in the door and the boys used a toothpick to make it look more rustic.

One of the boys got Bilbo for a gift and so we added him later. And if you look closely on the door you can see Gandolf's sign which the boys made sure I put on. The bricks around the door are made from modeling chocolate that John's cousin recommended I try. (Thanks for the tip Colleen!)

And here is Tank's yellow door. For the flagstone on the chimneys and doorways I used white chocolate chips and corn syrup dyed with a bit of black (modeling chocolate as above). I didn't like the white near as much as the chocolate as it was much drier and in turn I ended up chopping much of it up for the gravel. I also found with white chips it didn't need to be refrigerated as the recipe said. Tank also added a bench and a garden made from Nerds. The yellow ones are the weeds that Frodo is removing. We thought of adding windows but there wasn't enough time to add more. And we had wanted a chocolate fence but pretzels was the last minute thing. Dirt was crumbled up cake.

There you have it! It was quite a process but the boys all helped as much as they could and put everything where it needed to go. After all of that work it sure was hard to cut into it though! But it sure did taste good too!

Garden Cake and Dirt Cake

I know, a little over a month behind. But....For Missy and Seppy's birthday party I thought we'd go with something easy and make two dirt cakes. I planned that Missy's would be in a cute pot with flowers on top and Seppy's would be in a pail with gummy worms. Well, Sep went along with my plan but of course Missy Blue had plans of her own. I was a little surprised that she wanted an actual cake as she does not especially like cake but "everyone else does". Admittedly I was a little irritated in the beginning because her plans would be much more work. But I am truly thankful that she has a creative little mind and is able to express that. And in the end many hands made light work. Somehow I forget that everyone here likes to be creative so I don't have to look far for help.

Missy wanted to have a garden cake. A friend of theirs had entered one in the County Fair and so we went online and found some ideas. That along with the Hello Cupcake book from my sister and we had our design.

The cake was a chocolate 9 X 13 cake made with a recipe and a half so that it baked higher. I had planned on making two layers but it was much easier this way.

We covered it in a light layer of chocolate frosting although in hindsight that wasn't really necessary. and we could have used all green. The dirt was made with crushed oreos which worked perfectly with Sep's dirt cake. The arrangement of the veggies was done by Missy of course.

The kids all shaped the veggies out of Starburst and Airheads candy. Although the orange starburst is not anything close to the color of a pumpkin so I added a bit of orange food coloring to it and mixed it. Lettuce is cornflakes mixed with melted butter, marshmallow, almond extract and green coloring (like Christmas wreath cookies -- yum!) and topped with an M&M.

The carrots were made out of portions of candy corn. The original carrots were shaped out of starbursts but looked so pale that we turned them into potatoes and rolled them in "dirt".

Pete added his own creative touch in making cobs of corn (something we didn't see in any examples). And then he went on to pipe the "grass".

Seppy really liked Missy's cake and decided that next year he will have a cake that is more fun too! But he definitely thought his tasted better!

Guitar Cake for the Birthday Boy

George had a hard time deciding what he wanted for his birthday cake this year. Chocolate cake has always been his cake of choice, with varying designs. But, he loves cheesecake in many flavors and fondly recalls a wedding reception he went to where there was a cheesecake buffet. Oh delight! So, he thought he wanted that instead. But he also likes guitars and a guitar cake would be fun. Oh, the dilemma. His days of shaped/decorated cakes is most likely nearing an end and so ultimately he decided to go with the guitar cake.

We found some online that looked nice and then he sketched out the colors he wanted it to be. I think it would have been a bit easier to use the shaped cake pan for this as he ended up baking two 10 inch rounds and one loaf pan. That was a lot of baking and it turned out to be a big cake. (We had to use the cover of a large storage bin to put it on.) He chose chocolate cherry this year.

George decorated the cake himself and it did not turn out quite as he envisioned which often happens to me too. The colors weren't exactly the same as his drawing so he put a blue sparkle gel around and spread it to give it a variegated look.

Another problem was the heat of the day. Since the cake was so big it did not fit in the refrigerator to keep the frosting solid. So, the handle is a bit melted and the frosting kind of slide down so that the gumdrop tuning pegs fell. He also had a hard time getting those strings straight. The idea we saw used licorice stings which would have worked well but George didn't want black strings and thought white frosting would look better.

George's 13th Birthday Cake baked and decorated by George himself. Not bad for a 13 year old boy! This is the 3rd cake he has decorated by himself. (Oh, I think Pete may have pipped a bit here too.)

Little did George know that he was also getting a new guitar for his birthday!

My Two Cake Decorators

This is a month behind but I wanted to post pictures of the birthday cake George and Pete made for me this year. Usually my Mom or sister will decorate one but since the boys have had a few cake decorating lessons as a project for 4H I thought they could handle it.

At their last lesson they learned how to make flowers which is something I have never done! The flowers turned out so nicely, that although tempted to eat them, they decided to freeze them to save to put on my birthday cake. I thought they might as well make the cake for me too. To make it a bit easier for them I caved and bought a cake mix. I helped with the raspberry whipped cream frosting but they put it all together. 

It turned out even better than I imagined!

I love to see how far the boys have come in decorating cakes. It wasn't too long ago they "assisted" my Mom in putting fruit on a cake only a mother could love. (I think I need to dig out that picture!)

 

The Cakes (Nascar and Jeep)

I was recently ogling over an adorable theme birthday party with everything very crafty and coordinating. I have longed to do that for my children but alas, that has only happened maybe once over the years. But in that post she reminded me that you don't have to have garland punched out of scrapbook paper sewn together. That was her "thing" but she didn't make all of the food or a special cake. So you take what you can do or what is important to you and make your child feel special and they will have memories because of that.

So it seems the highlight of our birthday parties are the cakes the children pick out for me to make. Pete and Re-Pete very often share one which is helpful and they agreed on what they wanted awhile ago -- a Nascar racetrack. Okay, no problem there since I've made race tracks before. Green frosting -- what's new? -- and a bit of dirt. They each have a different flavor they prefer but have been taking turns at which one to choose. Let me tell you, these two are the best at sharing (unfortunately only with each other). This year it was Re-Pete's choice of Pumpkin cake.

Yes, I know their real names appear here but need to for the full effect.

This didn't turn out as I had envisioned but that's what happens when you have a baby and life is not quite back to normal. I had major problems with my cream cheese frosting. I'm not really sure what happened since I've made it so many times before with never an issue. So, I wasn't able to pipe it on as it was too runny and had some lumps and lumps to NOT work with a grass tip.

This was one 11 X 15 cake trimmed to an oval and I plopped on the green frosting and then used some of the yellow frosting I had with Tank's cake and made it green to pipe on the grass. If I did this one again I would use chocolate frosting for the track rather than the crumbs. I didn't think chocolate frosting would taste as good as cream cheese frosting which is why I didn't. But that would have looked better and not been as messy. I piped on a ring of chocolate (very sloppy) to cover up some of the crumb edge.  My favorite part of this cake was the Nascar signs I made for their names. The checkered flag with number 10 was Re-Pete's idea.

It took Tank a bit longer to decide as he seems to take after me in his indecisiveness. For the longest time he would look longingly at a picture of a barn yard cake but then when it comes time to really choose he changes his mind. After seeing a picture of Jeep cakes I did years ago he decided he wanted that cake done in his favorite color -- yellow (Oh how I miss when he used to say "lello").

But again, being in a hurry with this I had a few mishaps. The first was that I forgot to put baking powder in the batter and ended up with a flat and rubbery cake which was very interesting. The second cake, also an 11X15, turned out beautifully and I cut off a portion to put on the top but forgot to put frosting between the layers (which I didn't notice until cutting into it). Then I ended up running out of chocolate so the top was just a thin layer of frosting rather than piping and the back and part of the side had more yellow. I was beginning to feel as if this was the first time I was decorating a cake! 


I usually make all of my own frosting but the chocolate was from a can. And in piping I used a small freezer bag (which I typically do) and it burst open on me spilling onto the counter. Oh well, Tank didn't mind all of this. He wanted to help and so he took a turn doing some of the piping too. He would have done more if I was doing it at a reasonable time of day. :) 


The chocolate donuts for the wheels were hard to find as I could not remember where I got them last time. I thought from the bakery but apparently not seeing as I went to three stores with no success. My Dad found the Entemann's boxed donuts for me and saved the day! My favorite part of this cake is the small picture of Tank in the window which is an idea I took from a cake my sister made years ago.

Toy Story cake and Flower cake

You may have seen pictures of the birthday cakes in the individual birthday posts but I thought I'd post two closeups and details.

I find I have a harder time making a girly cake but I assume that is because I haven't had as much practice. Afterall, I've been making cakes for boys since George was little and I remember his first few cakes and how they looked (not that great). So I have kind of perfected that type by now. But flowers I have not done, especially the kind I really would like to tackle one of these days. We found a picture of a flower cake online that Missy really liked and it was a simple design and so I basically copied that. My frosting ended up a little watery for part of this so it didn't pipe on for outlining as smoothly as I would have liked. I tried to convince Missy that she should share a cake with Seppy and then I could make a nice big Toy Story one but no go on that!

The top flowers I drew with a toothpick, spread thin layers of frosting for the petals and then outlined them in that same frosting  and then in white. Pete assisted in adding grass (probably my favorite frosting tip) to the bottom.

Seppy loves all things Toy Story ("Stoy Stoy") and so I knew I wanted to do a cake along those lines. I found ideas and my favorite was a three layer with the bottom representing Woody, the middle representing Buzz and the top had a bed on it or the words "Toy Story". I sketched a few ideas and then Sep picked what he liked. This is the one I really wanted to decorate but George volunteered and I wasn't about to pass up help on this. So, he followed my design and pipped all of the frosting on for me. It turned out nicely and I am finding that yet again letting others help helps me more and more to go with the flow and not be overly concerned with perfection (cake decorating may be one of the only areas I really have that tendency anymore).

I had wanted to pipe frosting dots along the top and bottom edge but didn't feel like mixing up so many colors of frosting so Tank suggested Skittles and that worked great. The stars and cow spots are made from rolled out Tootsie rolls. Ideally, I would have preferred black spots and they sell edible paper in various colors but I couldn't justify spending more than necessary.

Packer Jersey Birthday Cake

The theme for cakes around here seems to be football lately. The other boys had helmets for their birthday and George selected a Packer Jersey cake for his. Now, if we would have had time he really liked the idea of having the helmet also, although it works better with a player who has long hair so as to connect the two (we saw one of Troy Polamalu that was quite interesting). Being that George turned 12 it worked out perfectly to use Aaron Rodgers jersey as he is #12.

George wanted to make his own cake and while I baked it he helped to shape it and made the frosting. I tried to get it close to the true Packer green but didn't have the right shade of green and George didn't want too much food coloring in his frosting so we settled with darker leaf green with a touch of black in it. George drew the numbers onto paper, cut them out and then traced them onto the blank cake with a knife. I did outline them with white star pipping and then he filled them in. The only other thing I really did was the Rodgers lettering and George pipped the rest of the cake. 

Being that cake decorating is something I enjoy doing I had a hard time letting go of this one only to watch but I know George enjoys it too and does a good job. I know I wasn't decorating cakes at the age of 12 so I wonder if he'll make his own children's birthday cakes some day. :) I do know that he is going to be a tremendous help when the next group of birthdays rolls around!

Football Helmet Cakes

The boys are into football this year. They love to play the game after church with a bunch of kids and especially at home with Daddy. They also started collecting football cards and trade with each other. While they each collect everyone's favorite team -- the Packers, they each decided on various teams to collect. They can sit for an hour or more looking over their cards, rearranging them, trading them, and whatever else you can do with cards. And so, when I saw a football helmet cake pan knew that would be a perfect cake for Pete, Re-Pete, and Tank for their birthdays this year and they agreed.

Because I had three cakes to do I did plan ahead and baked each cake in advance and then wrapped and froze them right up until I was ready to decorate them. Of course each boy wanted a different flavor. Pete has his standard carrot which is always a favorite. Re-Pete chose my absolute favorite -- chocolate cake, and Tank wanting to be different out of the blue decided on lemon which was strange being that I never make any white/yellow cakes. That is one I still need to perfect. Anyway, while they all liked the Packers none of them wanted the same cake so it was decided that Re-Pete would get the Packer helmet while the other two selected their second-favorite team.

The only problems I had were with tinting the frosting. I try to avoid using a lot of food coloring but as it turns out to get a true red you need a lot, and I mean a lot of red coloring. Oh well, it is only a few times a year. The second problem I had was when I was going to tint the frosting for the Packer helmet. For some reason I had green in my head and put a dollop of green in the frosting and no sooner had I done that but it clicked that the helmet should be gold! Ahh! I tried in vain to turn that green frosting yellow but it ended up a "Shrek green" as my Mom said. I was bummed being that this was my favorite cooked frosting and takes a bit of time to make in addition to wasting butter! But, my Mom assisted in that and started the frosting for me. Now, what to make with my extra frosting.

As it turned out, the boys (George, Pete and Re-Pete) assisted with decorating the cakes by pipping on the frosting. I was happy to oblige as then I really only did one entire cake myself. I decided to forgo even attempting to pipe on the logos and instead printed them out, covered them with plastic and put them on at the end. Much easier! These were fun though. Look for another football related cake in July!

[caption id="attachment_782609" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Pete's cake"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_782610" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Re-Pete's cake"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_782611" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Tank's cake"][/caption]

Hungry Caterpillar and Butterfly Cakes

This year for Missy and Seppy's birthday cakes I suggested ideas of what I wanted to make. Missy had originally wanted a little cottage with a Strawberry Shortcake doll next to it that we saw online but I was going for something a little faster being that I needed to make two. I was going to make Seppy a firetruck but decided I'd rather not make loads of red frosting as it takes so much coloring to make it a nice color. In the end I found a cute idea for the Hungry Caterpillar cake out of cupcakes and thought that would be super easy and what child doesn't love that book? I convinced Missy that she needed a beautiful butterfly to go with it.

I don't really like how either cake turned out. I am not as good at frosting a cake and putting decorations on as I am at piping frosting on. Piping stars or whatnot on a cake covers imperfections much easier and looks more pulled together. Missy said hers was the most beautiful cake and I guess she is the only one I really needed to please.

[caption id="attachment_782539" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Wish I would have taken the picture during the day so the colors wouldn't be so off. "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_782540" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="More like the very sloppy caterpillar. Not at all what I envisioned but I didn't plan it out, I just went with it. :)"][/caption]

George's 11th birthday!

Yesterday George turned 11. There is something about a firstborn as he hits those milestones first and brings more emotions to surface. As each birthday passes I look back and see how much more grown up he is and how much he has changed over the year. We had a good day yesterday.

George loves celebrations and tradition and has been counting down for so long and planning. He is my planner and while he hung streamers around the house he casually reminded me to put the traditional streamers in his door when he woke up, as if I could forget :). In my haste to try and accomplish things being that we had just returned from vacation, I was planning a quick breakfast of oatmeal when it dawned on me that I needed to make his favorite. So, I had a late night staying up to make the dough but it was worth it as I saw the happiness on his face as he awoke and realized that I hadn't forgotten.

John's family is visiting this week from Missouri so we had 25 people here for the party but I love a house full. I did try in vain to convince George to have an easier meal but again, he loves his traditional meal of kabobs, pasta salad, and fruit kabobs with a few extra things also.

This year George and his brothers are big into Daniel Boone. My Mom has the DVDs and they love to watch them and then role play. So, of course the cake he chose for this year was "Boone's Burrow" and while he had the picture in his mind of what it should look like it took a bit for me to get the mental picture. In the end, we figured it out together. The only downside was that I didn't order the figures I found in time and so the cake was just landscape but that didn't matter to George. He helped me put it together and decorate and it turned out cute, even without Daniel Boone (who of course arrived today).

Happy Birthday to my favorite 11 year old! :)

Boone's Burrow Cake

With Powder Kegs inside

R2D2 and Thomas the Train Cake

Here are the birthday cakes that the boys picked out for me to make this year. Quite a bit of work involved but that is more because I didn't bake as much in advance as I had planned. Yes, it would be easier with a cake mix but that wouldn't be the same. Thankfully Pete and Re-Pete liked the same cake and also agreed on the flavor which was carrot. Tank selected chocolate mint (my personal favorite and George's too).

Pete and Re-Pete wanted R2D2 this year. They didn't have any preconceived ideas and I could have made it a sheet cake but saw the idea of a standing up cake and thought it was so cute. This one was made with four 6 inch round layers topped with a small half bowl cake. To do it again I would make it shorter to save time and I think the design would still be good.  This whole cake was three cake batters!
To hold it together I put a cardboard round near the center and stuck wooden skewers throughout (dowels would work better but I didn't have them). I used cream cheese frosting between layers and also covered the cake in a thin layer of it before decorating with frosting that is easier to use in decorating. The legs are made from krispy treats and cakes I baked in custard cups then cut.

We found a lego piece that worked great on this and the red "light" is a gumdrop flattened and cut. I wrote Happy Birthday and the boy's names on the back which was difficult to do up and down. My hand was a bit sore at the end but it was worth it and the boys loved the cake! So did I for that matter.

Tank's cake was similar to last year in that he wanted Thomas the Train again. We found his design on Coolest Birthday Cakes and I stuck pretty much to that. This one was two cake batters in the 10 inch round (I think it was that size). One cake was cut in half and stacked. We used milk chocolate rocks for decoration. Our favorite part was the tree. Next time I would make the tunnel black instead and smooth it out a little better before putting the rocks on. This was fun though and easy too and Tank really liked it.

Fun Cake Pops

I saw the cutest idea for a sweet treat HERE that would make a great gift or party favor and thought it would be fun to try them. My sister has made truffles in various flavors this way for years but this is a new take on that idea.

BAKERELLA makes cake pops from basic to amazing in design and I must say looking at her site and all of her ideas is addicting and causes me to long to do things I have absolutely no time for. But, being that we are still in celebration mode and being that John has off of work today I thought I would take a shot at making cake pops.


All you need to make Cake Pops is:

-- Cake Mix (I made my favorite chocolate cake last night and added peppermint flavoring)
-- Can of frosting (I whipped up chocolate butter cream with a bit of peppermint and vanilla)
-- Candy melts, or chocolate/white bark.
-- Lollipop sticks (I had short ones but the long would work much better I believe)
 
For step-by-step instructions with pictures click HERE. They are more time-intensive than I anticipated.

My tips --
I found that the balls need to be quite cold but not frozen otherwise the chocolate does not adhere quickly making the process ever so much longer.

If adding color to your chocolate or candy melts I found that even the paste I use to tint frosting contains water and does not work for this as it hardens too quickly - hence only 1 green tree pictured below) You need oil-based coloring.

 To dry you can use a block of styrophoam if you have it otherwise I used an old cereal box and poked holes in which worked fine.

My original intent was to use white
chocolate sprinkled with candy cane dust
but that didn't look very interesting so
I added red and green too.

I am thinking I may try this again (on a weekend) and might even bring myself to buy a flavored cake mix and a container of frosting such as lemon to make these for a gift. That would at least cut out a few steps. I also have a bridal shower coming up in March and I think the little wedding cakes Bakerella makes might be fun to serve then.

The snowman was just for fun and is the children's favorite but is too much work to make more than one. The trees were quite easy though. Just shape the dough as a tree.

If you have children that want to help -- it works great for them to put the sprinkles on as long as you aren't going for perfection here! :) Seppy only helped by eating them.