Rainbow Cake

I made my little ones a rainbow cake for a celebratory back to school dinner. They were thrilled! I started off with a plain yellow cake...
Then I divided it up into equal portions and tinted each bowl with gel coloring--it is more concentrated than regular food coloring. I bought mine in the cake decorating section at Michael's. I think it usually is used to tint icing.
Then I started adding the colors to my round cake pans. Here is where I realized I should have doubled my cake recipe...there really wasn't quite enough of each color.
Then I baked, frosted, and sprinkled with random Mickey Mouse sprinkles that I had in my cupboard. My little ones were thrilled to have cake on a non-birthday day...and even more thrilled to realize it was rainbow colors!!
See, it would have been even better if my layers were thicker...I'll have to remember that for next school year! This thread was my inspiration--lots of rainbow cakes to be found!

Strawberries!

Yesterday I was at our local grocery store and they were having an amazing deal on organic strawberries--buy one pound for $2.98 and get two pounds free! I love a deal like that! Soooo, I came home with nine pounds of strawberries. I wanted to buy even more, but was a bit worried about where I would put them all.

Luckily earlier in the day I saw a recipe for Puff Up Pancakes over at Leigh Anne's blog. I love her blog, by the way--lots of fun recipes and the way she shares her parenting skills and life advice is very approachable. Good pictures, too!

Anyhow, the pancakes sounded fun...and she said they tasted great with strawberries...so I knew what we were having for dinner! The pancakes are super easy to make in a 9x13 pan in your oven.
Mine puffed up so much that it got tangled up in the top rack in my oven! Whoops!
Luckily it deflated a bit when it came out of the oven. It was GOOD! Not a traditional pancake flavor, but definitely good.
And yes, it tasted good with strawberries and powdered sugar. We all loved this dinner!

Unfortunately that only used up one pound of strawberries...I still had eight more pounds! I had a plan though. Strawberry freezer jam! We're on our last container of blackberry freezer jam that I made in early September, so this was good timing!
That left me with just two pounds of strawberries. A much more manageable amount for my family of four! In fact, we ate another pound of them today! Yum!

If you want it done right...

Why is it that having my husband make lunch for the children always *seems* like a good idea?
Because really, if I thought about it, I would remember that *every* time, I'm left with a mess like this...hours later. And no, the milk container wasn't empty.
*sigh* He means well.

Root Beer Cookies

Last week I was woefully behind on my Bloglines subscriptions and was tempted to mark them all as read, but I'm glad I didn't! I read about lots of great craft projects, but what REALLY tempted me was a recipe for Root Beer Cookies by a guest poster at Make and Takes.
Those are my cookies...I'm drooling just looking at the picture! Too bad they're all gone now...

I have to be honest, after I made the cookies I wasn't impressed. They just didn't have the wow factor I require from cookies. Then I frosted the cookies (you CANNOT skip the frosting with this recipe!) and the cookies got a whole lot better! And then the next day they were even better. Maybe the root beer flavor became more concentrated?? I don't know, but the addition of the frosting and then a day or two of time made these cookies REALLY good.

Yum. I highly recommend!

By the way, these take a LOT of butter...one cup in the cookies and one cup in the frosting...but hey, what's another inch or two on my hips?

Better than Brownies!

What is better than chocolate fudge brownies?? How about chocolate fudge brownies that you don't have to make yourself!
I'm not usually a brownie mix kind of girl, but Princess REALLY wanted to bake something all by herself and I thought this would be easier for her than baking from scratch. She picked out the mix all by herself (I think the word "fudge" is what swayed her!) and then carried the box all through the grocery store. I had to put a halt to the brownie box lovefest when, at the register, she was bestowing lavish kisses all over the box before putting it on the conveyor belt.
Handsome was not pleased to be relegated to the role of observer, but he was pacified by the promise of warm brownies. Meanwhile, Princess did a GREAT job! She read the recipe and did a really good job with it--I did help with the amounts of the various ingredients though. She's great at reading, but we haven't covered fractions yet!
I had her stir with a fork because I didn't want to deal with the huge mess she would have made with the handmixer. She didn't seem to care though!
The brownies were wonderful and Princess was so proud of herself! I'd post a picture...but we devoured them already! Yum!

Valentine Treats

Today is the day I take Handsome to the hospital and, since we'll be staying overnight, I had to make Princess's Valentine treats ahead of time.
For her preschool classmates, I made marshmallow pops. They were so easy to make and turned out so cute! I stuck a stick in the marshmallow, twirled the top of the marshmallow in pink candy melt and added some sprinkles...that was it! After the candy part cooled, I put them in plastic bags with cute little labels from Autumn Leah Designs on etsy. The packages look cute from the front and the back!
I also dipped some marshmallows with no sticks as part of the teacher treat bags. They look pretty cute too!
I used the same sticker labels on these--this time I used them to seal the little bags.
I also made other treats for the teachers for Valentine's Day. I was inspired by Allie at No Time for Flashcards and made Red Hot Bark--it was just as easy to make as peppermint bark! First a layer of chocolate, then a layer of white chocolate mixed with red hots (some smashed, some not.) Tastes great and not too "hot" at all!
The other treat I made for them is one that I make for lots of holidays and it always is a hit! Pretzels with Hershey Kisses and M&Ms. Mmmm, the mix of chocolate and salt is sooo good. And, the great part is that little ones can help with making these! This time around I made them by myself, but at Christmas time my 5 year old was a lot of help and made them almost entirely by herself--she did everything except the last step.
First preheat your oven--I usually do these at 250 degrees. Then lay out a cookie sheet full of pretzels--make sure you have Silpat (love my Silpat--I've been using it for years!) or foil under them so the chocolate doesn't stick to your cookie sheet.
Then you balance a Hershey Kiss on each pretzel.
Next you pop them in the oven. Mine typically take 5-6 minutes in my electric oven at 250 degrees. You can always test with an M&M to see if your Kisses are squishy enough. Don't overcook the chocolate--you can't bring it back if you over do it! Once the Kisses are glistening and easy to squish, take them out of the oven and use an M&M to squish down the top of each Kiss.
Now you just wait FOREVER for them to cool and the chocolate to harden. I suppose you could speed things up by putting them in the fridge, but I try to avoid that because sometimes it causes the chocolate to change color a bit. My favorite thing to do is to let them cool on the trays overnight--I just tent some foil over the tray and leave them out.

I packaged each treat in bags and then put them together into little Valentine care packages for the teachers. I hope they like them!

Cupcake Pops!

If you are looking for an adorable treat for a birthday or a baby shower, you *must* try Bakerella's Cupcake Pops! They are so cute and so easy to make--but they are very time consuming to construct. My children and husband loved eating them and they received rave reviews from the children and teachers at my daughter's preschool. I found them too sweet (which shocked me!), but they're so adorable, I know I'll be making them again!
I made them for my little girl to bring to preschool for snack on her birthday--she brought these (which are MUCH smaller than a regular cupcake) along with banana halves and everyone was happy. There weren't any leftovers, that's for sure!
Basically you bake a sheet cake, grind it up in the food processor, combine it with frosting and make little cake balls. After you refrigerate the balls for a bit, you press one end of each ball into a cookie cutter to make the bottom fluted like a cupcake. Then there is more refrigeration before you dip the bottom of each little cupcake into chocolate and insert a stick. They you dip the top of each cupcake into a colored candy melt, put on some sprinkles, and top with an M&M.

They are so cute and Bakerella has fantastic instructions on her blog. These even were featured on the Martha Stewart Show!

Caramel Bars

Feed these Caramel Bars to your children and your husband and they will be forever in your debt. (Plus if you feed them to other people you won't have to spend a week on the elliptical burning off all the calories you just consumed.) They are TDF good. Mmmmmmm!! I was going to take a picture of the panful of Caramel Bars before I cut into them...but I didn't have the willpower to hold out that long--so this is midway through the devouring process. My family LOVES these now!

I first found them on Christie's blog and have now made them twice. They are soooo yummy. If you have patience, they taste even better the second day.

Here is the recipe:

• Melt two sticks of butter
• Add: 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 2 cups flour, 2 cups oatmeal, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt
• Use your hands to mix it together--it will be crumbly
• Press half the dough into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan
• Bake at 325 for 20ish minutes (Christie says 17 minutes, but that didn't work for me)
• Remove from the oven and pour an entire jar of caramel sauce over it
• Sprinkle chocolate chips over the caramel sauce
• Put your remaining dough over the top of everything
• Put it back in the oven for 20ish minutes (again, she says 17...but mine still was raw then

Now let it cool completely before you eat it--otherwise it will truly be an ooey gooey mess. A tasty mess...but really really messy. Don't ask me how I know this. Really it is even better the next day after it has solidified more...but that requires extreme amounts of willpower.

Here is Christie's recipe...her blog is fun and she has a number of recipes that will send you running for your elliptical after you try them! Whitney at My Journey Toward: The Glamorous Life of a Housewife has a variation on this recipe. I think the end result would be about the same...except that she put M&Ms on the top! Yum!! Oh, and Whitney is doing a fall giveaway of some cute plates! Go check her out!

Blackberry Freezer Jam

The children and I have stopped off a few times to pick blackberries on the outskirts of our church parking lot. Princess is a huge fan of blackberries whereas Handsome just likes to eat them while picking them--he's not so fond of them once we return home. I think he likes them when they're warmed by the sun. My little nature boy...well, except that he says "no like dirt!" whenever he realizes his hands are dirty!
Anyhow, I had the bright idea of making blackberry freezer jam so that I can stop spending a small fortune buying jam at the grocery store. It was so simple and easy--I made it during the time it took for my husband to give the children a bath. The only downside to this is that it has a TON of sugar in it. Really, a TON of sugar. Hmmm.
Here is the recipe I used--it worked out perfectly!

3 pints blackberries (6 cups)
5 1/4 cups sugar
1 box Sure-Jell

• Mash berries (I used a potato masher) two cups at a time.
• Add sugar to crushed berries.
• Stir thoroughly and then let the mixture sit for ten minutes.
• Put pectin and 3/4 cup of water in a pan and bring to a boil while stirring constantly.
• Boil for one minute.
• Add mixture to berries and stir for three minutes until sugar is completely dissolved.
• Pour mixture into containers--make sure you leave expansion room at the top of the container.
• Let your jam sit at room temperature overnight.
• Keeps in the fridge for approximately three weeks or up to a year in the freezer.
  

I have more blackberries to use up (we've gone out picking three times) and will be stockpiling more jam in the freezer! I'm using these nifty plastic containers by Bell that are suitable for freezing jam. Most glass jars (including typical canning jars) are NOT safe for putting in the freezer. I made 8 containers of jam using the recipe I posted and I think each container holds 8 oz of jam.

Blueberry Coffee Cake

This is my favorite coffee cake recipe--I loooove it and only make it with fresh blueberries because otherwise I might be tempted to make it year-round. At least this way I limit myself to making it in the summer. It is soooo yummy and people LOVE it--and I don't share the recipe with just anyone!

Blueberry Coffee Cake

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/4 cup confectioners sugar (for dusting)

1. Heat oven to 350, coat bundt pan with cooking spray
2. Make streusel topping: mix 1 cup brown sugar, 2/3 cup flour, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut in 1/2 cup margarine. The mixture will be crumbly.
3. For the cake: beat 1/2 cup margarine in a large bowl until creamy; add 1 cup white sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Whisk together 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Add alternating with milk to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.
4. Spread 1/2 batter in the pan. Cover with berries and add remaining batter by tablespoons. Cover with streusel topping.
5. Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes until deep golden brown. Remove pan to wire rack to cool. Invert onto a plate after cake has cooled. Dust with confectioners sugar before serving

Ice Cream in a Bag!

We made ice cream in a bag the other night and it was surprisingly tasty! Here is the recipe we used:

• 1 Tbsp Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Half-n-Half
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 Cup Rock Salt
• Ice
• 1 Pint Size Ziploc Bag
• 1 Gallon Size Ziploc Bag

Combine the sugar, half-n-half, and vanilla in the pint size ziploc bag and seal tightly. Combine the ice and rock salt in the large ziploc bag. Place the small bag inside of the larger bag and seal. Shake the bag until the mixture turns into ice cream! This takes about 5 minutes.
I put mittens on Handsome and he helped a bit with the shaking, but mostly he liked to pat the bag while my husband did the shaking. After about five minutes we opened up the bags and found some soft-serve ice cream! Handsome opted to add sprinkles and happily ate up his ice cream that he "made all by me-self!"
That bowl is one of those little Gerber plastic bowls and that is all the ice cream that was in the bag--just right for a child, I think. Handsome ate most of it, but a lot of it turned to liquid because he's kind of slow. Usually he doesn't like ice cream, but he really liked eating this.

Muffin Tin Monday

We had another Muffin Tin lunch the other day. My little ones were so excited to see the tins come out again! And, as a bonus for me--the tins bought me 45 minutes of contented munching from my children! Ahhh, nice!!

I made one for each child and each child ate almost everything. I'm still kind of carb heavy when filling up these tins though...I need to work on that.
1: grapes, string cheese, veggie chips, cheerios
2: 1/4 rice cake, veggie bootie, 1/4 tahini/jam sandwich, 1/4 tahini/jam sandwich
3: carrot sticks, dip, mighty bites, grapes

Head on over to Sycamore Stirrings for more muffin tin lunches--and check out her pretty orange muffin tin! So cute!

Strawberries!

The other day the children and I were driving home and I made an impromptu stop at a local-ish strawberry farm and bought half a flat of fresh strawberries. Store-bought strawberries have nothing on fresh local berries; berries that were in the field just a few hours ago.

I adore strawberries which, I suppose, is fitting for a former Strawberry Festival Queen. My husband tells our little girl that she is a princess but Mama is a real Queen. The first time I showed her my tiara her eyes got as huge as saucers and she said "Mama, you really ARE a queen!!" Oh it was priceless!! I knew I hung onto that gaudy tiara for a reason!

Anyhow, these strawberries were so yummy! I spent all of naptime cleaning them and then the bowl of red berries was so gorgeous, I just had to take a picture!

My husband came home from work and noticed the bowl of strawberries, ate one, and then remarked that he's never had strawberries this good before! As you can tell, even my two year old LOVED these strawberries! (I had to take a picture of his sweet face before washing the berry juice off him!)

We had more strawberries today--strawberry smoothies! You really can't go wrong with a smoothie recipe, but here is how I did it...

• 2 cups strawberries (I left mine whole because I'm lazy like that)
• 2 cups 1% milk
• 2 cups lowfat vanilla bean ice cream (isn't low fat ice cream an oxymoron??)
• 1/2 cup of sugar
  

Blend and drink!! This serves at least four people and could serve more depending on the size of your servings.

I loved it and so did my husband and my 4 year old. My 2 year old doesn't like ice cream (or chocolate...crazy boy!) and thus didn't really like this...which left more for me!

Muffin Tin Lunch

In my quest to make lunchtime more interesting (I get tired of making the same things even thought the children don't get tired of eating!!), I remembered something I read about a long time ago--serving lunch in a muffin tin. Then, I found a blog that sponsors a muffin tin lunchfest!

So, one day last week we had a muffin tin lunch. The children were thrilled to eat out of "circles" as they called it. My children eat a fair amount at lunch so I made each of them a muffin tin and they each ate almost all of their food. As predicted, my 4 year old didn't finish her carrots and my 2 year old didn't finish his tomatoes. I was pleased, however, that neither started their meal with a cookie--my daughter started with the rice cake and my son started with the whole wheat crackers.
The tins contained:
raisins, tomatoes, cheerios, shredded cheese
rice cake, veggie booty, carrot sticks, grapes
mighty bites, oatmeal raisin cookie, unsweetened applesauce, whole wheat ritz

Definitely a big hit and something we will do again!