Category Archives: Party Time!

Pin 236, Pretty Way to Frost a Cake and Pin 235, Red Velvet Cake

Posted by suzyhomebaker in 261 Days Pinned Challenge, cake, kid friendly, Party Time!, You say it's your birthday....... and tagged with , ,

This past weekend I baked four, count em, FOUR cakes for my friend and her fiance to sample for their wedding.

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Carrot Cake with cream cheese icing. It came in second place.

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Vanilla butter cake with lemon curd and  lemon mousse filing and vanilla buttercream icing. Not a contender but light and summery.

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Brown butter cake with lemon curd and raspberry mousse filing topped with vanilla buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant. The cake was yummy but the fondant’s sweetness and texture was not a hit with the bride. Totally cool. Lots of people are not fond of fondant.

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Can you tell by this picture, this was the winner? Almost none left although in its defense it was the smallest cake at only 6″” round. But it was the chosen one. Red Velvet cake with cream cheese icing. Actually this has now become a double pin because I found this recipe on Pinterest. Score! This is the moistest red velvet cake I’ve every tasted. And the bride agreed. Double Score! We have a wedding cake!

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But here is the reason we are here. This really cool and cute way to frost a cake. I stupidly didn’t take pics of the process for you to see. Sorry. This was  a last-minute cake frosting. But you can check out the process on the original Pin’s website, birdonacake.com.

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Here it is mid frosting. Basically you use a round Wilton tip #12, pipe frosting balls from top to bottom of cake sides and using a small spatula pull the frosting to the right. Repeat will you hit the end. Then follow this process along the top going in a circle or a spiral. It looks great. And if you are not the greatest cake icer, you can cover up your imperfections with this method. It is time-consuming so you must have patience. Especially when you reach the top and are piping and spreading one after the other.

Now for the Red Velvet Cake. It was really delicious and I think a perfect choice for my girl’s wedding cake. I can’t wait to make it. Here’s the original pin and here’s the recipe:

Recipe courtesy of Bakerella.com

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. red food coloring

Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans.
  • Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
  • Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really good with another wire whisk.
  • Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
  • Pour into cake pans and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.
  • Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  • After about ten minutes, remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack. I also cover in plastic wrap while the cakes cool.
  • Then make the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
    1 cup butter, room temperature
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    6 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • Directions
    • Sift sugar and set aside.
    • Beat cream cheese and butter on high until creamy. Add vanilla.
    • Then, add the sugar in batches. Scrape down the sides in between each addition.
    • And frost away.

234 to go………..

Pin 243, Baked Brown Sugar Chicken Wings with Roasted Red Pepper Dipping Sauce

Posted by suzyhomebaker in 261 Days Pinned Challenge, chicken, gluten free, kid friendly, meat, Party Time!, savory and tagged with , , ,

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Riley picked out wings for dinner the other night and I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do with them. Then I remembered this Pin and I had to run back out for a couple ingredients. But it was well worth the trip. We really liked these wings, at least my husband and I did. I made different ones for the kids knowing that they would not dig the spices or the dip. I should correct that. Riley wasn’t digging them but Kendall dug in. She loved them once I ripped the meat off for her. I think she ate as much as my husband did. Maybe more. She’s an animal. In the original Pin the wings appear a bit more crispy and I think mine could have been more crispy if I had not roasted vegetables at the same time. I think the moisture in the veggies sucked the crispiness out of my chicken. But they were still yummy. And the sauce was super yummy. There was quite a bit left and we are using it on sandwiches for the week.

I know a very important football game is coming up and I think these would be a nice addition to anyone’s party. Continue reading →

Ode to Pinterest…..and Chocolate Chunk Cookie Monsters.

Posted by suzyhomebaker in An Ode to......., cookie, Craftacular, Holiday recipe, kid friendly, Party Time!, Uncategorized and tagged with , ,

So now that I’ve found you, I can’t stop checking you out. You post so much deliciously beneficial information that I could almost spend every waking hour on you. Just seeing what’s new and what I’ve missed. You make it possible to keep all those awesome magazine clippings about what’s the best way to clean a stove top or how make a glove out of converse sneakers, but in a more environmentally friendly way. I thank you. For making me realize how annoying and unentertaining Facebook has become and how much more useful information there is out there. So I raise a glass and post this for you. It is your site that I found this idea to create such crazy and delicious monsters out of simple chocolate chip cookies for a friends pumpkin carving party. And may I add, it was a delightful baking experience that my daughter took part in as well. Cheers Pinterest! I hope you never bore me.

 

Want to make this recipe even easier? Get some Pillsbury cookie dough, a tub of icing, and some candy and go to town. These cookies are pretty damn good though.

Recipe courtesy of Lee Bailey’s Country Desserts

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients

  • 2 cups sifted all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 2 Tbsp (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
  • 9 ounces extra-bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I use Ghiardelli 70% chocolate chips)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars until smooth, about 4 minutes. Add the egg and mix well. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the vanilla, then fold in the nuts (if using) and then the chocolate.

Drop in 2 Tbsp clumps onto an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving several inches between for expansion.

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, rotating once, or until the bottoms are lightly browned. Repeat with remaining batter until used up.

Makes approximately 30

Icing

Ingredients

  • 12 Tbsp  unsalted butter, softened
  • 3 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 Tbsp milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or other flavoring)
  • gel food coloring

Directions

Put the butter in a bowl and beat until fluffy. Add sifted sugar and beat together until we mixed, add the milk and vanilla extract.

Separate icing into bowls and color to desired shade. I made orange, purple and green. I put my icing in three pastry bags for easy, controlled assembly, but you can also use a spatula.

Assembly

Use whatever candy you like. I used M&M’s, sour cherry balls, semi-sweet and white chocolate chips, fruit roll ups, large and small marshmallows, and those candy dots on paper.

Wait till cookies are completely cooled to assemble. Flip over cookie so that bottom is up. Spread or pipe icing on cookie, giving one side a more than the other. Rest another cookie (right side up) on top. The side with more icing will be the mouth opening. Now, decorate to your heart’s content. This is a great kid craft since its messy and edible and the monsters look much better when they are far from perfect. Have fun.

SMILE!

 

 

Summer Birthdays

Posted by suzyhomebaker in cake, kid friendly, Party Time!, Uncategorized, You say it's your birthday....... and tagged with , , , ,

I spend a lot of time planning and creating cool stuff for the kids birthday parties. And for some crazy reason, I never take enough pictures documenting the actual party. Maybe because I’m busy grilling hot dogs during the party or maybe because I’m pooped at the end of the day and can’t pick up the camera. Either way, here are the pics of the kids cakes this year. If you haven’ already figured it out, they were Adventure Time and Yo Gabba Gabba parties. And they were fun.

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Pinkalicious cupcakes

Posted by suzyhomebaker in cake, Holiday recipe, kid friendly, Party Time! and tagged with

Riley turned 4 a couple of weeks ago and we celebrated with a Pinkalicious party. Pinkalicious is the title of one of Riley’s favorite bedtime books about a girl who eats so many pink cupcakes, she turns pink. The only cure is to eat green vegetables. For her party I tried making everything as pink as I could, including the food. I also had an abundance of green food to counter act any pink children running around. In the mayhem I forgot to snap some shots of the savory food I served but did manage to get some of the desserts on film, since those are the most important part of any good party anyway. As for the savory foods, they included london broil sandwiches (a big hit, I’ll post this later), shrimp orzo salad (Barefoot Contessa), turkey meatballs (Giada) in vodka sauce (from a jar), french fries (Ore Ida), tomato salad (an old recipe from Martha), mixed green salad, and hot dogs. I think the food was a success. Everyone seemed very satisfied. As for the desserts, well, I’ll let the pictures tell most of the story:

Pinkalicious cupcakes

Strawberry milkshake malt balls, cupcakes, Red Velvet Giant cupcake, and cotton candy

The cupcakes were really good. Very dense and thick, they reminded me of the Magnolia Bakery cupcake. They would be hard to mistake for a cake mix, completely different texture. The giant cupcake with a red velvet cake recipe I’ll post another time but it was equally delicious and topped with a pink cream cheese icing. Even after this party, Riley still loves the color pink.

As I was about to post the recipe for the Pinkalicious cupcakes, I noticed a copyright at the bottom of the page so I’m opting out of posting the recipe on my site and directing you to the Pinkalicious page to check it out for yourself. You’ll find it on the Print and Play crafts section. It’s actually a cute site with lots of crafts and ways to “Pinkify” your kid by uploading their image into Pinkalicious’ face. It is a good recipe and doubles easily.