the candy cake {and a second birthday!}

 

 At the end of December the Little One turned 2. 

I made her birthday cake last year with the decorating expertise of my sister-inlaw Mandy.

But this year Mandy didn't come up for Christmas so I was on my own.

Decorating cakes is not something that I excel at , but I still wanted it to look nice. I found this cake on a few different blogs and read about how incredibly easy it was.

Basically if you suck at icing then this cake is for you. The icing doesn't have to be smooth or look nice. It can even have crumbs in it (although I must be getting better because I didn't have that problem).

All you do is whip up a cake. Your favorite recipe or even a box from the store. (I totally used a box!) I recommend a white or yellow cake (I used a fudge swirl)...just because there is already so much chocolate.

Then you get some icing. You could buy a tub of icing from the store, but making icing is so easy and will really make your cake taste a lot better. I thought about using the "secret family icing recipe" that I always use (because it's so amazingly good), but was concerned that since it is so light and fluffy it would not hold up the candy very well. And I wanted to use chocolate so if any icing showed through the candy it wouldn't be noticable. I then decided to use:

Bakerella's Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Butter Cream Frosting

(I knew I couldn't go wrong with one of her recipes and I was right!

Here is the doubled version...which should be more than enough )

1 cup butter, softened

16 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup unsweeted cocoa powder

2 lb confectioner's sugar (yikes, i know!)

2 tsp vanilla

2-6 tbs milk (i did not use any milk)

Cream the butter and cheese in your mixer. (Heaven help you if you don't have a mixer.)

Add the cocoa and vanilla and mix well.

Add the sugar in small batches and blend until well combined. Be sure to scrape down the sides as you go!

If the icing is too sticky (which it shouldn't be if you are making this cake) add 1 tbs milk at a time until it's the consistency that you want.

 

 

Then you frost your cooled cake while not worrying too much about how it looks.

Then you take 4 large packages of Kit Kats (5 if you buy the king sized)

and break them into two bar sections. And stand them around the outside of your cake...Making sure that they are well stuck down to your icing.

Then you take a bag of M&M's and spread the desired amount over the top.

I actually mixed a bag of regular M&Ms and Valentine's M&Ms so there would be plenty of pink in the mix.

And then I took a piece of ribbon and wrapped it around the bottom of the kit kats' and glued it down on the ends with some left over icing.

 It absolutely could not have been easier and it was a big hit!

And the Little One had a fabulous second birthday. When her daddy prayed with her that night she thanked God for her birthday. And then said "again".  Her daddy told her "next year", she said "ok", and went to sleep.

I'm sure that you are thinking that it must be a blue moon or something because I haven't been posting many blogs lately.  Between finding out that we are pregnant again, our computer dying twice, and then finding out that we are actually having twins... well I've been just a bit pre-occupied.
But I'm still here and will get to posting when I can.

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful New Year!

thyme for yorkshire pudding

Recently I made Claire Robinson's "Thyme for Yorkshire Pudding" recipe. I had never had a yorkshire pudding before so I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out but these actually turned out quite tasty. I served them with a vegetarian meatloaf and brown gravy. delicious. Here is my vegetarianized version:

1 tsp salt

1 c flour

1 1/4 c milk

3 eggs (beaten)

2 tbs fresh thyme

1/4 c olive oil

Sift the salt and flour into your bowl. Stir in the eggs and half of the milk, whisking until smooth. Add the rest of the milk and the thyme. Let the batter sit in a covered bowl for 30 - 45 min.

Heat your oven to 400*. Divide your oil into a 12 cup muffin pan. Heat the oil in the muffin pan until it is almost smoking hot. (Be sure to place a cookie sheet under your pan to prevent the hot oil from dripping into your oven.) Remove your pan from the oven.

Quickly whisk the batter one last time and pour into each cup 3/4 of the way full. Bake in the oven for approx. 20 minutes or until risen and golden brown. Leave them in the oven for at least 5 minutes to let them set. (Try not to open the oven while they are cooking!)

Serve while hot and puffed.

(this was a great recipe to vegetarianize. i used roasted garlic olive oil for extra flavor since the flavor usually comes from the meat drippings. i even used dried thyme although i am sure that it would be better with fresh.)