Birthday Cake Milkshake

It doesn't even have to technically be your birthday to make this shake!!

I just figured while I'm on the roll of blogging seriously unhealthy foods, I might as well publish this post from early in June...

We had bought the Birthday Cake Oreos and decided to make a milk shake, and while looking at the ice cream selection at the grocery store I saw the Birthday Cake ice cream and knew it was meant to be.

My nephew was here visiting and as he drank his milkshake, he said something like, "I can feel myself getting diabetes."

If you like cake batter anything, you'll like this shake! 

Just added some milk and gave it a good twirl in the good ol' magic bullet.

Once again... You're welcome and I'm sorry. 

A baby cake for my baby's birthday

I had to do a craft show on my baby's first birthday and left my husband in charge of making his cake.  My husband makes the best Texas Sheet Cake and I told him to make that and just put a portion of the batter into one of our little cake molds. 

(Side story:  After we got married, we realized we grew up eating the same cakes for most of the birthdays in our homes.  My mom mostly used sour cream though, while his family used buttermilk, and his family baked theirs in a cookie sheet, while my mom used a 9x13, but same recipe!)

Anyway, I came home to the most perfect little cakes!  He made more than one for me to choose from!  Good job John!!!  

One satisfied wife, and one satisfied baby!!!

The Big 40 Birthday Party Weekend

My sister asked me to plan a PINK birthday party for her and it ended up being a birthday party weekend! We rented a friend's lake house and arrived on a Friday and left on Sunday. It was a super relaxing weekend - just what a gathering of moms need!!

One of my sister's friends sorted these on the table while everyone sat around talking


I found the invitation below on Etsy from THIS STORE.  She was super nice because I had to change the info many times!!

The invitation - I made pink envelopes to match

Pink Ombre Cake How-to HERE

My sister loves chocolate covered pretzels so I made some with pink of course!

How to make your own Ombre Flower Arrangement HERE

Dinner:  Salad, Stuffed Chicken Marsala, Sliced Baked Potatoes, Fruit Salad, Bread with dipping spices from a local favorite restaurant, Grape Juice and 7-Up family favorite mixture.  (Recipes linked)

She was actually chewing food in her mouth... Ha!

Breakfast the next morning:

Crepe Bar with Nutella, Chocolate Mousse, strawberries, bananas, toasted almonds and coconut, vanilla cream sauce, and whipping cream

I totally went paddle boarding to provide some entertainment to the others.  I did have my bathing suit on underneath my pajamas!!  :) 

My sister and her friends

On the invitation we asked for people to wear pink!  Her friends were great and totally did it!  I didn't even have any pink to wear!!!!

Forty and Fabulous!!

That day Candi and her friends spent like five hours sitting in and out of the hot tub!!  They were pretty wiped out that evening!

I really didn't take very many pictures.  That next night we had appetizers for dinner, Crab Cakes, Artichoke Dip, Chips and three kinds of queso, Veggies with hummus, Ham and cheese sliders, and we were supposed to have chocolate fondue for dessert but everyone was too full!  Then, for breakfast the next day I made biscuits and served them with different home made jams, and my sister made a Paleo Breakfast Casserole. 

White cake with white chocolate raspberry mousse filling and white chocolate frosting! 

Something else I was going to do was have questions for everyone to answer while we were eating, like;  Where did you think you would be in your life at age 40?  What do you hope is different in five - 10 years?  What has been your favorite age so far?  etc.

It was a fun weekend with my two fabulous sisters!  It was fun to be around my sister's friends and it was fun to do this for her!!!!!  

Decorate your birthday candles with edible giltter

I saw THESE CANDLES on Pinterest and wanted to make them for my sister's birthday party, but with pink stuff. After thinking about it, I was worried about doing it with non edible sparkles and such so I just made my own edible sprinkles. But, really, it would have been fine to glam them up with non-edible stuff I think. Oh well, next time...

It was pretty funny, the grocery store did not have a '4' or a '0', but when I looked in my cupboard at home, I had both already!  Lucky me!

So, I took regular candles, and with a paring knife scraped off the outside colors.

Then I scraped off the inside colors.

Then I used corn syrup as my glue, and just spread it on with my finger.  Then I sprinkled the edible glitter, pressed it down a bit, and was done!

Edible glitter - Sugar, food coloring, bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.  I used the gel food coloring so I had to mix it into the sugar with my fingers.   I also like to use this combo to put around the edges of glasses or dessert bowls and such. 

How to make a Pink Ombre Cake

I planned a weekend trip away for my sister's 40th birthday.  This week I'll post little snippets from her party.

So, my sister LOVES pink - so everything of course was going to be PINK!

Her invitations were pink ombre, so I knew I should do a cake to match.

I'm sure there are other ways to make these, maybe easier ones, but this is what I did...

1.  Make your frosting.
2.  Divide your frosting into three (or more) bowls with one bowl having more for the crumb layer and the top.
3.  Use pink food coloring to make a very bright pink in one bowl, a medium pink in another bowl, and the lightest pink in the bowl with the most frosting.
4.  Do your crumb layer with the light pink - let set in fridge until firm.
5.  Starting at the bottom of the cake put your darkest pink around the cake.  It can be messy
6.  Repeat with other colors.
7.  Use cake spreader (hold vertically) to smooth out all rows in one large swipe around.
8.  Enjoy your ombre masterpiece!

Easy Cake Decorating

So, this year for Trevan's birthday he told me he wanted Optimus Prime on his birthday cake.  Remember last year's cake, and how it didn't meet his expectations? Well, when he saw this birthday cake, he said, "Oh, I thought the cake was going to be in the shape of Optimus Prime's head?"  Then he looked at me, put his hand on my shoulder and smiled, "But, that's okay."  That boy...

A few years ago, I remember reading a tutorial about how to transfer an image onto a cake, and so I tried it.  (I tried to find the tutorial for you, but couldn't...)

How to copy an image to a cake 

1. Find an image.  Place your image on a flat tray/cookie sheet/ whatever.
2. Tape Wax paper over your image.
3. Make your butter cream frosting.

 4.  Outline image. (I chose to use the already made black frosting, because black is such a pain to make.)

5.  Use small amounts of your butter cream and color it the colors needed for your image.

6.  Color your image with your butter cream.  You could pipe it, but my image was small enough that I just used toothpicks.

Remember it doesn't have to be perfect because this surface is going to be on the cake.

7.  Place image on tray in freezer.  Let freeze until COMPLETELY frozen.
8.  Take image and place it on your cake, press lightly to apply to FROSTED cake. 

9.  Peel off wax paper

So... these holes were because the image was not completely frozen.  I am not a patient person....  So, make sure yours is frozen all the way.  I think I patched it up pretty good though.

Ultimate compliment - My son thought it was a sticker that I bought and added!!  Obviously, the lines are a little too crooked for that, but in the eyes of a nine year old it was perfection!

****TIP***  Those transformer toys were clearance cake decorating items from a grocery stores bakery.  You can take your kids to a bakery at a grocery store let them look through the birthday cake book and you can just buy the props they use on the cakes to put on your own hand made cake!  Food Lion always puts their left over cake decorating items on clearance.  So I scored that Transformer set for 99 cents!