Snicker Doodle Birthday Cake for Hubby

So I made a cake.  And I may have mentioned before I hate making actual cakes.  I am more of a cupcake kind of gal. My theory is that if you make cupcakes, you can mess a few up, and you can also eat like 20 and not feel as badly.  But if you make a cake, you only have once chance to decorate it, and not screw up. And I usually screw up.  And you cannot eat 20 pieces of cake without looking like a pig.  Or so I have been told.  Anyway I was planning on letting Pork Chop do another gummie cake for Hubby.  But he just ends up pulling all the gummies off and not eating it.  So this year I had a plan.  I was so going to make him a super fancy cake.  And one that he would totally eat!

 Well one of those two things turned out to be true.  I'll let you guess which one. But if nothing else I tried a new recipe, and I got a cake stand thingy finally.  I had been using a lazy susan for over 20 years, so there you go, cake for Hubby, baking item for me.  Win win!

See how fancy that is?  I paid $20 at a sale, not sure if that is a good deal, I don't want to know if it's not though.

So to start I googled and pintrested a bunch of things.  I had the idea of a snicker doodle cake. Since that is Hubby's favorite cookie and he really likes the muffins I make.  I was totally thinking, there is no way I can lose.  Just so you know, I lost; big time.

So I found this cake on a blog called Smashed peas and carrots. Best part about it, it is a cake mix based cake.  I love that!  So I got everything I needed and set to work.  Now keep in mind Hubby was in the same area of the house as me, so he just played X Box with Pork Chop while pretending to not have any idea what I was doing.  Good man Hubby, keep it up.

See it actually doesn't look too bad, I swear when I have no one to impress my cakes sort of work out. I mean I was trying to impress Hubby, but I use other methods to impress him.  Cake does nothing for him. Just so you know.

Snicker Doodle Cake
found on Smashed Peas and Carrots

-1 box white cake mix
-eggs called for on box, plus one more
-butter in place of the oil called for on the box
-milk in place of the milk called for on the box
-1 TBSP cinnamon

Mix it all together and pour into your prepared pans.  Bake at 350 until tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Allow to cool then remove from pan and allow to fully cool on cooling rack.  I placed the cakes in the freezer after they cooled to set up.

Thisis how I frost a cake, I cover the top, then sort of push the extra over the edge, then add to the sides as I go.  

Frosting
Found on Smashed peas and carrots

-2 cups butter
-1 cup brown sugar
-2 TSP cinnamon
-2 TSP vanilla
-6-7 cups icing sugar
-milk if needed

Start with room temperature butter, I just usually cube it up on a large plate before I start measuring out the other stuff, and it is usually good by then.  So cream the butter, add the brown sugar and cream again, add vanilla and cinnamon and mix well.  Mix in your icing sugar and if needed add milk until it is the consistency you want.

This is tiny and it cost over $2, I am in the wrong business.

Once that is done you are ready to assemble.  I started by leveling my cakes, they didn't really need much, but knowing my luck if I didn't there would be trouble.  So I did that then I put a blob of icing on the tray I was going to put my cake on and placed the first layer of cake.  Then I put a layer of icing, then the next layer of cake.  Then I frosted the whole darn thing.  I was going for a rustic look.

 And just in case you were wondering, a rustic cake can be all bumpy and swirly and no where near smooth.  I am good at rustic.

This was the extent of Pork Chops help.  It went in the trash just so you know.

Then I wanted to have Pork Chop write on the cake, you know, to do his part.  He was all, "I'm nervous!"  which is his way of saying he doesn't want to do it.  So I said try it on the scraps of cake, and he drew two lines and said he was done.  I was fine with that, I figure at least he was in the vicinity of the cake when it was made, so that totally counts.

I am really proud of the fact I can blur out his name, not too proud that if you really try you can still read it.

 So I just used one of those tubes of gel you get at the store, because I didn't want to bother making icing or colouring it.  It cost over $2, which is a total rip off, but at the same time, it allowed me to not have to do anything, so it sort of paid off.  And I blurred out Hubbies name to protect him.  And to hide the fact I totally forgot a letter in his name and squished it in later.  He was all "really?"  And I said "shut up, I went snow boarding with you! And made you a cake, your name?  It doesn't matter!"  Or something like that, I may have just given him a dirty look, who knows, I was tired.  

  Anyway we didn't get to eat the cake for like three days, we were doing stuff, like eating diner out and having free birthday deserts, so there was no time for cake.  And when we finally did have it, we thought it was too much.  I think that if I cut the layers in half and made it a four layer cake with thinner icing layers it may have worked.  As it was we tired to eat it, and Pork Chop liked the cake part.  But I ended up sending it to work with Hubby, and then Pork Chop was mad, and said he wanted more.  I will tell you now I ended up making him a tonne of red velvet cupcakes to make up for it, and that he didn't eat more that 2 I think. And not even on the day I made them, like days later.  Sigh.  

  Also I think this as a cupcake would be good, so it is not a loss at all, I really did like it.  Hubby, well here's to another year with a cake he won't eat.

Oh and just to show you how much I love him, look what I did.

If you look at this picture first, I look all cool, like I am totally into boarding.  Truth is, that is the instructor behind me.  He just let me go and I was falling, again.  it was a very painful gift to Hubby.  

I made Hubby take a beginner lesson with me, again.  He knows what he is doing, I have gone once before, and I was scared and didn't want to do it alone.  I have to point out, other than Hubby and me, the other kids were all under 10.  Man I felt old.

 I hate to point it out, but I was so sore for like 4 days I could hardly walk.  Stupid middle age! Oh and Happy Valentines day!

Also I really appreciate those of you that have clicked on my Top Mommy Blog button, it allows you to click once every 24 hours and it moves me up so new people can find me.  Thanks again.

Phineas and Ferb Party for Pork Chop

Happy Birthday Pork Chop!

Well now that we have had a few days to sit down and sort through things, I can finally share some of the party pictures. Tomorrow I am going on a class trip with Pork Chop, which is sort of scary.  I can hardly keep myself from killing him, how am I going to do it with lots of other peoples kids.  Well I made cookies so maybe that bribe will help, who knows.  Anyway.

  Now I didn't do anything too crazy this year for his party, just no time, but it was still good.

But I have lot's if pictures.  Some of which are even in focus, so you know, it could be worse.

These are almost perfect, I used coloured candy melts and will from now on.

So I already shared with you the Perry the Platypus marshmallows I made.  Other than that I didn't do too much.  I made some cake pops, some chocolate covered pretzel rods, cupcakes and a tiny cake.  Then we played some games.  So lets get to it.

Sort of messy, but not too shabby!

These are my tiny little spring form pans, they are perfect for mini cakes.

  Firstly the cupcakes, I made cupcake toppers like I usually do. I found some images of Perry on google and printed out a few sheets onto edible icing paper.  Then I cut them out, and put them on a layer of fondant/gum paste and let them dry out.  For some reason I felt the need to use a lot of icing sugar and this made the pictures sort of dull.  And well, I have no idea what I was thinking really.  Other than I was in a rush and at the time it seemed really smart.  It was not, but whatever, it still turned out sort of okay.

These are all the cupcake toppers I made, you can sort of see how I covered some in icing sugar and  they look dull.  Oh well.

  For the cupcakes and cake I just made the basic vanilla, chocolate and red velvet batters that I have shared here before.  For the cake I made two layers, one chocolate and one vanilla.  Then all were iced with vanilla butter cream, in bright colours to match the theme.  The cake I just decorated with a few left over strips of edible icing and then I tinted the icing a few colours.  Super easy.

A cake decorator I am not!

  The cake pops were your basic chocolate cake, formed in my My Little Cupcake Pop, mold.  And dipped in orange and some purple candy melts.  I think this is the way to go for me.  I am able to get a good flow on the coloured melts.  Not something I can get in the white melts so much.  So once I finish the 50 pound box of white melts, I am not getting  any more, I will stick with the coloured ones.  They may cost more, but man they work so much better for me.  I can for see a lot of bark being made to get rid of the last pounds of melts I have.

I don't think I have done an actual edible image wrapped around a cake before, not too bad.

  I decorated them really fast, by drizzling on a bit of the left over melts and sprinkling on some co ordinating sprinkles.  Simple and fast.

  The pretzel rods got a dip in milk chocolate and a simple drizzle of candy melts and sprinkles.  I was in a rush.  Pork Chop had one big request, he wanted candy Lego men.  Last year I made them for his Lego party and I said why not.  It was easy, I just used the left over candy melts and made them in the silicon Lego mold I had.  He was thrilled and the kids at the party ate them like crazy.  So that was great.

Perry is all "oops, sorry I'm all over your cake."

Why I picked those most girly colour I have no idea, but it worked.

  At his party we decorated simply.  I had coordinating table cloths, only one was an actual theme cloth.  Then we hung up some large pictures I got in the theme section of the party store. I had a center piece which  I think for the $7 really ties the theme together.  I also got a roll of themed streamers and a few balloons.  That was all I bought to decorate with.  And my mom, sister, aunt and friends really did a great job.  I set up the main table with that, then put the desert table together.

I didn't want to put pictures of other peoples kids, and I have no idea how to cut or blur them out, so you get to see Pork Chop.

Hubby and him think the underwater camera is awesome.  

  I used my two cake pop stands, that mom got me when she was in the states.  They were made my KC bakes, and I wish I had more, I mean how many do I really need, but they are awesome!!!!  Then I used my cupcake stand, it was a plain make it yourself stand that I got over a year ago.  I put my colorful cupcakes on it and the one on top I decorated with a Perry the Platypus vinylmation.  It was simple but easy and I loved how it turned out. I had to watch as a few kids were all, "that is my cupcake!" I told them it was for the birthday boy, and they could have any of the other ones.  I was a little surprised that the kids all wanted the red velvet cupcakes, they went first.  Which was good.  Pork Chop got to blow out the candles on his mini cake.  And a few kids were yelling "the cake is so small, we won't get any!"  Which was right, but they all got cupcakes and I didn't have to cut a thing.  As a matter of fact we never even got to his cake until 4 days or so later.  But cake stays well if it is iced fully, so that was not all bad.

That's my dad, he was wearing a Perry coloured shirt and he didn't even know it. Try not to look at the kids, pretend they are not there.

  We played a few games, which I wish had been spread out better.  The party started out with an hour pool party.  We rented out the whole pool for the party, it was huge and really the cost was nothing at all so the kids got to tear around and Hubby got in with them.  Thankfully another dad did too.  But I asked parents to stay and watch in case their kids needed help to change or were not strong swimmers.  Not a big deal really, there were comfy seats and the time passed fast.

And there you go, if he gets any older I may need a bigger cake to get all the candles on.

  But I really thought this would wear the kids out, being that the pool part was over at 6:30 at night.  But no, the kids were crazy!  So as soon as they were all in the room they were tearing around like they were full of sugar, but they hadn't had any yet!!!

My poor hand was feeling the heat!

  So as soon as they all got in the room and got seated we had pizza, and of course Pork Chop would not eat any.  But I had told him if he wants a large party we have to have pizza it is the most economic thing to serve really.  So we did that.  Then the kids ran around a bit.  And I was all "we have to stop them, someone is going to get hurt."  My solution?  Give them cake.  I know, I am smart.

Hubby tried to get a picture but it was dark.  

    So everyone sat down again and we sang happy birthday to Pork Chop and he was all "this is so embarrassing"  And he blew out his candles.  Then the kids got cupcakes and Pork Chop ran for a cake pop.  I told him no, that those were for after the party, because I had like 60 cupcakes and they had to be eaten!

 So after they were all done we played some games.  I had a few.  One I did a few years back, was basically a quick one.  You print out a picture like 100 times, make them the same and all of them get tapped all over the room. So it is like a decoration, but you are going to use it. Then you tell the kids to find them and the one with the most wins a prize!  So not only are they having fun, they are also cleaning up some of the decorations.  I know they may figure that our in a few years, but for now, I'm good.

My sister got these pictures for me, that is my desert table.

  After that we played a game that I read about on line.  In the TV show there is an older sister who is always trying to bust her brothers.  So we played "busted"  basically I blew up a bunch of balloons and one of them had a paper inside that said "you win!"  So I let them loose and let the kids pop them until they found the winner.  Then I got them to clean them all up, because bits of balloon were everywhere.

  The last game was going to be a dance contest.  But Hubby was not able to get the song I wanted.  Gangam Style, sure you have heard of it?  Well basically Pork Chop was going to use his "dance inator" to get the kids to dance.  Because another character is always making up silly "inators" so that was good, until one kid was slamming into the floor, so we cut it short as he was just being too silly and was going to hurt himself or someone else.

Not the most detailed picture, but the best I got.  Considering I forgot to take any.

  Then we had like an hour left.  So I gave each kid a tattoo of Phineas and Ferb.  Hubby's mom even got one, and one kid wanted one right in the middle of his forehead, I told him his mom might kill me, so we stuck to hands and arms.

  Then the kids tore around for like 20 minutes when I figured we needed to bring it down.  So we let Pork Chop open his gifts.  I don't like to do this as usually he is not the most subtle when he doesn't like something or already has it.  I talked to him about being great full and told him the only thing I wanted to hear him say was "thank you" and that was what he did, even when one toy was something he already had.  No matter he was very good.

 As kids started to leave they each got a Marshmallow pop, a cake pop and a pretzel.  So it was a good day.

This was the table, see those tiny pictures?  Those were one of the games.

  We got home and Pork Chop begged Hubby to start putting together his Lego's  I told him if he helped me sort the pieces I would do one too.  He said it was his birthday and he didn't have to sort if he didn't want to.  I have no idea how you respond to that, so I said, "okay we can do it later, when it's not your birthday"  And so there you have it.  Pork Chop is officially 8, he doesn't need a booster seat anymore, but I don't know how I feel about that.  He is old enough but not tall or heavy enough.  We will see, he is not bothered by it.

And next year, watch, I bet he will be all, "I want a Lego party"  And I will have to break his legs.  Think I can talk him into a sleep over, with like 1 friend, and I go out and Hubby deals with it?  Well I have a year to work on it.

How To Level And Fill A Cake

Not the best picture, but you know, it's a cake. So it's full of sugar, and it can look ugly if it wants to.

 In theory I know lots about baking.  I mean I went to school for it, I grew up watching every cooking show with my mom, and pouring over her books for hours.  I even read about it all now on blogs, and books and really anything I can get my hands on.

  But as with everything else I know all about, I never do it right.  Like this cake I am going to show you all.  You are not going to see it finished, because it was so bad, I cried for hours about it.  I hate making cakes, and I should know better than to ever make one for anyone other than my family.  But as I did, I might as well make an educational post about it.  No pictures of me crying though, those are just for me.  

  So in this post, I am going to show you the steps you need to know to level and fill a cake.  Then I will tell you how to frost it, sort of, no pictures because again, it's hard to take pictures when you are crying.

 Sigh.

  So to start you need to make a cake. 

  I know, mind blowing right?  Seriously though, make a cake, in two pans.  Or if you have a really deep pan you can use one.  Either way.  Try to find a nice firm cake.  A box cake mix is very airy so I find they are super hard to handle and stack.  So home made works best.  I recommend the one I used from Sugarlicious, in this post I share both the chocolate and vanilla.

Here are my two cakes, and my table covered in cake making stuff. I need a house just for that stuff, think Hubby would buy me one?

  Once your cakes are baked, you let them fully cool and get your icing ready.  If you are in a rush you can pop the cake pans in the fridge to speed things up.

So this is how you level it, and imagine my hand resting on top there, but I was taking a picture.  

See, nice and level.

  Firstly will need to level your cakes.  Start by putting your cake on a level surface, you want to take a serrated knife and place your hand on the top of the cake.  Slowly use the knife to saw around the cake to remove the top domed part.  Move slowly and take your time.  Do this for both cake halves.  If you baked a cake in a deep pan or you want more layers just split the cake the same way by slowly sawing the cake all the way around.  Most cakes are not stable enough for you to pick up, so slide a cake board under the slices when you are moving it.

  Once you have done this, you can start filling it.  I use cake boards because they are easy to move.  If you are doing this for home, feel free to do this on a plate or even on a cake stand. I also don't use a turn table, I think it is just my height, but I prefer to use a lazy Susan, which kills me, because I am the laziest Sue you will know.  So it works for me.

  So to start, put a blob of icing on your cake board, this will give your cake something to hold onto, and not allow it to slip around on you.  Then place your first cake layer, bottom side down.  The bottom side is the side that was in the bottom of the pan, it will be the flattest part.

Yep, that is a picture of an icing blob on a cake board.  I know, this is why you keep coming back.

 Then you fill your cake.  Depending on what filling you are going to use, you may or may not need to pipe an icing dam.  An icing dam is basically a thick ring of icing you pipe to hold the filling in.  I use this when I am using a loose filling or fruit or whatever.  For this cake I didn't need this.

  When you fill the cake, try to make the filling nice and level.  Then take the next layer of cake and slide it onto the bottom layer, making sure that the cut off leveled side is on the bottom.  That way the most even side is facing up.

See nice and level, sort of.

  Then you would be all ready to decorate.  If you were making a cake with more layers just do the same thing and repeat. Not too bad.  If you do not level your cake, they can slide off, or even break.  So take the few minutes you need and level it.  And keep the scraps they are perfect for cake balls.  

  So that is as much as I am going to show you as the next part of this cake was tear filled and I don't want to relive it.  Just so you know, I will not be making another cake any time soon.

  But if you are going to ice it and not be in tears, start by doing a crumb coat.  This is a thin layer of icing, which catches all the crumbs and you let it set up.  Once that is set, you go back and do a thicker layer of icing.  A nice trick to get a smooth finish is to ice your cake, then let it chill for a little bit.  Then go back over it with a spatula that you dip in hot water.  Just dip the spatula, wipe it off on a towel then smooth the icing.  Works great.  Usually.  Anyway, just be aware, no matter how bad it looks, it will still taste good, promise!

All ready to decorate, but you know, it went down hill from here. So just pretend it turned out. Because we all know it so didn't.

I am linking up HERE.