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.

Annual Cookie Exchange

 For the last few years I have been going to a cookie exchange my girl friend sets up.  I had never done one before her and well, I look forward to it now.  I go with the same old every year.  Cakeballs, of coarse.  This year I got containers from Walmart to make them cuter, I should have gotten the smaller size because they looked so tiny in there.  Oh well.   

Here is my huge table full of them, I was so tired I did the simplest thing I could.

See a drizzle of chocolate and a smattering of sprinkle.s

I was even too lazy to dig out my holiday sprinkles, they may never see the light of day.

I have  come to hate these types of sprinkles, you end up with them all over as they bounce off the table.

This was a new trick, I have been wanting to try it for a while, so I finally did.

I gilded my balls.

Yeah I know, I said it.  But there you go a short sweet post, and now on to the holidays!

Snow Man Cake Pops and a Give Away

Can you guess who finally figured out how to edit pictures?  

 So this post is over a week past when I wanted to share it, but the photo hosting site for Google was telling me that I had no more room.  Well thanks to a wonderful blogger, Dorthy at Crazy for Crust, I have been downsizing my pictures so that I can have some room again.  I have done about 400, I have about 1000 more to go.  Sigh.  But it will be worth it to save me some money and I also figured out how to edit pictures so in reality it was a win win. Anyway back to my regular post.


 So you all know how much I love cake balls, and pops right?  I mean I did name this place after it.  But did you know how much I hate making them?  Okay not hate, and not really them.  I hate working with white or coloured candy melts.  So it's not really about the ball as much as it is about the coating.

This is what you could win, it looks way more impressive in real life, I promise!

Does that make sense?  Well never mind, I sort of don't understand it either.  Anyway.  I was checking out one of my favorite sites a few weeks back.  My Little Cupcake; they are some of the first cake pop molds that I tried.  I first got the cupcake shape and loved it, it reminds me of when I was little and would play with Play doh.   I would share that love with Pork Chop, but I hate the smell of the stuff now and hate how it gets all dry and flaky all over the place.  The only flaky stuff allowed in my house is pastry and cake crumbs.

I may or may have not talked Pork Chop into dusting while I baked, so he could play video games.  I took a picture so I could show Hubby how smart I was, and to prove that my child is not all about games.  He actually liked dusting, for about 2 minutes any way.

This is how many I got out of one 9x13 cake, give or take a few that I may have eaten while making them.

  So I noticed that the shop had a new little mold out.  And it was for a snow man.  Now I was almost not going to get it, but seriously it was not very costly and they are awesome to me. They shipped it to me without the box, to save me some shipping costs.  That is the only thing about living in Canada, shipping costs for us are crazy!  Anyway, I mentioned that I wanted one for me and I was going to buy another for you guys.  But then they were all, "nope we will send you one to give away"  I don't know, I mean really this is the nicest company.  They gave me molds to give away before.  And I am not a big blog by any means, just an itty bitty one, but they don't care they are super nice.

That single one in the middle, well his head fell off, and it may have been due to me not chilling them long enough.  I just wanted to be able to say "that snow man must have lost his mind!"  and.....never mind.

  So last week I got these molds and got all set to make some super cute snow men for you all.  Well really they were for Pork Chops hockey team, but you get the idea.

  Now firstly, I knew this would be crap because snow men are supposed to be white, and we all know how I feel about white candy melts.  I thought I had it figured out, you know now that I know how to turn the power on my microwave down.  But no, I still ended up with gloopy candy melts.  And I think I had about 40 snow men, but gave up trying after 20.

I have noting witty to say, just pretend I made some really funny comment about using Halloween sprinkles for Christmas, then laugh and move on.

  On the website they use mini Reese cups for hats, but because I have to do nut free, I opted for gum drops.  Or as they were called at the bulk store, spice drops.  I don't know, they were cute, but not really hat like.  Whatever, it worked.

See you can hardly tell its a pumpkin,

  So I started by making my cake ball mix with one full box mix and some chocolate icing.  I then shaped my cake pops with this mold.  Which really is super easy.  I then set them in the freezer to chill and attempted to get a nice smooth white candy melt going.  I gave up after about 30 minutes and just dipped them.  I managed to get almost 20 covered without too many issues.  The rest were ugly and I just took them to work. They didn't care, they still tasted good.

This looks sort of weird, but it's okay not all snow men have eyes in the wild.

 I used some Halloween pumpkin sprinkles to put the noses on, as I was way too lazy to dig through my sprinkle stash.  And I glued the hats on with some more melted candy melts.  Then I just drew on the eyes, mouths and buttons.  That was it. I was so fed up with the stupid candy melts.  So I sat there looking at them and I said to Pork Chop "do you still want to give them to your team?"  And he patted my arm and said "it's okay Mommy, THEY will think they look okay"  And  he patted my arm again and walked back to play with his toys.

Is it me or does he look sort of drunk, like he was having a party then just stuck a huge gum drop on his head?

  Yeah, I got told by an 8 year old.  So I bit the head off of one of the not decorated snow men, felt a little bit better and wrapped them up.

  Then I tried to make brownies and those sort of worked, but what ever.

I kind of wish now that I had made some with little yellow patches on the bottom, remember, never eat the yellow snow!

  So after all that here you go:

*Super Spectacular Give Away*

I know, I am dramatic.  The winner will receive one snow man cake pop mold. Supplied by the awesome My Little Cupcake
You can earn a few entries.

1) Become a follower or my blog and let me know in the comments, or if you already follow me, you are already awesome, so just let me know.  I will think new followers are awesome too, just so you know.

2)Visit My Little Cake Pop and let me know in the comments here what other mold you need to make your cake pop life complete.

3) Share my give away on your face book or blog or whatever, just leave me a comment letting me know how you shared.

4)And the easiest, just leave me a comment telling me how much you hate working with white candy melts, and if you actually love it, leave me a tip of some sort.  I am close to hurting someone over these things people!!!!

The contest will close on Wednesday December 5 at noon (Toronto time) as I want to try and get this to the winner before the holiday.  I will use random.org to pick out the winner, and if you live in Canada I will have you answer a skill testing question.  This is open to Canada, the US and International readers too. Please leave me an email or some way to reach you, but I will announce the winner on Wednesday December 5 in the evening some time, and the winner will have 48 hours to get back to me or else I have to choose another winner.

Good Luck!