Happy New Year cupcakes

We made these to ring in the New Year with friends. 

Too Much Chocolate Cake from Allrecipes.com:

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
• 1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips 
• Bake in a jelly roll pan. 350 for 20ish minutes. Once cooled cut cake in half, pipe a damn around the edge of one half of the cake, add raspberry filling to the center and top with other half of cake, and pipe rosettes. Double the frosting recipe.

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

Patti's Chocolate Frosting:

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup softened butter

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Hot chocolate mix

We put these hot chocolate baskets together for one of the 12 days of Christmas we are doing with some friends. 

*I know they aren't very exciting but I want to remember this recipe:

Hot Chocolate Mix

4 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1 cup powdered sugar

1 package (16 oz) coffee mate creamer, original

1 box (25.6 oz) powdered non fat milk

1 package (21.8 oz) Nestle quick

We added these cute marshmallow Peeps to go with the regular marshmallows.

I found this tag online to go with it.

The most famous reindeer of all...

Rudolph the red nose reindeer, had a very shiny (and long=) nose...

I made these for my primary class at church. 

I used a cone cellophane bag and filled the bottom with red M&M's and the rest with anything chocolate I could find. I used chocolate: pretzels, peanuts, whoppers, and raisins.

You'll go down in his-tor-y!

Christmas bundt cakes

I thought I would never make another bundt cake again after the wedding but here I am. They are just the perfect size and so yummy.

Vanilla with Raspberry:

Vanilla cake: We used these extra ingredients (cake extender) to go with a white cake mix

1 cup flour

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

2/3 c milk

1 cup sour cream

1 egg yolk

This is how we prepared it:

Mix dry ingredients in bowl: 1 cake mix, 1 cup flour, and 1 tsp. baking powder

Mix wet ingredients in mixing bowl:1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup sour cream, 3 eggs, 1 egg yolk, 3/4 cup oil, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1/3 cup lemon ** don't add lemon until very last or else it will curdle. 

Bake in greased (we used Bakers Joy) mini bundt cake pan 350 for 12ish minutes

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

 

White chocolate ganache:

7 1/2 cups white chocolate chips  and 2 1/2 cups cream (3:1 ratio). Microwave 1 minute (50%power) repeat until melted

Chocolate Cake (this is Michelle recipe and it is delicious)

Mix the dry ingredients in bowl: 3/4 cup cocoa powder (adding a little dark is yummy)

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Chocolate part: combine and melt in microwave 30 seconds at time, 1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

Combine wet ingredients in mixing bowl: 4 eggs, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup buttermilk

Wet+ chocolate+ Dry. 

Bake in greased (we used Bakers Joy) mini bundt cake pan 350 for 12ish minutes.

We topped these with a chocolate ganache. We melted 2 2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips and 1 1/3 cup cream (2:1 ratio) in microwave(50% power) for 1 minute and then stirred it. We repeated it every 30 seconds until melted.

*add  some peppermint oil (to taste) to the ganache before you drizzle. 

 Drizzle over the cakes once it has set up a little bit. 

*top with crushed up peppermint candy cane.

We made these for our friends and neighbors.

I found this tag online but it's not available anymore. The only ones I could find are on Etsy. But you could create your own pretty easily.

We made another batch for our teachers.

This time I waited for the white ganache to set up a little more before I drizzled it on. This way it covers up the raspberry filling better. We also added some holly sprinkles. 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas class snack

December class snack:

Boom Chicka Pop, Chex mix, peanuts, white fudge cookies, and M&M's

 

Fruit cone cornucopias

This month for both Lucy and Wyatt's class snack we waned to do fruit cone cornucopias. 

Lucy wanted to fill hers with green grapes, strawberries and oranges.

I found these cute Thanksgiving tags here. I used my 2 in scallop punch to cut them out.

Lucy's teacher is so sweet and always lets Linc in on snack time and he eats it up. The kids are always so cute with him. We both look forward to this day!

These are the ones we did for Wyatt's class shortly after Lucy's.

He wanted apples, oranges, and red grapes.

We dipped the ends of the cones in chocolate. Lucy wishes we would have thought of this sooner.

Halloween cake walk

This year Lucy's class was in charge of the cake walk at the Halloween carnival so we made a cake to donate.

We made a chocolate cake (box with added egg and 1 cup sour cream, and milk instead of water) and frosted it with chocolate frosting.

Patti's Chocolate Frosting:

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup softened butter

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla3 1/2 cup powdered sugar 

We used pretzels for the fence, Milano cookies for the tombstones, crushed Oreos for the "fresh gravesites", and fondant ghosts (rolled thin, cut out with a round cookie cutter or glass, and a face piped on with black frosting) draped over suckers.

We even dug out a grave and added bones inside. This was really fun to make!

Earlier today I helped Wyatt's class make sugar cookies. These are the "example" cookies of what they could do. 

They had so much fun!

 Wyatt's cookies

Happy Halloween!

Monster Snack #2

It was Wyatt's turn to bring the class snack today. We also got permission from Mr. Estrada to read "Paper Monsters," make them, and have a monster snack.

We made it a little different this time by adding eyeballs to the fruit "throw up." I hot glued googly eyes to toothpicks.

We also made a different kind of pretzel snack. We really liked these little guys. You know I'm a sucker for a treat with a face!

Mummy=dip pretzel rod in white chocolate add edible eyes and drizzle with white chocolate after the rod dries.

Frankenstein=dip pretzel rod in green chocolate candy melts and add edible eyes. Once it dries, add hair, mouth and scar using black chocolate melts in a piping bag with #1 or 2 tip.

Monster=dip pretzel rod in orange candy melts, add one big edible eyeball, and cover in sprinkles of your choice. I felt like these ones make them look a little hairy.

I don't think I could eat them. They should just stay in this jar as decoration.

We put them in pretzel bags and added a plastic spider to the ribbon for fun.

The kids loved their snack today and loved making their monsters. 

Soccer snack

We made these for Wyatt's soccer team today. It was his turn for snack. We wanted to make something fun so we dipped some pretzel rods in white almond bark and drizzled them with black chocolate. We added some chocolate soccer balls to the bag as well. 

Wyatt also wanted to give them Gatorade and crackers.

We put them in these white bags with this tag. I found the tags here.