Haunted House Cake

The Haunted House Cake

I borrowed the haunted house cake pan from a friend and we created it with the whole family.  Lots of fun for the kids and of course, they loved to eat it when it was all done!

Before

The Icing

It was a Family Affair

They were Very Proud, Not Sure What my son is Doing:)

Diane

Pumpkin Patch Cake

Pumpkin Patch Cake

A few weeks ago I bought these huge pumpkin marshmallows and I still have a lot leftover so I wanted to come up with something else 'fun' to make with the kids!  On the back of the package it had a suggestion to make a pumpkin patch brownie so I changed it up to make it my own.  While the cake was baking I piped the green candy melt vines and brown chocolate stem onto the pumpkins.  I also piped separate vines and leaves which I used for more decorations.  I let these things harden so that they were ready to put on the cake for added touches of decorations.  I started with a basic cake (yes, I use cakes from a box) and I put brown coloured icing on the entire cake.  Next step was to sprinkle on the crushed mint OREOs, which my kids loved to crush!  I then added the piped vines and pumpkins and the pumpkin patch cake is complete.  A super cake idea for autumn or Halloween!

Crushed Mint OREOs for our dirt!

Green Candy Melts Piped into Leaf and Vine Shapes

Piped Vine and Chocolate Stem

Close Up of One of the Pumpkins

Diane

Turkey Cupcakes

Turkey Cupcake!

Since I am Canadian living in the US, I am inviting a few families over for a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner next weekend.  For dessert, I think I might make these turkey cupcakes for the kid's dessert.  Simple to make, if you can find these German Chocolate Cake marshmallows.  For the icing, I added some copper and brown food gel and then I obviously just covered the cupcake with the icing.  For the head, I used one of the German Chocolate Marshmallows and I used melted chocolate to 'glue' black cake confetti for eyes, half an m & m for the beak and a red maple leaf cake confetti for the waddle.  I just placed the head on top of the iced cupcake.  For the tail, I pushed five caramel candy corns into the cupcake.  Voila... a cute turkey cupcake, any kid will love!

German Chocolate Marshmallows

Close Up of the Head

Diane

LEGO Block Birthday Cake

My Son's 6th Birthday Party LEGO Block Cake

This was my son's LEGO birthday cake for his birthday party with his friends.  It was pretty simple to make... I used 2 cake mixes and I made 1 rectangle cake and 2 loaf pan cakes (I had one leftover loaf pan cake).  I took the rectangle cake and just iced it with 2 different colours and then I used one more additional colour for the top block.  I made this cake over a year ago before I had gel colours for icing so the icing is more pastel than what I would have wanted but it worked for then.  The knobs for the LEGO were just marshmallows cut in half and I iced them to match.  My hubby was the one that then added the LEGO figures on top, he had fun with that..... he just took LEGO from my sons collection!  It was a hit with him and all his friends!

Diane

Apple Cupcakes

Our church was hosting Vacation Bible School (VBS) this week and the theme was "The Big Apple."  Tomorrow night we are having a big BBQ and presentation of the week.  I was planning on bringing these cupcakes for the BBQ.  Unfortunately, I totally chopped off the top of my finger so I chose to bring something easy, such as chips, but I still made 4 cupcakes and took pictures of them.  Since I had baked all the cupcakes already I made a few apple ones for my kids.  I looked on-line and got ideas since there were a lot of different types of apple cupcake ideas.  Things you need: a basic white cake mix (or golden), red icing (green if you are making green apples), pretzel sticks, licorice straw ropes and gummy worms.  I used a small piece of the pretzel for the apple stem, I sliced the licorice for the leaf, I took a fork and took a 'bite' out of the apple and then just placed a worm in it, for fun!  A fun little cupcake, the idea was great for the theme of VBS but with the pain in my finger I just did not want to make 36 of them!  I also think this would be a fun food to make for an April Fool's Day party!

Diane

Swimming Pool Birthday Cake

My Son's Swimming Pool Birthday Cake

This is the cake I made for my son's 7th birthday party.  The slide is made with pretzels (used melted chocolate for glue) and a Fruit by the Foot.  For the signs I just 'painted' white melted chocolate on parchment paper and I used a small bit of Fruit by the Foot for the 'string' to hold up the sign and then coloured melted chocolate for the words.  I added texture to the 'water' and I sprayed it with blue food colouring.  I am not very good at making cakes but I try and my son loves it.

Teddy Grahams, Watermelon Rings, No Lifeguard Sign

White Chocolate Sign with a Fruit by the Foot Hanger

Slide made from Pretzels and Fruit by the Foot

Diane

Flag Day Star Red/White/Blue Striped Cupcakes

The Inside of my Red/White/Blue Patriotic Cupcake

Tomorrow is flag day and I usually like to make treats for my son's class for special days.  I decided to try a multi-coloured cupcake, like I did for St Patrick's Day.  I just used one box of white cake and divided the batter into three bowls.  I kept one bowl white and added blue and red food colouring to the other two.  I spooned blue batter in first, then white and then red.   Bake as usual.  Once the cupcakes were cooled I just put some white icing on top and then I used my small star cookie cutter to add a design to the top of each cupcake.  I tried 2 different designs: 1) a red one with spray colour and 2) a blue sugar star.   The blue sugar worked out better so that is what I made for his whole class and I used the red star as my 'demo' for the pictures!  A perfect cupcake for Memorial Day, Flag Day (June 14th) or 4th of July!

The 3 Colours of Batter

You Can See the 3 Colours

The Top Red Star

The Whole Batch of Blue Stars for the Class!

Diane

Zhu Zhu Pet Cake

Zhu Zhu Pet cake!

For my daughter's birthday I ended up making 2 cakes... 1 for her birthday party and one for her actual birthday.  This cake was great to make ahead because we were so busy the few days before her birthday.  I made the zhu zhu decoration ahead of time and just stored it in a ziploc.  To make the zhu zhu decoration I printed out a zhu zhu pet that I liked, put wax paper overtop (or any other 'paper' that is see through and candy melts will not stick to), paint candy melts on the picture, let harden and then store in ziploc.  Since you flip the picture to put it on the cake, you need to remember that you will end up with a mirror image of the original picture! When I was ready I just made a circular cake, iced it and then put on the zhu zhu decoration.  It is my friend Michelle of easycakeideas.com that helped me learn how to make pictures out of candy melts and/or chocolate.  So easy but you can make amazing pictures for your cakes!

The original picture

Black, dark pink and white candy melts painted on

Covered in light pink candy melts

The final product

You end up with a mirrored image, just place on top of iced cake!

Diane

Earth Day Cupcakes

Earth Day cupcake topped with a little happy sunshine!

I can't take full credit for these cupcakes.  A friend of mine, who is very crafty with cupcakes, made these earth cupcakes for church for Earth Day and I asked her if I could copy the idea.  She gave me the go ahead.  Hers were the two toned cupcake, with the fluffy icing clouds and star cake confetti.  I added the sunshine to differ mine from hers.  I used a golden cake mix because that is all I had in the house but a white cake mix would have been better.   First you make the batter and then put it in 2 bowls and add green and blue food colouring.  I then used a spoon and alternated putting some batter in the cupcake liners.  Baked it.  Iced it with clouds.  Put a few stars on each cake and then put on my assembled sunshine.  The sunshine is just a banana saltwater taffy with pretzel halves dipped in a bit a chocolate to help 'glue' them in.  You do need to twist the pretzels a bit to help secure them to the taffy.  I then added a smiley face with my food markers..... just for fun!  A perfect earth day treat!

Ready to go in the oven

Green and blue batter

Saltwater taffy happy sunshine

Fluffy icing clouds and stars

Diane

Rainbow Cupcakes

The inside of the final product!  So pretty!

A pot of gold at the end of a rainbow cupcake:)

 For St Patty's Day I wanted to make a pot of gold for my son's class so I looked on familyfun.com to help me with an idea.  I decided to make rainbow cupcakes and then I just put plain white icing on top with yellow sugar and a chocolate coin = a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow:)  I made one boxed cake and measured it into 6 bowls.  After that I added red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet food colouring gel into each bowl giving you 6 colours of the rainbow.  I lined the cupcake pan with cupcake liners and I added a spoon of each colour one at a time to the linings.  I added purple first so that I had the purple on the bottom.  With one cake box I got 12 cupcakes.  This process is labour intensive but not difficult and it is so beautiful once they are complete.  After they were cooked and cooled I added the white icing, yellow sugar and chocolate coin.  A great rainbow St Patrick's treat.

ll 6 colours of batter!

The colours coming up!

A side view of a rainbow cupcake!

Diane

Zhu Zhu Pet Cake

Princess Snowcup

Her Face

So, my daughter wanted a Zhu Zhu Pet birthday party.  I thought that it would be easy because Zhu Zhu's are a huge rage right now.  Unfortunately, there are not a lot of ideas out there for Zhu Zhu pet snacks or Zhu Zhu pet fun foods.  Thanks to "The Party Animal" blog I found directions to make a Zhu Zhu Pet cake.  The directions were for Mr Squiggles and my daughter wanted Zhu Zhu Princess Snowcup so I took the basic directions for Mr Squiggles and then changed it up to make Princess Snowcup.  You will need a 3-D egg cake pan and one cake mix.  Check out The Party Animals blog

Snowdrops Back Designs

(http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/how-to-make-a-zhu-zhu-pet-birthday-cake/) for more detailed directions but check out my pictures for Snowcup.  I used a pink jelly bean for the nose, black jelly beans for the eyes, angel hair pasta for the whiskers and I used saltwater taffy for the ears, feet and tail.  WARNING... do not use the saltwater taffy too early, it will lose its' shape, decorate with the saltwater taffy right before you are ready for the party.  For the designs on the back of Snowdrop, I just used candy melts and I 'paint' the design on parchment paper and transfer onto the cake.  Icing this cake

Zhu Zhu's Little Tail

is so easy because you do not want it to be smooth, you want texture.  Since I am not a baker I did use boxed cake and pink and white icing from a jar.  I do not pride myself on my baking skills, unfortunately!

My daughter was of course thrilled with the results and I think that she looks pretty cute too.  You can do this, even if you do not feel confident, I have never thought of myself as a cake maker but this one worked out pretty well!

Diane