Brownie Camo Cheesecake

Nothing says Happy Birthday to my son like this fun and tasty treat! I've gotta say, I like this kid's taste.

His request:

"Can you make a cheesecake with a brownie on the bottom and cheesecake on top...but not too much cheesecake--just enough."

Got 'er covered. He didn't even know that it would be camo colored.

The base can be a box brownie mix (for a 9 x 13" pan) or your favorite recipe. I baked the brownies about 5 short of being fully done (they were no longer jiggly in the middle but a toothpick definitely would not come out clean).

I then used this cheesecake recipe but changed the proportions to use 3 pkgs. (24 oz.) cream cheese. I did not use almond extract, so I added an additional 1/4 tsp. vanilla.

I'm seeing a birthday trend in this family!

Tye-dyed red velvet cheesecake

Brownie cheesecake

THE Cake :: a chocolatey angelic dessert

After years of making fun cut-out cakes, my mother in law ended up making THIS "cake" for my husband's birthday every year. For as long as I can remember, they've just referred to it as "THE cake." His requested favorite. It wasn't made for any of his siblings, just my hubby's own special cake for his own special day.

It's a rich and delicious combination of tastes and textures--the really nice airiness of the angel food cake and creamy scrumptiousness of a dense chocolate mousse. It's nothing short of the perfect dessert!

1 large angel food cake
4 eggs
2 TBSP sugar (I consider this optional)
12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 pint whipping cream
1 cup nuts (optional)

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler. (I put them in a glass bowl and microwave starting with 1 minute, stir, then heat in increments of 30 sec. + a stir until all is melted.) Add 1 TBSP sugar (optional) and egg yolks. Beat egg whites separately, add 1 TBSP sugar (optional), and fold into the chocolate mixture. Whip cream in separate bowl, then fold into chocolate mixture. Fold, stir, mix until there are no streaks. Break up the cake into small pieces, about 1-inch"ish" cubes. Put 1/2 of the cake into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan. Cover with 1/2 of the chocolate mixture; layer the rest of the cake pieces, then spread the rest of the chocolate mixture to cover all of the cake pieces.

Sprinkle with nuts if desired (we like toasted PEE-can pieces).
Refrigerate overnight, or at least for a few hours.
Slice into squares.

Serve with a kind word and a smile...and a birthday song, if it fits the occasion!

Spider Cake

I was serious this time. I wasn't going to make my son's birthday cake this year. Just didn't have enough time. Violin performances, activities, Halloween. Busy week.

So.


I went to the store for his requested spider cake, and there were no more and there wouldn't be anymore. Didn't have time to special order one either.

Baking aisle. Baking? Aisle? Where art thou?

He got his request.

A spider cake for our youngest little monkey.

Since he just read Charlotte's Web a couple of months ago, I couldn't resist writing his birthday "greetings and salutations" Charlotte style.

* * * * * * *

METHOD:

Boxed cake mix + ingredients to prepare
1 container dark chocolate frosting
1 container white frosting
Small black icing
Small silver sugar beads
Food coloring gels
1 Hershey Kiss (spider head)
A few pieces of black licorice

Prepare cake in regular cake rounds plus one cupcake (for spider). Use dark chocolate frosting to stack cake layers. Color 1/3 cups white frosting orange, put it into a ziplock baggie and cut small hole in corner to draw the web onto the frosted cake. Color the rest of the white frosting bright yellowy green to frost the outside of cake. Color 1/3 cup of the dark chocolate frosting as black as possible (for spider) with blue and red coloring gels. After drawing the web onto the cake add the small silver sugar beads at the connecting points. This is an optional step--I just had the beads already (and used a tweezers for placement). The spider was made from a frosted cupcake (top cut off) and a frosted Hershey's Kiss (from our kids' trick or treak bags) for the spider head. I also used the sugar beads for the eight eyes most spiders have. Don't forget that spiders have 8 legs...not 6! I finished off lining the bottom of the cake with black licorice. I only had it since I was thinking of making the cake one big spider using the black licorice for the spider legs.

Tropical Pool Cake :: Beach Cake

Our daughter requested a beach cake this year.

I found the idea for this cake online, and it led me to the original idea that came from the June 19, 2007 issue of Woman's Day. Zee dee-rect-shuns.


My daughter and the rest of the family LOVED this fun cake. It was pretty straight forward--especially since I don't have or know how to use any special cake decorating tools.

NOTES: I had to use 3 of 4 layers from TWO boxed cake mixes to get the height proportion of the online example.

I was a little concerned that if the Jello was pourable, it would make the cake soggy and even leak out. So, I waited until it was getting a little lumpy until I stirred it well and poured it onto the cake.

Our grocer does not carry Keebler Bug Bites for the cute butterfly (I'm not even sure if they make them anymore). After contemplating fashioning one out of something else, I decided to leave it out completely.

Instead of coloring all the different icings, I just used a box of Icing Writers found at the grocery store. I only mixed the light blue and light brown colors myself.

I couldn't find green Fruit by the Foot (only found the tie-dye version), so I used a roll of green Hubba Bubba gum tape (6 ft. in all) that I found at Party City for the "sea weed".

I also couldn't find striped sour belt candy, so I used part of a fruit roll up for the beach towel...but could've just used another piece of the gum roll.

The palm leaves were a bugger. Maybe leaving them flat would have been wiser. I tried to make them curved like the instructions called for (more realistic), but it was the most frustrating part of this cake. More often than not, the leaves broke.

Also, instead of bread sticks, you can see that I've instead used pretzel rods.

Another cake request fulfilled for one of our little'ns.

Carrot Cake (3 layers)

I just made this cake for our block party in celebration for all August birthdays. I think it had been a while since our neighbors had a homemade cake...not a crumb was left!

Our sweet neighbor down the street from our old house made this cake and a pot of chicken and dumplings for us a few days after we returned home from the hospital with our newborn twins. Since she is elderly and because we had a very steep driveway, Joe walked down the street to her house to pick up the food and bring it home for us. I remember him coming home with his arms shaking from fatigue because he had to carry the cake in one hand and a hot saucepan in the other. Since the handle cover wasn’t long enough to cover the entire length of the long hot handle, it took tremendous strength to continue holding the heavy pot all the way home without being able to support it underneath with his other hand…carrying the cake. Periodically, he had to just stop, rest it on the ground, and switch hands! What funny things we remember! We never told her about Joe's trouble, but I did get the recipe from her!

1-1/2 cup grated raw carrots
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
4 whole eggs
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together oil and sugar. Add carrots and eggs. Add flour, cinnamon, soda, salt and vanilla. Using 3 – 8 inch cake pans (greased and floured), pour batter evenly into pans and bake for 20-25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Frosting:
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 lb. box of powdered sugar
1 stick butter
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup pecans, toasted & chopped (optional, but good)

Cream together butter and cream cheese. Add sugar--and a little milk, if needed. Frost cake and add pecans all along the side.

Note: For the carrots, I took 1/4 cup of the leftover frosting and added 2 drops red and 4 drops of yellow food coloring, mixed it, then threw it in the freezer to harden a bit. I don't have nor would I know how to use fancy cake decorating tools, so I just scooped up wee bits of the frosting and formed them into carrot shapes and positioned them onto the cake. Ideally, I suppose I should have made one carrot for each slice of cake. For the leaves, I used a squirt can of green food coloring I had left over from another cake (I know, classy. Hey, I'm all about function and simplifying life, okay?

P.S. If you're wondering about the birthday banner, I made this cake for our street's 2nd Annual August Birthday Bash celebrating about 10 neighbors' August birthdays (including one of our kids). I used card stock to print up the subtle-colored bunting, printed letters with marker, sewed some craft thread through the card stock, and tied the banner to a set of chopsticks.

Birthday Cake Chronicles :: M&K 2010

Mike and Kathleen made it easy on me this year and requested a tasty shared cake!

Quadruple Chocolate Mousse Cake

Volcano cake with tropical flowers

Requested by this young lady.


Idea for cake found here.


General idea for flowers found here.


Instead of making my own hard-crack candy for the lava, I just melted down Red Hots and Jolly Ranchers. NOTE: When pouring the melted candy on parchment paper, make sure to pour various lengths of "lava" with a curve at the top to make it easier to secure to the cake. Looking back, I should have made more short lava and filled in the top more to make it look more explosive. I had longer pieces left and should have just broken them in half and used 'em.


Made to order for my daughter's ninth birthday!

2 boxes of cake mix
6 eggs
2/3 cup oil
water
1 pkg. prepared chocolate frosting
1 pouch green decorator icing
Cool Whip
1-6 oz. package of Red Hots
small bag of passion fruit Jolly Ranchers
(I just used the orange ones.)

$10.31 and a little putzing...
for a cake made to order,
with priceless memories
held in the heart of a nine-year old girl.

Most definitely worth it!

Birthday Cakes...once again!

Mikey's request: "A 3-D monster truck--with roll bars--climbing up a mountain"

Kathleen's request: "A tree with some fall-colored leaves"

Birthday cake by Dad

Yep, Joe made this one since there was no time on Halloween (the day before Jimmer's birthday) and no time in the morning on his birthday for me to make one. I'm the kids' violin coach and had to take them to lessons.

Jimmer requested a camper cake--reminiscent of our recent Canadian Rockies trip in a 31-foot RV.

I was confident that Joe's structural engineering talents would shine and that he'd be able to pull it off. I just gave him materials suggestions. He didn't even have to use steel or concrete for this structure, although a couple of toothpicks were used for reinforcement. Some extra special touches--green sprinkles for grass, a couple of chimps (Jimmer's faves) and other fun animals, trees, and even (ahem) a dump station. He made me proud--not because of the dump station but because he didn't even use a measuring device OR a level...not even blue prints! (Doing things "Willy-Nilly" like that usually goes against every grain in an engineer's being.)

I'm thinking he did such a fine job, we may just share this job of requested birthday cake creations.

Jimmer really liked his camper cake.

Checking out the front of the camper.
Checking out the ladder in back.
"Aw, Dad, is that the sewer water hose?"

Yep, sure is. (Leave it to Dad to include a dumping station.)

Make a wish...

Camper Cake
Building Supplies:

3 frozen pound cakes, thawed
2 containers white frosting
fruit roll-ups, he used red
mini donuts (not necessary)
Life Savers
licorice whips
couple of toothpicks
plastic animals of choice
green sprinkles

Blue Print/directions:

None available
(Engineer's tip: Just wing it!)

Birthday Cakes!

What we do for our children!

Somehow, we've set a precedent for our children's birthdays. A day of fun, a scavenger hunt to find their birthday gifts (with all clues in verse), and a cake of their request. Believe me, I have no special cake decorating abilities, as you'll see if you look close enough. I have a couple of decorating tips, but only the ones that attach to the little tubes of colored frosting that you can buy at any grocery store. I rarely even use those. So you don't need any special equipment. Now if you want to make a simply beautifully decorated cake, go get some real decorator tips, take a cake decorating class...or go buy one. Those decadent bakery cakes are what I go for (better yet, just give me a big gooey and very chocolatey brownie), but for our children...they just want a cake that they've requested and looks cool to them. Here are some of their past requests for cakes that I've made.

"Mommy, can you make me a sleep-over cake this year?" was Mary Kate's request the other day. This sleep-over cake is made from a 9 x 13-inch cake with Twinkies for bodies, Reese's peanut butter cups for the heads, smashed large marshmallow for the pillows, and candies to embellish. I found this idea in Cooking for Kids Bible.



"Can you make a fun and yummy cheesecake?" was the request from Kathleen and Mikey. A tie-died cheesecake was the answer--red velvet cake on the bottom and swirled colored cheesecake mixture on top. I used the recipe from this site, but I'd strongly suggest that you only use about 1/3 of the red velvet cake batter and increase all the ingredients for the cheesecake proportionately to use 24 oz. of cream cheese instead of 16 oz. I made these changes, and was relieved I did. Otherwise it would have been like eating cake with a little cream cheese frosting.


Flower and bugs cake--made from one cake mix in a bundt pan, a small round cake pan, and a few cupcakes...and lots of colored frosting.


Soccer ball for our soccer super star--baked in a Pyrex bowl.


I used this recipe for the Mom Cat and Kitten Cakes--made from a couple of frozen pound cakes.


A monster truck made from a 9 x 13-inch cake, a couple of small round cakes, and candy for embellishments.


A cheetah cake made from a 9 x 13-inch cake and a small round cake with jelly beans as the spots.


A rainbow cake made from a bundt cake.


Flip-flop cake made with two frozen pound cakes, ice cream, whipped topping, and candy embellishments. Check out this site for the recipe. It can also be made with a regular cake and frosting. Get this recipe here.


Mike just HAD to have an Army helmet cake. I made one round cake layer and baked the rest in a Pyrex bowl. Check here for directions.


A lion cake--made from two regular cake layers and a small amount of batter baked in a small Pyrex bowl.


This cake was a big hit, especially since Mary Kate had a life-sized Raggedy Ann doll and had dressed up as Raggedy Ann for Halloween! I got the recipe here.


"A monster jeep riding up a mountain." That's what Mikey requested! It was made from a 9 x 13-inch cake and a couple of cup cakes. I sure could have done more with the "mountain" but when I need to make two cakes at a time for my twins, somethin's gotta give!


What will they ask for next?

Addendum:
(Here's what we've made since the original post.)

Mary Kate wanted a "volcano cake with tropical flowers." This is what she got.

The cake idea was from here, and the tropical flower idea from here.

Another "monster truck riding up a mountain" was in order. This time it was 3D, and I just winged it with various-sized cake layers topped with a cupcake for the mountain, the truck was made with a frozen pound cake, the boulders were krispie rice balls, and the rest was candy decorations and frosting.


This was an interesting order: a "tree with fall-colored leaves." My daughter ended up with this.

I formed stiff cocoa krispie treat mix around a drinking glass and added roots at the bottom. The "tree" was green-frosted angel food cake (I used a cardboard base to rest atop of the "tree trunk"), and the colored leaves were cupcake tops that were frosted green and rolled in fruity pebbles.

What have I started with these 3D cakes? I'm scared for the future!