Mickey Party Part 3: Recipes and other fun

These are some of the recipes we used. I don't have links to all of the yet, but I will get them and update the post as soon as I do. We simplified this year by only having desserts on the menu. All of these recipes are really easy and most can be made in advance. You can freeze cakes and frosting, jello will keep for day before hand and cookie dough can be frozen as well.  

My boys love cupcakes, then again, what kid doesn't?As I mentioned before I wanted to simplify and I knew most of the kids wouldn't be able to tell the difference between cakes made from scratch and boxed mix so my Mother in Law made the cupcakes with a strawberry cake mix and I topped them with this Swiss Meringue Buttercream that I had frozen left from Liam's birthday dinner, I added a teaspoon for strawberry extracts and red food coloring and topped them with red sugar.

Once again, we had jello. We've had it in some form at Caleb's 2nd and 3rd birthday parties also. We used Food Librarian's Finger Jello Recipe (again) except we used Pineapple Jello and Strawberry Jello to make it in our color palette. 

If you know Caleb you know that boy LOVES doughnuts so we made Fudge Doughnuts (recipe to follow in a separate post) and Cherry Lemonade Doughnuts. I made a double batch the the recipe and baked it in a full size doughnut pan for about 8 minutes. I made the glaze thinner as well but that is just my preference. These doughnut are delicious and I high recommend them! 

Caleb asked for an orange cake and I don't have the exact recipe to share since my Mom made it out of a few different recipes but it was a white cake with orange zest and orange extract with orange curd between the layer and a basic buttercream scented with orange zest and orange extract. It would be an easy thing to replicate with your favorite cake recipes and you could use this lemon curd and swap lemon juice and extract for orange.  

My Mom made these cookies. I know they were a cream cheese sugar cookie and they were delicious! But, I don't know what recipe she used on these either but when I find out I'll update and post it. We got the cookie cutter from The Disney Store. 

The punches were a Berry Lemonade and a Pina Colada Punch that was similar to this. The lemonade was a mix (simply because of sheer volume needed) with frozen berries stirred in that flavored it as they thawed.

Well, that is it for the food. This year was pretty simple. Of course most of the fun came in the form of the bouncy house. We love having it and so do the boys. We also love that my in laws do that for the boys as their birthday gift too. We may need to start looking into investing in one since we would be a third of the through paying for one by now. :) I believe the conclusion is that we need a slide next year though and as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree. Although that injured back of mine did not love me after I got out of that thing, it was worth it to play with my boys. 

 It's hardly noticeable but I used my other Ikea end table by the bouncy house as a place to for people to leave their jewelry, glasses, drinks, etc and to store shoes underneath. I also placed another sigh that said Liam's and Caleb's Playhouse. I'll be making blank or generic forms of those signs and posting as PDFs soon. Then I will be done posting about the party, finally. :)

***UPDATE: for more info on the party look here, here and here. 

Mustache Bash {Liam turned 1}

Its been almost three weeks since we celebrated Liam's first birthday. We had a "small" dinner with Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, which is small for most families, it was 16 for us and that isn't everyone. To make things easier we did a pasta bar. We put out three types of pasta, three types of sauces, two toppings, salad fixings and homemade bread with a dipping oil for dinner and we had two desserts, cupcakes and chocolate pavlova. I made a couple of cute menus to go along with and called it a day. Easy right?

My menus looked like:

I grabbed a couple of snap shots of the food with my parent's camera since mine was dead and we were saving it for shot of the birthday boy and his "smash" cupcake. I'll try to update the post when I get those from them. But for now all I have is dessert shots. We didn't really decorate beyond that, we just used white serving dishes and mason jars. In fact any decor we used was just left out from our Family Cookout two weeks prior. Good timing huh? 

Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes with Swiss Buttercream and Chocolate mustaches. I bought my mold at Bake It Pretty. 

Chocolate Pavlova with whipped cream and strawberries. 

I know my husband took some pictures and/or a video with the camera with barely a charge but they have disappeared into oblivion. I've searched the entire computer and they are gone and I wiped the memory stick after I uploaded them. I don't know what I was thinking?!!? The one time I try to be efficient it backfires. Oh well, we have out pics from our phones

and the shots I put on Instagram and the pictures my sister put on there as well. 

Chai Pumpkin Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

 Break out the knee boots and cardigans, fall is HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Leaves are falling, pumpkins and apples are everywhere, warm colors are ready to be worn, cool breezes are blowing!!!! I love fall! I can't get enough of oranges, golds and browns right now.

I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin though. I hate pumpkin pie but I love pumpkin bread and muffins. Weird, right? Hot tea is something else I have to have in the fall. In fact as I write there is a cup of Chai steeping in the kitchen with my name on it. Lee loves Chai so the inspiration for the these cupcakes came from him. Until I bought the tea for him this week I'd only had a few sips of Chai here and there; I'm usually a Green tea type of girl. But he LOVES Chai and kept trying to get me to drink it but I always went for a mocha of some sort. Now that I have finally had it,  I knew it was a perfect pairing for pumpkin. And man was I right. I think it is the best spice cake I've had. Like ever. No. Seriously. Best. Spice. Cake. Ever.

 And I'm totally obsessed with the Nutella Cloud Frosting from Caleb's party cupcakes. Suddenly it hit me, combine my new cupcakes with that frosting and these little beauties were born!

Chai Pumpkin Cupcakes

6 tablespoons butter at room temperature

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup self rising flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2  teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup vanilla Greek yogurt

1 Chai blend tea bag

3 tablespoons buttermilk

Yeilds 12 standard size cupcakes.

Preheat oven 350 F. Line a standard muffin tin with liners. Pour milk into a small bowl with the tea bag and for 30 seconds and let steep.
Beat butter, sugar and eggs until fluffy.
Sift together all dry ingredients.
Mix together pumpkin and yogurt. Before you pour in the milk squeeze the tea bag to make sure you get as much Chai flavor as possible. Stir the milk into the pumpkin mixture. Add dry ingredients and wet ingredient and mix until thoroughly combined.  Scoop into muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool before icing.

For the frosting visit Sweetapolita. If you have nut allergies in the family a basic cream cheese frosting would be amazing also.

Robot Birthday Party Part 3... The FOOD

The recipes I used for the party are...

Cosmic Cookies via Bakerella. 

I ♥ her so much!!! They were very butterscotchy! I loved them that way though. A few people thought we should cut back on the butterscotch chips next time. But honestly I loved them that way so I will probably leave them just the way they are.

Gear Gumdrops also from Bakerella. 

Told you I love her. These are a lot  of work but very much worth it. The orange were root beer flavored and the blue were bubblegum flavored. I did two recipes and wound up with left overs. Next time I think I will do a fruit flavor and cut down to one recipe. Maybe next time I will remember to put out the treat bags so guest can take them home too.

Gadget Gellies from Food Librarian. 

I used berry blue and orange flavors. I now have a major obsession with gelatin related recipes. I bought the tiny spoons from Bake It Pretty but now they have these spoons that I think I like better. They have everything you need and more! I bought the shot glasses from Oriental Trading.

Mechanical Marshmallows

These are pretty self explanatory. Just put lollipop stick in marshmallows then dip in melted chocolate and shake on the sprinkles let set until chocolate hardens. Easy!

Contraption Cupcakes

(mango lemonade cupcakes)

I'm not going to give you the recipe I used for the cupcakes. It was a new recipe and it was dry and had a weird texture. So I recommend using this cake just add lemon zest and reduce the milk but the amount of lemon juice you add. I would add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and zest of at least 3 lemons.

For the butter cream we still haven't perefected that either. It had an amzing flavor but the textuer was odd. We used...

2-3 cup powered sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 cup fresh mango puree

but next time I think we will strain the puree and maybe cook it down until it has thickened and let it cool. Then add it to a cream cheese frosting. Maybe! Who know what I will do.

Bionic Brownies

1 cup butter
2 cups cugar
1/2 cup cocoa
4 eggs beaten
2/3 cup AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup nut optional

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease 13x9 pan. Melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat. Add sugar and cocoa; stir to blend. Remove from heat, stir in eggs. Stir together flour, salt and baking soda; stir into chocolate mixture. Stir in vanilla, chocolate and nuts. Bake 30-35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from pan.

Birthday Bot Cake

(chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling)
For the cake we used Hershey's Black Magic Cake. It is our most used chocolate cake.
 For the filling...
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package of chocolate  cream sandwich cookies
Cook flour and milk together in small saucepan until thick and bubbly. Cool. In separate bowl cream shortening and butter. Beat in sugar. Beat in flour mixture and vanilla. Stir in cookies.   
 The filling for this cake can be used to make a wonderful chocolate filling, an amazing mint, coffee, caramel or peanut butter filling. Just omit cookies and add flavoring of choice. 

Old Fashioned Tasty Goodness

 

     So this cupcake looks like any other unassuming vanilla cupcake cake with plain vanilla butter cream right? WRONG! It's a miniature bite of heaven! My Mom made these for a party she had and she sent them home with me. Manners are very important to me and it would have been extremely rude to turn them down, right?

     One bite teleports you back in time. You know the three layer cakes that ladies always bring to church socials?  But then again all of the recipes she used came out of a Pillsbury cookbook, circa some time in the 1970s, maybe older. It was Granny's but, when she realized Mom had the bug to bake and she was off the hook for baking for everything, she passed it on to her. One day, I'll get it but until then I have to call her every time I need a recipe. That book also has the best muffin recipe ever in it, but I'll save that for another post.  The cake recipe is our go to, make for everything, super adaptable cake. The frosting is very similar to 7 minute frosting but easier and just as good in my opinion. I'm not sure if we've ever used the lemon filling before, but I will be using it again that is for sure!

 

For the cake:
2 cups of AP flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of shortening
4 egg whites
vanilla (us as much as you like)

Butter and flour two 8 inch round pans or fill 2 cupcake pans with liners. Preheat oven to 350 F. Beat the first 6 ingredients on medium for two minutes. Add egg whites one at a time then vanilla. Beat two more minuets. Pour into prepared pans. Bake cupcake 20-25 minutes and round cakes 30-35 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean. Cool then fill and ice.

For the Lemon Filling:
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups water
2 egg yolks lightly beaten
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons lemon zest

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a small sauce pan. Stir in water. Cook over medium heat until just boiling. Boil 1 minute. Pour 1/3 of hot sugar mixture into eggs and stir until combined. Add mixture back into hot sugar mixture and mix well. Stir in juice and zest. Cook until just bubbles. Add butter and stir until melted. Allow to cool. Fill cupcakes.

For the White Cloud Frosting:
2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In small bowl, beat egg whites and salt until foamy. Gradually add sugar, continuously beating until soft peaks form. In small saucepan, beat corn syrup to boiling. Pour in thin stream over egg whites. Continue to beat until frosting is stiff. Beat in vanilla. Allow to cool slightly the frost the filled cupcakes.

Happy Friday!!!

Circus Shower Part 2... The Recipes

Mocha Cupcake with 
Chocolate Ganache

For the cake:
*all ingredients  should be at room temperature

1/2 cup cocoa powder 
2/3 cup hot coffee 
2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate coarsely chopped
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups AP flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain yogurt 
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine cocoa, coffee and chocolate, whisk until lumps dissolve. Set aside to cool. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating 1 minute after each. Add the vanilla. In a separete bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add half of dry mixture to butter mixture. Mix on low until well integrated. Add the yogurt and mix well. Add the remaining dry and mix until combined. Add the chocolate mix until blended but do not over mix. Fill liners and bake. Standard cupcakes bake 20-25 minutes, mini cupcakes bake 7-10 minutes.

For the ganache

1 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup chocolate finely chopped

Heat the cream over low heat and stir in chocolate. Let cool to room temperature. Dip the cupcakes in the ganache and decorate with sprinkles.

Lime Cupcake with 

White Chocolate Buttercream

For the cake:

*all ingredients should be at room temperature

1/2 lb of butter

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs 

3 cups AP flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons lime zest

2 tablespoons lime juice 

Preheat oven to 325 F. In large bowl cream butter and sugar using an electric mix for 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time beating 1 minute after each. In another bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt. In small bowl stir together milk and sour cream. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture alternating with milk mixture. Add lime juice and zest. Fill liners and bake. Standard cupcakes bake for 20 minutes, mini cupcakes bake for 7-10 minutes.

For the buttercream:

1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

6-8 tablespoons butter (at room temperature)

3-9 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 1/2 to 5 cups confectioner sugar

Heat chips, 4 tablespoons of butter and 3 tablespoons of milk in a saucepan over medium heat until totally melted. In a mixer combine the white chocolate mixture with sugar and vanilla. Add more butter, milk and sugar as needed.

Fever Fudge 

(I renamed it Red Hot Fudge for the Shower)

This is actually a recipe that my sister found and is a take on "Fever Fudge" from the Harry Potter novels. She made it for our July 4th get together and asked her to make it for the shower. She made the vanilla and spicy version instead of the mint and spicy version. This time she added yellow to match the the theme. I think it was absolutely adorable. For the recipe go here. Don't be fooled by the bright colors it is very tasty and I think she has added it to her growing collection of go to recipes. :)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

If you have a major sweet tooth like me then these are going to rock your world! For the recipe go here and if you make them be prepared to over indulge!

Baby Boy Blue Punch

This punch is not only super easy but is surprisingly great tasting.  It is also very easily customized to any color palette. It is another one of those recipes that make you raise an eyebrow when you see it but trust me it is actually very good. 

1 bottle of White Cranberry or White Grape Juice

1 2 liter of Club Soda (or Lemon Lime Soda)

1 envelope of unsweetened blue powered drink mix (Koolaide)

1/2 a 48oz container of Vanilla Ice Cream

Chill the juice and soda before the party and just before serving mix juice, soda and drink mix then scoop ice cream on top and then serve.

Lemon Trifle

So for this recipes go here. I did leave the whipped cream off of these only because we ran out of time. They are good either way.

Snack Mix

It isn't much to look at but ap[paently is is quite good.

It is 1 lg bag of pretzels coated with white chocolate and nonpareils mixed with blueberry kettle corn and animal crackers. I didn't actually eat any but I was told it was a great pairing. I found the kettle corn at my local grocery store but you can order it at their website.

I don't have the recipe for the strawberry fluff because I keep losing it. I am going to get it and keep up with it this time because I am starting a family recipe scrapbook. I plan on doing a post about family recipes as soon also.

I bought the cupcake liners and mustache mold at bake it pretty. I love everything in their online shop!!!!

Happy Independence Day!!!!!!!!!!

How about some red white and blue velvety cupcakey goodness to celebrate the 4th? Why, yes, please! 

Of course some cutie wanted to try a bite. And how could I say no to "cucake pweaaaase!!!!!!" 

Then of course Dad had to have some cupcake!

I think Caleb won out though! 

So here is what the inside looked like...

While I did manage to stay out of the pictures, I did get a face full of cupcake thanks to Lee. Of course Caleb thought that was hilarious. I must say they are delicious! I used this cupcake recipe, but I omitted the cocoa powder and added the food coloring at the end after I separated it into three bowls. I decided that I wanted the whitest frosting possible and used this frosting recipe. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday. Please remember the people who continue to fight for our freedom. We love and miss you Mike (Unc)!!!!! See you soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking back at Caleb's 1st Birthday Party

I have had the intention of starting this blog for over a year now. So I've been planning this post for quite some time now. Considering Caleb's birthday is in September it's been a while. But I was super proud of how his birthday turned out and really wanted to blog about it. 

Since before he was born he was called Monkey. I have no clue where it came from but it seemed to fit him and his demeanor perfectly.  We opted to highlight this fact and have Monkey themed Zoo party. We rented the party room at the zoo, which came pre-decorated and was actually pretty cute. 

All the tables had animal print tablecloths, there was a felt birthday banner and the room was filled with aquariums of snakes and lizards (that came out to play later) so I had very little to do decor wise. Honestly I could have made cupcakes and been done but I just can't help myself. I used my Cricut to make invitations, a banner and cupcake toppers.

The guestbook was chipboard letters that spelled out Caleb. I painted them a color to match his room and had every one sign them. They are super cute on his wall and when he has out grown them they can be put away in his keepsake box. Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of them but we love them.

 We had tons of mini to-go boxes  left over from the favors at our wedding. So I batted my eyelashes at my Mother-in-law and asked for two trail mixes and Chex mix so that everyone could help themselves to snack to carry around the zoo. We probably should have asked permission for that one, but sometimes asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission. She made the cutest M&M coated caramel apples too.

Lee's grandmother or MomMom, as Caleb calls her, made the most adorable chocolate monkey lollipops.

My mom and I made the cupcakes. We had three flavors, Banana Chocolate Chunk with Chocolate Buttercream topped with M&Ms, Birthday Cake with Vanilla Buttercream topped with primary color quins or nonpareils  and Lime Coconut with a Lime Buttercream topped with coconut.

 And all of his grandparents came early to help us get set up.There is no way we could have done all of this without our family. They are always such a blessing to us.

After we did the cake the lizards and snakes came out for anyone who wanted to hold them. Now, at this point, I promptly moved to the other side of the room and handed my child off to his Uncle Ronnie ,who has grown up with snakes as pets. Most of the kids loved it and most of the adults evacuated the area.

Since we booked through the zoo we had a guided tour. Our tour guide was great with the kids and kept the adults attention too. 

It is a R.O.U.S. (tee hee)

Caleb enjoying the zoo with his daddy

Catching a ride

Love love love this shot. He wanted to pet the kitty so badly.

Big Caleb, Little Caleb and of course Cuddles

The hubs loved the Star Trek quote!

I cannot believe it is almost time for his 2nd birthday! We have already picked a theme and and color palette. I'm about to start the invitations and decorations soon. Time really does pass so quickly now that I'm trying to squeeze every moment out of watching him grow up.