"30 Sucks" Cake Pops and Cupcakes

My sister turned 30 in September! She is the cake queen and is always making wonderful cakes for everyone so I knew that when I made her cake it needed to be amazing. I saw an idea while blog hopping one day that had 30 suckers in a container and said 30 sucks.

I thought it was a really cute idea and decided that I wanted the suckers to be cake pops! I looked online for a similar idea, but could not find anything! I asked my friend April to help me make them because she makes amazing cakes too and has worked with fondant. So we came up with the idea to make cake pops, dipped in chocolate, then wrapped in fondant to look like suckers. And I think we achieved the look I wanted! I also made cupcakes to go along with the sucker pops. They are regular boxed cupcakes, with homemade frosting topped with crushed suckers!

I thought that making and working with fondant would be really hard and scary but it was so easy. The recipe for the fondant listed below is so easy to make and actually tastes good. And it's just like working with dough so don't be scared to try it!

Buttercream Frosting

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract (this helps maintain the bright white color)

1 1/2 pounds (24 oz.) confectioners sugar, sifted

4-6 tablespoon heavy cream

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter until fluffy. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in confections sugar and continue beating until well blended. Add in vanilla and 3 tablespoons heavy cream. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add an additional 1-3 tablespoons of heavy cream until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy.

Fondant Recipe from April Takes the Cake Blog

1 package (16 oz.) white mini marshmallows

2-5 Tablespoons water

2 pounds powdered sugar (8 cups)

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

To make the fondant, place marshmallows and 2 T. of water in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave 30 seconds on high, stir until mixed well. Continue microwaving 30 seconds more, stir again. Continue until melted, about 2 minutes. Place 3/4 of the powdered sugar on top of the melted marshmallow mixture. Fold powdered sugar into marshmallow mixture. Flavoring can be added at this point if desired. Place solid vegetable shortening in easily accessed bowl so you can reach into it with fingers as you are working. Grease hands and counter generously with shortening. Turn marshmallow mixture onto counter. Start kneading like you would dough. Continue kneading, adding powdered sugar and re-greasing hands and counter so the fondant doesn't stick. If the marshmallow fondant is tearing easily, it is too dry. Add some water (about 1/2 teaspoon at at time) kneading until fondant form a firm, smooth elastic ball that will stretch without tearing, about 8 minutes.

It's best to allow the fondant to sit, double wrapped, overnight. Prepare the fondant for storing by coating with a thin layer of shortening. Wrap in plastic wrap and then place in resealable bag. Squeeze out as much air as possible. The fondant will keep well in refrigerator for several weeks.

When not working with fondant, make sure to keep it covered with plastic wrap or in a bag to prevent it from drying out. When ready to use, knead fondant until smooth. Roll out fondant 1/8 inch think.

To color fondant you will need to tint the entire batch. Add a little icing color to the melted marshmallow mixture before adding powdered sugar. For smaller amounts of tinted fondant, add icing color to portions of fondant as needed.

Makes about 2 lbs. of fondant

Disney Cars Cupcakes

My little boy just turned 2 and we celebrated with a Disney Cars birthday party. I found these cupcake ring toppers on Amazon and knew I wanted to use them for my cupcakes.

I used a box cupcake mix, homemade buttercream frosting tinted grey to look a road and green to look like grass. I piped the frosting on and then placed the ring topper on top. They were a huge hit at his party! I had several people asked me where I ordered them from!

I have to say that this is the best frosting that I have ever tasted before! I will be using this frosting recipe for everything from now on!

Buttercream Frosting

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract (this helps maintain the bright white color)

1 1/2 pounds (24 oz.) confectioners sugar, sifted

4-6 tablespoon heavy cream

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter until fluffy. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in confections sugar and continue beating until well blended. Add in vanilla and 3 tablespoons heavy cream. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add an additional 1-3 tablespoons of heavy cream until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy.

Peanut Butter & Banana Pound Cake with Nutella Glzae

My friend Jen found this recipe and begged me for about 3 weeks to make it, so I finally found the time and made it. I should've made it the first time she asked me, it was so darn good! Peanut butter, bananas and Nutella-you can't go wrong! If you haven't tried Nutella yet, you should! It's like chocolate peanut butter and goes with everything-toast, waffles, Nilla Wafers,

you get the idea!

Recipe and Photo Courtesy of Bunsinmyoven.com

Peanut Butter & Banana Pound Cake with Nutella Glaze

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, room temperature
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter (I used JIF), divided
• 2 3/4 cups sugar
• 5 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 large bananas, mashed
• 1 cup Nutella, divided
• 2 tablespoons milk or water (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter and 3/4 cup of the peanut butter until smooth. Beat in the sugar, mixing until light and airy, around 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Stir in the vanilla.

Add the flour and salt to the mixer, all at once, and mix just until incorporated. Mix in the mashed banana on low.

Pour batter into the prepared bundt pan. Drop heaping spoonfuls of Nutella over the top of the batter, about 1/2 cup. Using a butter knife, swirl the Nutella all throughout the cake to get a marbled look.

Bake the cake for 60-75 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a tester comes out clean.

Allow cake to cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then remove to a wife rack to cool completely.

Heat remaining Nutella and peanut butter in the microwave in 10 second intervals to soften it up enough to drizzle. If desired, mix in a little milk or water to thin the glaze out.

Drizzle on top of the bundt cake.

Flag Cake

Every year my family has a big 4th of July celebration at my parents house. We BBQ, watch fireworks and make homemade ice cream! The past couple years I have made ice cream, but this year I found THIS cake and really wanted to make it. I made it the day before so I didn't have to stress about getting it made and it held up great. The raspberries did bleed a little bit onto the white frosting, but it didn't bother me! The cake was a big hit at the party and I think that it will become a new tradition!

Weekly Menu

Monday-Chicken and Rice Casserole
Tuesday-Spaghetti
Wednesday-Steak and French Frys
Thursday-Girls Night Out at Noodles
Friday-Pulled Pork Sandwiches-Trying a new recipe
Saturday-4th of July BBQ at my parents-so excited! I'm making THIS cake!
Sunday-Lemom Grilled Chicken and Corn on the Cob
Monday-Brisket

Cheesecake and Kisses

It's April again which means that my best friend, April gets a cheesecake made by me for her birthday! I emailed her and asked her if she had any ideas. She sent me 4 links to recipes found on blogs. I had been wanting to make a chocolate cheesecake and this one looked amazing! I read through the recipe and my mouth dropped to the floor when I read how much cream cheese is in this recipe! 32oz!!! But oh boy those 32 oz. made the creamiest most decadent cheesecake ever. And April's husband would agree as well because he kissed me on the forehead after he tasted it! The only alteration that I made to this cheesecake was to add a couple dashes of cinnamon to the crust! If you haven't tried this in your cheesecake crust, do it! It makes it even more amazing! And I used regular graham crackers because I had them on hand but it worked out just fine!

Double Chocolate Italian Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Crust Ingredients:

1 cup chocolate graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons sugar

Cheesecake Ingredients:

32 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
6 ounces bittersweet (or semi-sweet) chocolate, melted and cooled to just above room temperature
6 ounces white chocolate, melted and cooled to just above room temperature

Glaze Ingredients:

8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Instructions:

1. Combine crust ingredients in a mixing bowl. Pour mixture into a greased 9-inch spring form pan and press flat. Wrap the bottom and outside of the pan with foil. We recommend two layers of extra-wide heavy-duty foil. We also use a rectangular piece of cardboard (4-6 inches long and 2-3 inches wide) placed between the latch (on the outside of the spring form) and the foil, to prevent the latch from piercing the foil.

2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Put softened cream cheese, whipping cream, softened butter, and sugar in a large bowl. Mix at medium-low speed just until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time and mix on low speed until blended.

3. Divide cream cheese mixture evenly into two bowls. Add melted bittersweet chocolate to one, stirring to mix. Add melted white chocolate to the other, stirring to mix.

4. Pour white chocolate cheesecake batter into prepared pan, smoothing into a flat layer. Gently spoon bittersweet chocolate in a layer over the white chocolate batter. Place spring form pan in a large shallow roaster or broiler pan. Fill pan with an inch of hot water.

5. Bake 60-80 minutes or until edges are puffed and top looks dull and is dry to the touch. Center should move slightly when side of pan is tapped. Turn off oven. Let cheesecake stand in oven for an hour. Cool to room temperature; refrigerate overnight.

6. Make glaze by melting chocolate and butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in corn syrup. Allow glaze to cool slightly (to about 80 degrees).

7. Remove sides from spring form pan. Place cheesecake on a wire rack over a baking sheet or counter top. Pour glaze over top and sides of cheesecake, spreading with a spatula. Refrigerate until set. Slice into 16 pieces. Store in refrigerator or freeze for longer storage

**Recipe from Tammysrecipes.com

Poppyseed Cake

I haven't felt well lately and my energy has been down so I haven't cooked a lot. My poor husband has had to take care of getting dinner (I would say making but we all know that would be lying) and taking care of the house. But my parents had us over for dinner and I was asked to bring dessert. So I found this recipe on Kraftfoods.com and wanted to try it out. This is normally where I would talk about how great it was, but I didn't eat it! Everyone said that it was really good, so when I feel up to it again, I will make it and try it out!

1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow cake mix

1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding

4 eggs

1 container (8 oz.) Sour Cream

1/2 cup miracle whip dressing

1/2 cup cream sherry (I just used orange juice)

1/4 cup poppy seed

1 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp. milk

1 Tbsp. orange juice

1 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted

1/2 tsp. grated orange peel (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat cake mix, dry pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, dressing, sherry and poppy seed with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Pour into greased and floured 12-cup fluted tube pan or 10-inch tube pan.

Bake 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Mix powdered sugar, milk, orange juice, butter and orange peel until smooth; drizzle over cake. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Caramel, Caramel, Caramel

This months Daring Bakers challenge was one of my favorites! I love sweets, cake and caramel so this cake was right up my alley! Shuna Fish Lydon's Caramel Cake was the chosen recipe and Dolores, Alex and Jenny were the hosts.

I have to say that I was nervous about making the caramel syrup,but it was very easy and so good! I used a tip that I had read about putting foil over the pan and then pouring the water in. This prevented me from getting splattered with hot caramel and worked very well. I had also read that many people thought the cake was too sweet, so I cut back on the sugar and only put in 3/4 cup of sugar and they were perfect!

I was on a local television show this month for a cooking contest and knew that I wanted to make cupcakes to bribe them and they loved them! These cupcakes were easy to make and the brown butter icing was to die for! They joked about having me back on to make the icing! I will be using that recipe on many more cupcakes! However, I did think that the cupcakes were not as light and airy as most cupcakes are, but they were still delicious!

I am at work right now and don't have my camera and my laptop is with my hubby in Africa right now. So tomorrow I will bring my camera to work and post my photos!

Day Late!

I realize that I should've posted this before Halloween! Maybe you could use these ideas for your Halloween party next year!

I got the idea for the cake from Kraftfoods.com. It is called The Great Pumpkin Cake. You bake any flavored cake you want in a fluted or bundt pan. When it's cool, frost it with orange frosting and using green frosting pipe the green lines on. The stem is an ice cream cone covered in green frosting. I took this cake to a Halloween party and everyone loved it and thought it was cute!


We had a potluck at work on Halloween and I made this Spiderweb Brownie Pull-Apart! I baked brownies in muffin cups, spread with chocolate frosting and piped orange frosting in a circle. Then I took a toothpick and drug it through the orange icing creating the web. The spider is a chocolate truffle with icing for the eyes and legs. I won the dessert contest at work!

I think he's cute!

Birthday Cake

My birthday was August 13th! My sister made my birthday cake for me, so I just wanted to let you all see how gorgeous it was. And thanks to my sis for making it!

Pug Cake

The Birthday Girl

My niece just turned 1! She is adorable and I love her to death. She has a pug dog, Roxy, and likes to squish her nose up like her dog. So for her cake, we made a pug. I have to give credit to my sister for this one, she did most of the cutting, I did most of the piping and she put the finishing touches on it. I think it turned out amazing!

We used an 8 inch round cake for the head, an 8 inch square cake for the body and from another round cake cut out the ears, sides and feet. The frosting was tricky. We used April's recipe for cream cheese butter cream frosting. Instead of dying the frosting and changing the taste we added store bought chocolate frosting for the main body and a little black dye to make the gray color. We had fun learning how to pipe. It's a lot of work though and I'm not sure it's worth it.

Cream Cheese Butter Cream Icing

(Makes a lot of frosting and you could cut in 1/2 or 1/3 for one cake)

6 lb. powdered sugar (3 bags)
1 c. water
2/3 lb cream cheese (10 1/2 oz., softened)
1 c. butter (2 sticks, softened)
1 1/2 c. Crisco

Place powdered sugar into mixer or large bowl. Make an opening in the middle of the powdered sugar with a scoop or large spatula. Pour the water in the center of the powdered sugar. Place the cream cheese in the microwave until just warm (about 30 seconds) and put in the middle with the water. Using beaters begin to mix. Add the butter and crisco into the sugar mixture and mix well until it's smooth and creamy.**I also made this ahead of time. Be sure to store it in the fridge in an airtight container or bowl. Place plastic wrap on top of the frosting to keep from drying out. Rewhip before using.**

Be All That You Can Be

My brother-in-law turned 30 last week! My sister threw a giant party for him and of course we had to make a cake. She wanted to make him some type of Army looking cake because he is in the National Guard. I googled and brainstormed and we put together a tank cake. We started by making a 9X13 cake and cake in a bread loaf pan. When they cooled we frosted them and put them together. We frosted them with white frosting and then used frosting spray from Michael's to spray the tank green. Then we used Oreo cookies as the tires and a Hershey bar to look like tread. We crushed up Oreo for dirt and used chocolate rocks in the dirt. She did the writing and included his units number on it. The cake was a hit and everyone loved it! Here is a tip though, you need to open a window or door when you use the spray. It made her kitchen smell like a salon. And don't taste the frosting while it is wet from the spray, it tastes like chemicals.

Cakes

Anyone that knows me knows that I have had a long battle with cake. After many years of throwing layered cakes into the garbage and making just one layers cakes, I have conquered the double layered cake.

The first cake is the cake that I am most proud of. My nephew Jaedon turned 7 last year and he asked me to bake his cake. I asked him what kind he wanted, thinking her would say white or chocolate. But he said that he wanted a cake shaped like Sonic (a character from Nintendo). I said sure and then freaked out. How was I going to bake this cake? My sister and I sat in her kitchen thinking how to make it and had no clue. I decided that we should make it the day before so in case we couldn't do it, we could still order one. So we baked 2 round cakes. Then I went to Jaedon's room to find something with Sonic on it so we could get the shape right. I found a pillow exactly the same shape of the cake in the form of Sonic. So while I held the pillow above the cake, my sister cut out the shapes to form his ears and hair. We then tooth-picked them to the face and decorated with colored icing. The best birthday cake ever was formed and the look on Jaedon's face was the best ever. He was so excited. We almost cried when we had to cut and serve it.

The second cake was a cake that I made for my mother-in-laws birthday. I made a chocolate cake, decorated it with white icing and drizzled melted chocolate over the top. To decorate, I kept it simple and placed some cherries in the center. I think it is very elegant. I did break my rule and served it on a black plate because at the time I didn't have a white serving dish big enough. But it works because the chocolate is dark and the plate is.