Happy Valentine's Day!

I do not quite understand people's draw to Red Velvet cake. I do not see anything truly special about it, other than most do not make it. Sure, it is a red colored moist cake, but, without the food coloring, it is still moist.

None the less, I made this Red Velvet Cake for the first time last year, and created a cream cheese/sour cream frosting to go with it. I will note, a little hint, is to the cake, and not getting red blood splatters everywhere, is to mix the red food coloring with the cocoa, and add the cocoa to the batter with the rest of the wet ingredients.

I think the frosting is what makes my Red Velvet enjoyable.

I have spent probably a total of 2 hours to try to find a good frosting for these, but never found one that looked correct. So I have joined a couple of recipes found on the Internet, to make what I feel is THE best Sour Cream-Cheese Frosting.

I made these filled ones, to make them extra special too!  Super simple, a little putzy, but, gives me more frosting!

For the Cream Cheese frosting, basically you need softened (room temp.) cream cheese, powdered sugar, and sour cream.  I used equal parts sour cream to cream cheese, and added powdered sugar to taste.  And then I added more sugar or sour cream based on my mood for the day.

To make them filled, it was pretty easy.  I used a paring knife, and cut a circle at about a 45 degree angle.  Popped the top off, and trimed a little off the bottom, and filled it, replaced the top, and topped it all with more frosting!  You don't have to worry about the top looking super pretty, because you are covering it anyways.

Finished Product

Update: I brought these in for the people I support at work, all said they enjoyed them, and nobody died. :) So basically a win in my book!

Bunny Butt Cake!

Today is my former neighbor's birthday party.  I used to be, I swear as creepy as it sounds, best friends with her when she was 3, and I was like 13.  So weird.  She turns 21 today.  This is also my Fiance's best friend's little sister.  His best friend is the reason why we met. Or well, more specifically, his best friend's parents are the reason why we met, since they bought the house there 20 years ago.. Or maybe I should thank my mom's parents for building said house 40 years ago?  Another day.

Today we celebrate her birthday.  She is a HUGE animal lover, has an indoor bunny rabbit, which she is madly in love with. Her rabbit is potty trained, and they have a liter box and every thing.

I had seen a bunny butt cake on Pintrest. A long time ago - you know, Easter time.  But I really wanted to make one!  And now I had a reason!

I pretty much followed the recipe directions on the Betty Crocker website.  I didn't use any marshmallows, I made muffins for the tail and feet.  I didn't do any ears for my bunny friend.  I used a bake and fill cake pan for the body.

To frost my friend, I slathered on the canned vanilla frosting, and just tapped it with a butter knife to make the peaks.  I took a little of the white frosting and tinted it pink with food coloring to make the feet.  I mean, the girl is turning 21, she should be drunk by the time I show up anyways.

What do you think?

As you can see, I probably should have done a crumb layer.  I also should have planned ahead, and decided to make this yesterday, so I could have picked up the eggs and frosting before 10am today.

I don't plan on staying at the party very late tonight, I have a 10Mile run tomorrow.  So, I will make an appearance, and head to bed at my dad's house, and get up at what.. 5 am?  ugh.  Why am I doing this tomorrow?!

Cream Cheese Poundcake

Well I had been trolling blogs earlier in the week, and came upon a recipe for Cream Cheese Pound Cake.  I had a slice of Lemon Pound Cake the week prior from a gal at work, and it was pretty good.  So I figured, I should make one.  And with cream cheese?  Sounds even better. 

I gathered up all the ingredients and put it together.  I will say I followed what she said, but it took forever to bake.  Literally. FOR-EV-ER.

True story.  I don't think it was worth it.  The crusty part on the bottom was tasty, I cut it off, because it wasn't sitting correctly.  And cut it up, whipped up some heavy cream with some sugar, and served it with strawberries.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Like I said, I don't think it was worth it, and will not make it again.  Maybe I am not a pound cake person.  I just didn't understand why people always say how much they love a pound cake, but how it is so fattening that they don't eat it very often.

I am just not going to eat it very often in general. 

But on the plus side, I did make some pretty good whipped cream.  It may not have been very stiff, but I really wanted to avoid the problem I had when I made my Magic Strawberry Ice Cream, where I turned it halfway into butter..

I didn't throw it away (even though I wanted to), I brought it to work and left it in the galley, a.k.a. the magic area where everything gets eaten. Were you looking forward to trying a new recipe only to find out that you wanted to throw it away once it was finished?

Fantastic Weekend!

My weekend was great!  I hope yours was too!

Yesterday my dad came over and brought my treadmill to me, and he ate Crock-Pot Chicken Tacos with me for dinner.  They were pretty good. 

Literally just 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, a jar of salsa, and taco seasoning.  Turned the crock-pot on high for 4 hours.  Pulled the chicken out to shred, and then added some canned Jalapenos at the end, but, I really didn't notice them. 

I saved a couple cups of the shredded chicken to make Chicken Tortilla Soup later too.

After that, the Boyfriend and I went to my friend's house and had some adult beverages, and played that corn hole game.  I like it, it's that beanbag/toss in the hole cut out.  And then we came home, and I watched my CBS Sunday Morning, and my little sister sends me a text asking what I am doing in the afternoon, and perhaps she and her son would like to come over.  So I offered up dinner, and that set in motion the rest of my day!

Once the Boyfriend awoke, I let him know we would be having company for dinner, and that we would be needing to go get groceries sooner than later. Because I wanted some time for my salads I would be making to marinate. 

We ended up with Corn on the Cob, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Creamy Cucumber Salad, Broccoli Salad.



A FEAST!

It was all super good.  And then after all that, of course we needed dessert!  I had baked the 4 layers on Saturday morning.  But I needed to make the frosting and assemble this mammoth thing!

My first attempt at a gradient cake with ombre frosting.

I am not going to lie, I used 2 box white cake mixes, and added blue and violet food coloring to the Buttercream Frosting I made.  There was a lot of frosting, I made 3 batches, and used it all.

For both the cake and the frosting, I used more food coloring for the dark blue then I did for the lighter blue layers.

The frosting was Wilton's Buttercream frosting recipe.  I used a basic ombre technique I found here.

My 2 year old nephew poo'd blue the next day...  :)

Have you made a gradient cake or ombre frosting?  They are all over Pintrest - I would love to see or hear about your creation!