Farm Themed Cake Pops

My youngest son's birthday was a month ago. He wanted a barn cake and the animals had to be made out of cake. I made the same barn cake as I did last year, but was stumped on what do for the animals. I knew I could make them out of mini cupcakes but really wanted something different. I was at the library looking a the cook books and came across the Cake Pops book. I checked the book out of the library when I saw the farm animal cake pops. My son was really excited for these cake pops and they turned out not bad for my first try.

Pig:

 Cow (the favourite):

Rooster:

 This is suposed to be a chick but turned out looking like a duck:

You can see more Cake Pop ideas on the Bakerella website.

Farm Themed Birthday

My youngest son is wild about cows and all things farm related. He was very insistant he wanted a cow cake again this year. I managed to talk him into having a barn cake with farm animals made out of cookies.

A few weeks before his birthday he told me, "You know mom, a barn really needs a tractor." I said, "Oh, really?" He said, "Yes. I think I need to have a tractor cookie to go with my barn cake and animal cookies."

Where in the world could I get a tractor cookie cutter? I needed to find the farm animal cookie cutters already (except the cow - that I already had) so I searched the web to try to find a tractor cookie cutter too. The shipping costs to and in Canada are unbelievably expensive so I managed to talk him into having a barn cake and a John Deere tractor cake with farm animal cookies. I did finally manage to find the pigs and ducks cookie cutters at the Bulk Barn (2 trips to 2 different stores though).

I made the cookies early in the week of his birthday and froze them. The cakes were baked the morning before his birthday and iced along with the cookies the night before his birthday. He loved these cakes and cookies. I made lots of cow cookies since he loves cows so much and each guest took a cow cookie home with them. (Sorry about the side-ways picture. Blogger won't let me load it turned around.)

He asked me the other day when I was going to make more cow cookies because he'd like to take some on his school lunch. He rarely askes for me to bake anything special for him, so I was pretty surprised. I think I'll have to get some made this week for him.

Ottawa Senators Birthday Cake

My oldest son's favourite hockey team is the Ottawa Senators. So of course he wanted an Ottawa Senators birthday cake. I found a picture of the Ottawa Senators logo on the internet and printed it out in colour. I decided it would be too hard to cut the cake into the shape of the Senator, but I knew if I coloured the icing black and used round cake pans I could make a puck. Luckily my son agreed to a hockey puck cake with the Senator on it. I just free-handed the design onto the iced puck cake and filled it in. It's not exact, but the birthday boy and his friends thought it was "sick". From what I gather that's good!

Birthday Cake!!!!!

My oldest son's birthday was in January. (He's our middle child.) All he could talk about for months (besides Santa and what he was going to ask for/get) was his birthday cake. Last year he just wanted a spiderweb cake - easy enough. This year he wanted a 4-wheeler cake. And not just any 4-wheeler - it had to be just like his 4-wheeler.

The Cake

The real 4-wheeler

I think it turned out pretty good. He really liked it and his friend that came over for his birthday thought it was "sick". Wonder what kind of cake he'll ask for next year?

Another Birthday Cake

My youngest son turned 3 almost a month ago. As his birthday approached we started talking about what kind of cake he wanted. He kept saying "White cow cake."

Let me give you a little background - Last year I made him a cow cake for his 2nd birthday. I had to work the day of his birthday and had it ready the night before after everyone was in bed. I figured that way when I got home I would just have to get supper ready and not have to worry about getting the cake done. My mom was babysitting that day for us and around 4 pm he went to the fridge to get a drink and noticed his cake in the fridge on the bottom shelf. He sat on the floor with the fridge door open and kept saying "My cow cake."

So this year I made hime the same cake. He knows he can have other cakes. I offered to make a pig or goat or anyother farm animal or a construction cake or Bob the Builder or an ATV or a John Deere tractor cake. He said, "No. White cow cake." So that's what he got. I had enough cake batter left over to make some haybales for the cow.

Birthday Zippered Pouches

A few weeks ago we had my daughter's birthday party with her friends. She wanted something different in the loot bags. So I whipped up some zippered pouches. Since she decided she wanted to do this a few days before the party and didn't really like what I had on hand for fabric a quick trip to Wal-Mart found the perfect fabric for 11 and 12 year old girls. This is an outdoor fabric, but it worked perfectly for these pouches. The lining was scrap pink canvas that I had in my stash. Each zippered pouch has a different ribbon and a different coloured zipper. There was handsewing involved in these babies - that is so not my thing. Next time I make a zippered pouch I'm going to have to come up with a way that won't have me hand-sewing.

My daughter loves penquins and we made up a penquin invitation that I got on the web somewhere. She wanted a penquin cake too. Not too hard to do. I made a 13" x 9" rectangle cake and an 8" x 8" square cake. Once the cakes were completely cooled I rounded the top and bottom of the 13" x 9" cake. I cut the 8" x 8" cake on the diagonal to make the flippers/fins, rounding the edges to make it more realistic. Then I made some chocolate icing and put some concentrated black colouring in the icing to make it more black than brown. I also made up some white icing and put a little of the white icing in seperate bowl so I could make an orange beak and feet. First I put the white icing on the belly of the penquin then put the black on the rest of the penguin. Next I used the white icing again to make the whites of the eyes and put black icing in the centre of the whites of the eyes. Then came a triangle shape for the beak and some feet. This cake was a hit and her friends were amazed that I made this cake. Over the years I've done a butterfly cake, Spongebob cake, a beach cake, tractor cake, Spiderman web cake, cow cake, construction cake, Bob the Builder cake and plain old chocolate layer cakes. This was one of the easiest cakes I've made.

Strawberries & Jam

Instead of sewing I've been picking these.....

and making this.......

At first I was quite intimidated to make jam. But it really is easy and doesn't take nearly the amount of time I thought it would. We don't really eat that much jam. Maybe 3 jars a year, so I've arranged to trade some jam for pickles and we'll give some away.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I found a recipe on the internet for banana chocolate chip muffins a few months back. I was wanting a good, easy homemade banana muffin recipe. Well this was a hit! The other day I made 11 muffins.The next morning I was going to freeze some, but when I opened the container to see how many were left there were 3. They only lasted 2 days! The recipe was from http://www.catcancook.com/. Click on the banana muffing recipe on the sidebar.