A Very Large Bowl - Big Enough to Bathe In

Remember this post about our chocolate fountain? Our sweet, tasty, delicious, fountain of the gods? Well, after only about four uses, it went belly up. The darn thing just stopped spouting chocolate. Oh, it hummed and it whirred and sounded impressive, but the twirler that sucks the chocolate to the top and rains it down into the warmed bowl just stopped twirling, like a ballerina caught in a time freeze. It was like something out of Black Swan or the Avengers or something. Everyone got silent and just stared at the non-fountaining fountain, expecting the luscious brown liquid to commence it's downward drizzle, but it was over. It was done. The fountain was dead.

So I removed the fountain part and we all just dug in with our hands. Well, we used it to dip things in instead. You know, things like crackers and fruit, krispie treats, our fingers, our tongues.

Then after the party I took it apart, said a few kinds words, licked off a few stray smears of chocolate and tossed 'er in the trash! So long fountain!

I guess now we'll just have to stick to dipping in a bowl of melted chocolate. A very very large bowl big enough to bathe in sounds about right.



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Raining Down Like Sand

  So, the theme of the most-recent birthday party in the Ginormous Duck household was pizza. Yep, that's right. Just pizza. So, no surprise here, we had pizza as the main meal. It was delicious.

And for cake, I made two cookie cakes decorated to look like pizza. And while they looked pretty good, they didn't taste so good. I could tell, for one, because just about every 10-year-old boy at the party took one bite and left the rest. And I could also tell because I myself have taste buds and when I took a bite I felt the cookie suck every last drop of moisture from my tongue before it rained down my throat like sand. But did that stop me from eating the entire slice of cookie-cake? Of course not! I optimistically expected every next bite to be moist, tasty and delicious. Alas, it didn't happen.

I was very disappointed! I've made this recipe before and it was delicious. But at least they look yummy:

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A Slice of Ice Cream With a Scoop of Cake

This may well be the absolutely ugliest, most poorly executed cake I've ever made:
 

It's Finn, from Adventure Time. In ice cream and colored whipped topping. Beautiful, eh? Ok, not so much.

But the well-planned, rainbow, marble cake didn't do a very good job of coming out of the pan. In fact, it was reduced to crumbs. Both layers. So, we had a slice of ice cream with a scoop of cake at this party. Whatever works!

And it was pretty darn tasty, so who cares what it looks like, right?


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Dunkable, Drizzlable, Delicious

  So I finally got a chocolate fountain. I know I know, what took me so long, right? I mean, a chocolate fountain! Flowing with sweet, chocolately goodness! How could I have gone so long without one. I even managed to find one with a timer so each morning at 6AM it starts up and I wake to the smell and sounds of trickling chocolate drizzling down.

Ok, so the timer and the morning chocolate are just a dream, but I did get a chocolate fountain.

For the last few birthday parties we set that baby up with an array of dunkable, drizzlable, tasty treats - cookies, pretzels, strawberries, Krispie treats, cake, marshmallows, potato chips. I have to say, a Krispie treats dunked in chocolate is one of the most delicious things ever. EVER! Really!

In any case, a chocolate fountain is an incredible invention! The only downside was that I grossed out all the guests when I stuck my face under the fountain and just drank it straight up. It was messy, but wow! That was delicious!

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GIANT Milky Way!

  This is a cake I made recently for my Mom's birthday. Not only does it look like a Milky Way, but it has many Milky Way's melted into the cake batter. It's not quite as delicious as a real Milky Way, but hey. What is?

Giant Milky Way
My mouth waters just looking
Let me have a bite

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Birthday Bliss

Way back on my birthday I got one of those gifts that the family knew I would love, but also benefited them. I barely had the box unwrapped when the kids tore it out of my hands and proceeded to use it. It was a whoopie pie maker. You know what whoopie pies are right? Those delicious little cake-like cookies made into little frosting sandwiches. Yes, those. Yum!

Snickers whipped up a batch with little help and we all reveled in the birthday bliss.

Both me and the kids have used it several times since - trying out various flavor combinations - chocolate cookies with chocolate frosting, chocolate with vanilla, vanilla with chocolate, vanilla with vanilla, chocolate with marshmallow. We haven't found a bad combination yet.
 
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I am! I am!

At Doodlebug's recent birthday party, swarming with 7 and 8 year old boys, I overheard an awesome conversation:

Boy 1: Who is Doodlebug's best buddy? Raise your hand!
Boy 2, Boy 3, Boy 4, Boy 5, Boy 6, Boy 7, Boy 8, Boy 9: Oh, I am. I am! [hands waving wildly in the air]

It was so cute to see my little Doodlebug being so adored!

There were also plenty of other conversations revolving around typical 8 year old boy topics like weapons, boogers, poop and various body parts generally not discussed in polite company.

A fun time was had by all.

And here's a picture of the cake. Doodlebug is rather fond of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and requested that his cake look like one. 

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The Most Colorful Cake in the World

I can honestly say I recently made the most colorful cake I have ever seen.

The most colorful batter in the world:

The baked cake:

The top half:

The finished product:

Tasting time:

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Ding Dong! Crackle Crackle! Squeak. Squeak! SQUEEEEAAAAKKK!

  We recently celebrated Sweat Pea's birthday. She had the usual assortment of parties, celebrations, gifts, etc. mostly on the weekend prior to her actual birthday. But when the day of her actual birthday came, we couldn't let it go unnoticed. So I brought home a box of Ding Dongs and a balloon. Along with a candle and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday, we managed to celebrate it quite well.

There were still a few Ding Dongs left the other day so I snatched one from the cupboard and crept stealthily into the Dining Room (also known as the Pig Room in honor of the Guinea Pigs whose cage happens to be in there (and also in honor of the stench of said Piggies)).

Well, let me tell you, those pigs are squealers! They weren't too interested in my entrance into the room, but as soon as I started to open that Ding Dong, at the very first crackle of paper, they began squeaking at the top of their lungs. I imagine it was something like this:

Eleanor: Hey, whatcha got there?
Oreo: Sounds good!
Eleanor: Quit shoving!
Oreo: Ooooh! It's a Ding Dong! She has a Ding Dong! An actual Hostess Ding Dong!!
Eleanor: Hey everyone! In here! She's eating a Ding Dong!
Oreo: Come on in guys! Check it out! She's eating a Ding Dong!
Eleanor: Quick! Before it's gone!

So, of course the secret was out. Everyone came in to see what all the hub bub was about. And there I was. Caught red-handed with my cheeks stuffed full of Ding Dongs. If it wasn't for the crumbs on my chin, the cream on my nose, the chocolate under my nails and my wide, innocent eyes I may have gotten away with it. Darn pigs!!

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Piece of Cake

Ever use one of those frosting sheets? You know, the ones that come out of some fancy sort of frosting printer with a picture made of  frosting that you can put on a cake? Those things are pretty cool - a  piece of cake to use really.  Just lay it down on the top of the flat frosted cake and it melts into the frosting and looks wonderful.

Now, it's not a fancy, uber-cool cake with layers and columns and architectural supports and fancy doo-dads like I usually prefer to make, but it sure is easy to use and it's a good alternative when you have a tween girl with a boy-band obsession. I don't think I was up to making cute boys out of frosting - not unless you want them to look like lumpy, disfigured, blobs and then they don't really count as 'cute'.

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Mail-Order Larvae

 So, I just finished ordering mail-order larvae. That's right. Mail-order larvae. You see, Snickers just got a ladybug kit (a belated birthday gift). It comes with a nice little ladybug habitat and a coupon for ordering some ladybug larvae. Very exciting! So I placed my order and now we have to wait 1-3 weeks with bated breath for it to arrive.

And, to top it off. Remember this?

That cute little blackberry eating monstrosity I discovered a few weeks back? Do you know what it is? I couldn't believe it when I saw it. Drum roll please . . .

It is . . .

Ladybug larvae!! Yes indeed. Who knew? Apparently ladybugs are little cuties in more than one part of their life cycle. Very cool!

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CAKE!

 The 'bucket of popcorn' cake came out awesome. It looked cool and tasted pretty good too. I used my favorite vanilla cake recipe, but that recipe is really best with a chocolate ganache frosting - something nice and chocolately, so it wasn't as tasty as I would have liked, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. Here's a picture of it:

The hubby had a nice birthday and doesn't seem to mind too much that's he's now as old as I am. Well, he'll never be as old as I am. I'll always be 5 months older. But now he has the same number I do. 40! A nice round number I think. It's even. It's divisible by 2, 4, 5, 8, 10 and 20. It has a 4 in it. And a 0. It's less than 41 and other numbers higher than 41. It's a good number!

Here are a few other pictures - the sheep cake:

And the sheep cake's socks:

And here he is all lit up. How pretty:

And some matching sheep cupcakes (I had to get some chocolate in here!)

And the Sheldon J Plankton cake:

 
Next up is some sort of cake for the 'Squirrels in Costume' party. Yes, that's right. Squirrels in costume. How's that for a theme? I love it! I don't recall how Sweet Pea came up with that, but we were brainstorming one night (when she was supposed to be sleeping) and somehow came up with that one. (It must have been very very late). Even better than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Certainly more imaginative! So now it's time to plan invitations, decorations and the cake.
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Cake Season - Part 2

 As I said yesterday, cake season is exhausting, but fun. By the time I'm done with Snickers cake, the fair cake, Mom's and my brother's cakes I'm all caked out. And I still have hubby and Sweet Pea's birthdays to contend with.

One year hubsterdoodles decided that a cake shaped like a bucket of popcorn would be uber-cool. I agreed and set about planning. I went so far as to make the bucket shaped cake and covered it in a nice buttercream crumb coat. And that's as far as it got. I lost all interest and enthusiasm and ended up not finishing it. So, he got a nice big white cylinder cake for his birthday.

 
It was a nice cylinder, but it was rather plain. And nothing like the awesome cake we both had pictured. I promised I would try again some year.

And that year is here.

He's turning the big 4-0 this year and he's having a movie themed party (a small party, but a party nonetheless) with a bucket of popcorn cake. I promise, unless something unexpected happens, I will finish it this time.

Then, the final cake of the season is Sweet Pea's. I don't know yet what cake she wants, but her party theme is Lord of the Rings so it could be anything from the One Ring to a life size replica of Mount Doom. It should be fun no matter what.

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Cake Season - Part 1

 Fall seems to be cake season. It starts with Snicker's mid-August birthday. Then it's the state fair a few weeks later, then my Mother's and brother's birthday a few weeks after that. Towards the end of September is the hubsterific's birthday, then Sweet Pea's is in early October. Whew! That's 6 fancy schmancy (because I can't just make them simple) cakes in 8 weeks. I'm out of breath just thinking about it.

Snicker's had his bug cake (which was fun!)

I skipped the Fair cake this year, but helped Sweet Pea with hers.

My Mother's cake will be this weekend's project. It's going to be a sheep cake. No, it's not going to have sheep as an ingredient. Well, maybe a little mutton in the frosting. But it's going to be sheep shape. Hey, I like that. Sheep shape. Has a certain ring to it. Anyway, when my sister and I were younger we got Mom a pair of sheep socks one year for her birthday. They were maroon ankle socks with little white sheep all over them and a single black sheep on each sock. They were fun and cute. And Mom (she's a wonderful mother!) wore them a lot. I don't think she really liked them - not in a high-fashion sense. They were silly. But she wore them and we noticed. So, I'm making a sheep cake. A sheep wearing maroon sheep socks. I expect that even is she doesn't like it, she will eat a little and we will notice. She's awesome like that. (But really, Mom. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it. I won't mind.)

And I sometimes make a cake for my brother's birthday. I don't know yet if I will this year. It depends on how long it takes to get the sheep cake sheep shape. Or something like that. If I do make one, it will be Spongebob-related. He's a big fan of Spongebob Squarepants. I've already made a Spongebob cake, but there's always the Pineapple Under the Sea, Gary the Snail, Patrick, Plankton, etc, etc, etc. Just thinking about it is getting the wheel's turning.

Tune in tomorrow for Cake Season #2 where I talk about the abuses the hubby has faces when it comes to his cakes.


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There's Bugs on That Cake!

Snickers turned 9 last week. We celebrated with a bug cake complete with grasshoppers, dragonflies, snails, flies, slugs, maggots, bees, beetles, butterflies, worms and spiders (in a sugar-candy web). It was delicious!

Snickers requested a cake with a lot of bugs, and with layers and with some leaves (like a jungle cake I made a few years back). So that's what he got. My original idea (which I still think is awesome) was to make a big bug shaped cake. The inside cake part would be green of course. And the outside would be shades of green and brown. And the frosting would have been some sort of crunchy stuff that would crack when you cut it like stepping on a bug. Cool! But for some reason, Snickers didn't want that cake. Go figure.

One of the coolest parts of the cake I made was the spider web. I made it out of sugar and water. What could be easier, right? Wrong! Making the hard sugar candy consists of bringing water and sugar to a boil and bringing it to 300 degrees. Not 350 degrees which turns it nasty and brown. Not 400 degrees which smells like brimstone and burnt boogers and fills the kitchen with smoke. No, not that. Exactly 300 degrees which is what I ended up with on my third try. Yes. Third try!

"Come on!" you say. How hard is it to get it to 300 degrees? Easy you would think. But you know. When you are blowing up balloons, hanging streamers, sweeping and mopping, making punch and salad and burgers. When you are madly trying to clean the kitchen, feed two boys lunch, decorate and frost a bug cake, you get easily distracted.

And add to that the fact that this stuff is tricky. I mean it goes out of it's way to make you feel comfortable and relaxed, then BAM! all of the sudden it shoots into action. What I mean is that the sugar/water mixture comes up to 250 degrees very slowly. So slowly that about the time it gets to 250 degrees or so, you wander off to do one of the thousands of other things that need to be done since this is obviously going to take forever. But let me tell you, that last 50 degrees flies by like a dragonfly after a mosquito. I could have stared at that thermometer for the first 250 degrees and fallen asleep, but that last 50 degrees - I watched the mercury shoot up like a geyser. (Well, I did the third time.) So, if you ever decide to make hard candy, keep that in mind.

In any case, I finally got it cooked to the right temperature and drizzled it out into several webs. (Several because I knew it would be fragile and would break to pieces as I tried to use it.) But it wasn't quite as fragile as it seemed and I only lost one. It fit into the cake nicely and the fondant spider stuck right to without any problems. I think it came out rather nice.

So overall it was a success. A bug-covered cake (which under most circumstances would be a disgusting disaster), plenty of bugs in the food, on the floor, on the table, on the walls, on the streamers. Good food, good company. I need a nap!

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Kittens and Cheetos, Doggies and Doritos

Doodlebug's 6th birthday is this weekend. Last year, he wanted to celebrate with a theme featuring two of his favorite things - Cheetos and Kittens. So, I got out my colored pencils and whipped up an invitation with a kitten and a bag of Cheetos.

We had Cheeto chains hung around the kitchen, kitten foot prints on the table and floor, lots of bowls of Cheetos around and plenty of orange balloons.

This year, he decided on a similar theme - Doggies and Doritos. So, once again, I whipped up an invitation, this time with my paint pencils. It came out pretty good except that when I scanned it into the computer I somehow ended up with the word 'Doritos' backwards and never noticed until they were all printed and ready to go! Oh well. Close enough, right?

No Dorito chains this year - Cheetos were OK to string with needle and thread, but I think Doritos would just crack and crumble, but I'll come up with an alternative. Maybe I'll just throw handfuls of Doritos on the guests as they arrive.

Doodlebug's and my birthday are only 3 days apart, so as we celebrate for Doodlebug, we are also celebrating my birthday - and this year I'm turning the big 4-0! And since Doodlebug doesn't like cake anyway, I got to have my pick of cake. Of course, I have to make it, but at least I got the pick the kind I like. I decided on an icecream cake. Chocolate and vanilla with a layer of Oreo crumbs between. Decorated as a doggie with a Dorito in his mouth of course. It should be yummy!

And am I worried about turning 40? About getting older? Nah! I'm the oldest in my house - older than hubby by 5 months, but I'm still the youngest of all my siblings (nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah :-) ) and I'm fortunate to have good health, a good job and a wonderful family. I only feel about 23. 40 is just a number. And I'm not just saying that because I'm turning 40. I really think that you're only as old as you feel. (Of course, when I was actually 23 I may not have felt that way. Who can remember back that far?)

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Potato Chips, Cheese Puff Chains and Other Nonsense

Just the other day I overheard someone saying to someone else, "I think I have a new favorite potato chip."

The first thought that crossed my mind was "There's more than one kind?" I mean, a potato chip is a potato chip right? Yellowish in color, salty, tasty, but just a potato chip.

I can hear some of you saying, "What!?! JUST a potato chip?!?! Is she out of her mind?!?!

OK. OK. I know. There are many varieties, many brands and they are all vastly different, right? OK, if you say so, but chips just aren't my thing. They're OK. I will eat them if they are there - right in front of me, but I wouldn't go out of my way to eat them, especially if there is chocolate or cookies or other baked goods around that I could eat instead. I am most definitely a cake/cookie/candy person at heart. Snickers is the same. The hubby and Sweet Pea are equal opportunity snackers and will eat just about anything tasty. But Doodlebug is definitely a chip person. He has yet to meet a Dorito, cheese puff or potato chip that he doesn't like. In fact, his last birthday party was centered around his two very favorite things - kittens and cheese puffs. Yeah, you try to make a birthday party with a kitty cheese puffs theme! But I was up to the task. The party was complete with hand-made birthday invitations:

Front Picture:

Inside Picture:

Construction paper kitty prints on the floor and tablecloth:

Hand-strung cheese puffs chains:

A kitty-eating-a-cheese-puff cake:

And a hand-decorated shirt:

Front:

Back:

Let me tell you, I felt rather silly stringing chains and chains and chains of cheese puffs together with a needle and thread. It was very messy, tastylicious work. (Not as tasty as cookie chains, or chocolate chains, but tasty nonetheless). But overall the party was a hit and the decorations were just right.

For his next birthday he's requested a Dorito and doggy theme! How am I going to string chains of Dorito's? It will be a challenge, but I think I'm up to it!


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