Moms Club Cake

I made this cake for our moms club year-end celebration. I asked our members to give me one word or image that reminds them of our group and then piped those images on the cake as decoration.

The cake is a double layer butter cake with colored buttercream. I used the crusting buttercream recipe which allowed me to smooth the cake surface with a papertowel. This is the first time I used this method successfully, and I'm pretty pleased. I don't like the taste and texture of fondant, so I would much rather opt for the buttercream. And with these results, I think I'll have to try more like this!

Whole Wheat Breakfast Squares

I baked these squares because I had too much stuff in the fridge - overripe bananas, blueberries that were about to go bad and about 4 strawberries. I guess I could've just eaten the strawberries, but I thought it would be fun to add 'em to the mix. And about the name - I don't really know how to go about naming my recipes sometimes. I want to get the main ingredients mentioned, but that sometimes makes for a very long name. So the official name of this is Whole Wheat Banana Blueberry Breakfast Squares. They are moist and not too sweet and best served with a hot cup of coffee.

I took a basic whole wheat blueberry muffin mix and tweaked it a bit. I decided to make squares because I was running late on time and I didn't feel like greasing muffin tins - thought it would be a lot quicker to grease a 12x8 pan.

For this recipe you will need: 2.5 cups whole wheat flour, 1.5 cups rolled oats, 2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 cup honey, 1 cup vegetable oil, 5 very ripe bananas, 4 strawberries (or more if desired), 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup applesauce, 1 cup blueberries, sprinkle of sugar and butter for greasing the pan.

Combine in a large bowl flour, oats, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. In separate bowl, mash bananas and strawberries and add honey, oil, vanilla and applesauce. Add the wet to the dry and stir until just moistened (do not overmix). Grease a 12x8 baking pan and spread the mixture evenly. Sprinkle the blueberries with sugar and distribute evenly over the top, pressing them into the mix lightly.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting into squares. Enjoy them warm from the oven, at room temperature or straight from the refrigerator.

Zucchini Raisin Whole Wheat Muffins

This muffin recipe is adapted from a basic zucchini muffin recipe. I cut down on the sugar, substituted apple sauce for oil and replaced a portion of the flour required with whole wheat flour. The result is a healthy and tasty muffin that my kids love. I made these in advance for brunch this Sunday, Mother's Day. Give it a try! They'll be a big hit!

For this recipe you will need: 3 eggs, 1 cup applesauce, 1 cup sugar, 2.5 cups grated zucchini, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup white flour, 2 tsp cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt and 1.5 cups raisins.

Preheat your oven to 350. Grease and flour muffin tins (will make about 24 muffins). Whisk eggs, applesauce, sugar, zucchini and vanilla in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, salt and raisins. Slowly add dry mix to egg mixture being careful not to overmix. You just want the dry ingredients moistened, they do not have to be perfectly blended.

Add to muffin tins and cook for 15 minutes and check. My muffins were done at 18 minutes, but I could have taken them out a minute or two earlier. They are done when a knife inserted comes out clean. Enjoy!

It's a Batman Birthday!

It was a Batman birthday for my four year old this year. My husband and I admittedly got a bit carried away with the dessert preparations - from the obligatory cupcakes for school to the cake at our family party at home. Enjoy the photo journal!

I made the cupcakes and frosted them with white whipped frosting + yellow food coloring gel.

My husband took over with the Batman logo - I bought a package of those soft Dutch cocoa sugar cookies. Next, he used a measuring cup and a pairing knife to get the logo just right...

These cupcakes were the talk of the school yard!

Now onto the cake for the family party - I made a box cake mix (added some of my own ingredients to make it a bit homemade) and baked in two 9" rounds. All of the colors shown on the cake (gray, blue, yellow) were made with white whipped frosting and food coloring gel mixes. The black was premade icing from the store. We picked up the Batman figurine at Toys R Us for about $7.

The city scape on the side of the cake took longer than expected, but it wasn't impossible. I made my own piping bags out of Ziplocs with a tiny hole cut at the bottom. I piped the outline of the city and then filled it in. The yellow "windows" were my husband's idea, and I think they made the cake work. Instead of piping a frosting edge at the base of the cake, I just poured chocolate chips around the edge to fill in the gap between cake and plate. It better resembled a pavement or road - not intentional, but it definitely worked.

Birthday boy is super excited! Happy Birthday, Nathaniel!