Strawberry Lemonade Cakeballs

For my fifth batch of cakeballs this month (the first four were chocolate) I'm making them strawberry-lemonade flavored. I have the modified box cake recipe below.
Ingredients

• 1 box of Betty Crocker Brand Super Moist Cake Mix
• 1/3 cup of oil
• 1 cup of water
• 6 TBS lemon juice
• 1 TBS baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Beat liquids (oil, water, lemon juice)
3. Mix in the baking powder and cake mix.
4. Follow boxed instructions, probably a 13"*9" pan for 30-35 minutes.
5. Start the lemon frosting as the cake bakes.
6. Combine the cake and frosting.
7. Roll into balls before putting cakeballs in freezer for 20 minutes.
8. Dip cakeballs in white chocolate.
9. Freeze for 20 minutes.

Yikes!

Yesterday I intended to make chocolate cakeballs for my class, but mistakenly mixed two batches of cream cheese with one cake. I put the other cake in the oven, and while washing some dishes hit my elbow one the oven door. The ENTIRE oven door fell apart. I took the half-baked cake out of the oven and wrapped the cakeball dough before refrigerating it, I suppose it will be some time before I make another post :(

Thick Dark Chocolate Cake

It's almost Summer! Yet another reason to make cakeballs has arisen, and I can't let my peers down. I decided to come up with a thick, dark chocolate batter special for cakeballs, so the inside can be even more rich than when I usually mix it with cream cheese frosting. I mostly based this recipe on Sandy's Chocolate Cake, but made tweaks to areas where I found needed to change. After tasting some, I was regretful for not using it on Eric's Oreo Cake.

Ingredients  

• 3 cups of brown sugar
• 8 oz. softened butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 2 2/3 cup of flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon of baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup of mayonnaise, sour cream, or Greek yogurt
• 1 1/3 cup of hot milk or water (milk for less chocolaty cake)
• 1/4 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt) in large bowl.
3. Beat wet ingredients (brown sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, sour cream, milk or water) in separate bowl.
4. Fold wet ingredients with dry ingredients, now is the time to add chocolate chips if you chose to use them.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Cakeballs

Mix cake with cream cheese frosting, and roll them into balls. Put them in the freezer for 20 minutes and dip in melted chocolate. Freeze for 5-10 minutes and serve.

Oreo Cake!

For my brother's 15th birthday last week, I made an oreo themed icecream cake with vanilla ice cream, fudge cake mix, and oreo crumbs. Unfortunately I was short on ingredients so bought everything boxed:(
Here are some pictures of the cake though...*

And this is Eric, the birthday boy:) And his friend from school behind him.

*UPDATE- I came up with an oreo cake recipe.

Mario Mushroom Cupcakes!

My cousins had mario-themed Birthday Party today, so I decided to make mario mushrooms for it. This is the fist time I've filled a cupcake and won't be my last. My aunt gave me boxed mix, so no homemade cake in this post. I filled the cupcakes by cutting off the tops and scooping a hole out, then filling the hole with frosting. I reccomend to skip cutting the top off because it made a very messy cupcake. I filled the chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and the white cupcakes with lemon frosting.

Lemon Frosting

This recipe was used as a cover-up for my disaster of my mega-sweet buttercream frosting.

Ingredients:

• 7 tsp lemon juice
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Stir together
2. Place in freezer or refrigerator to stiffen.

Sleepover Cakepops!



On Saturday I went to an overnight birthday party for my friend, Jenna. We used a cakepop maker, which I have no experience in. Lucky for me, Jenna has enough experience to know NOT to pour the batter into the machine like a waffle.

Jenna is very creative with cakepops, and used the broken off peices of cake as a decoration.

Princess Cake!!!

For my sister's party/birthday present I've stayed up baking A double-chocolate princess castle cake with cream cheese frosting. For the cake, I found the most AMAZING cake recipe that uses sour cream to give the cake a moist texture. While making the cake, I've tryed and failed at a few new methods of baking.

1. Don't pour mix directly into glass pan, add cristco and flour or wax paper to pan before pouring in the batter.
2. Wait for cake to cool completly before taking out of pan- this means about one hour in the fridge. Otherwise the cake could break apart.
3. Brush over cake gently before adding frosting to avoid too many crumbs.
4. Put one thin layer of frosting on to stick to the crumbs, allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before adding the rest of your frosting.

I got this idea from on of the Betty Crocker YouTube tutorials.

With leftover cake and some frosting, I also made these chocolate cake balls rolled in white chocolate and drizzled with pink white chocolate:)

Cooking/food Giveaways

In my spare time, I enjoy entering giveaways, and more often than I blog. Sorry about that, I'm going to make 2-4 desserts within the next two weeks. I decided that until the point comes for me to actually cook something, I'll share some of the food/cooking related giveaways I've found recently on this blog.

• $25 IHOP Gift Card (Ends 5/2)
•  Pillsbury Ready To Bake Disney Cookies (Ends 4/30)
•  Gourmet Brownie Sampler (Ends 4/26)
•  Annie's Organic Rising Crust Pizza (Ends 4/25)
• Nimble Balance Bar (Ends 4/27)
•  Jennie-O Turkey Burgers (Ends 4/22)
• Nature's Path Carrot Cake Love Crunch Granola (Ends 4/22) 

Zesty Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

A few days ago the poppyseeds we ordered noline finally came in the mail, so this morning I decided to incoperate them with some lemon pudding mix thats been sitting in the pantry into breakfast:)

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tbs of poppyseed
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 cup flour
• 1 package of Jello Lemon Pudding Mix
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Beat the egg, milk, and oil in a large bowl.
3. Mix flour, pudding, sugar, and baking powder in small bowl.
4. Pour dry mix into the large bowl and beat well.
5. Stir in poppyseeds.
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Easter Cake Pops

Last night I made some Easter themed cake balls for a party. I used Chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting to make the center, and coated them with melted yellow white chocolate, which I thinned down with a spoon of cristco.

Fluffy Pancakes

Today's my sister's birthday, so I made some pancakes for breakfast:)
Ingredients

• 3/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 2 TB white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 TB sugar
• 1 c. flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Mix milk, egg, vinegar, and vanilla in large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Mix dry mix into large bowl.

Funfetti Copycat Recipe

For my sister's birthday tomorrow, she will bring funfetti cupcakes to school. With only one box of the dry mix, the second batch was homemade.
Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 TB softened coconut or canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 TB rainbow sprinkles
• 1 3/4 tsp baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Mix flour, sugar, and baking powder in small bowl.
3. Whisk eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla in large bowl.
4. Add dry mix to large bowl and mix.
5. Stir in sprinkles.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Green Mint Cakepops

Yesterday I made green cake balls for St. Patrick's day, and to fill them I'm using mint cake:) You can buy lollipop sticks at most craft stores if you want cake pops.
Cake
Ingredients

• 3 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 stick softened butter (12 TB)
• 6 eggs
• 6 tsp mint extract
•  4 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 10-15 drops of green food coloring

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix sugar, flour, and baking powder in medium sized bowl.
3. In separate bowl mix eggs, milk, mint extract, and butter.
4. Mix dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients.
5. Add food coloring and stir thoroughly.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
7. Take out of oven and cut off brown crust of cake.
8. Mix one batch of cream cheese frosting with the cake.
9. Roll into small balls.
10. Place in freezer.
11. Melt melting chocolate.
12. Take cake balls out of freezer and dip in chocolate
13. Freeze for 5 minutes, allowing chocolate to harde

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 8 oz.  softened Cream Cheese
• 5 tbsp softened butter
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups of powdered sugar

Directions

1.  Mix cream cheese, butter, and vanilla.
2. Gradually add powdered sugar to taste.

Grandma Karen's Banana Bread

Up until today, it's been years since I've eaten fresh banana bread. This recipe is best when bananas turn a brown/black color, as they're softer and easier to mix.

Ingredients
Wet-

• 2 eggs
• A stick of softened butter
• 3  bananas

Dry-

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups of flour
• 1/2 cup cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Optional-
1/2 cup of chopped nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, or other filler.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl
3. Mash bananas in large bowl.
4. Mix wet ingredients with banana.
5. Stir in dry ingredients.
6. Pour into bread or muffin pan.
7. Bake for 30-40 minutes if bread, check after 15 if muffins (either way, use the toothpick method)

Heavenly Hot Chocolate

Tonight, after a long day, I didn't feel much like cooking. So I decided to make some hot chocolate and share this recipe with you. Creamy, but not too filling, rich, but not clumpy. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Ingredients
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
3 1/2 cups milk
1 cup mini marshmellows
Directions

1. Whisk cocoa, sugar, and water on stove (medium, high) DON'T BOIL
2. Lower temperature and whisk 2 minutes
3. Raise temperature to medium and pour milk and marshmallows in.
4. Stir marshmallows until melted.

Cheating Doughnuts

My favorite doughnut recipe! Simple, and as the title implies- there's a shortcut.
Ingredients:

•  Oil for frying
• Powdered sugar (about a cup)
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• Two containers of Grands brand buiscuits

Directions:

1. Cut small holes into biscuits.
2. Fry a few at a time in oil (they will expand).
3. Mix powdered sugar and cinnamon onto plate.
4. Flip donuts onto plate and immediately cover with sugar.

Seattle Expedition!

Today my family and I set out to Seattle on an expedition to taste new foods. Not only is their food a tourist attraction, but there's a musician in every corner.


We started of at Mee Sum Pastry, where we each had a hombow, sort of a sweet biscuit filled with meat or vegetables. The markets had everything from homemade blackberry honey to pig's head and duck's fat :/. A wide selection of locally-grown fruits and vegetables were sold for steal deals of 35 cents an orange, and smiling faces insisted for the public to try sweet apples and plum slices.


After walking up an appetite throughout Seattle, we stopped at Beecher's for the World's Best Macaroni. Beecher's Mac & Cheese is unique because their cheese is created on site. I ordered the Mariachi flavored version, the pasta was so creamy it refused to cease slipping off of my fork. Free samples and creameries tempted us every block, but with raging winds and a temperature of forty-six degrees- ice cream just didn't sound that special anymore.

 By the ump-teenth time around, though our curiosity was raging us onward, but we realized that we could walk all day and still have more new eateries to stop by. So we caught the next ferry heading out of Elliot bay, and put impediment on our Seattle expedition.