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