Valentines Suggestions

I am thinking of doing a Valentine's special of Chocolate Covered Strawberries and Chocoholics, what do you think?

Minnie's Chocolate Pie

I recently got a prank request, and I really couldn't stop giggling the whole time making it. One of my sister's-in-law has been wanting to prank another of our sister's-in-law for a while. A few weeks ago I got a text and phone call asking if I'd seen the movie, The Help. I really liked that movie, so when she said she needed to place and order I knew where this was going.

She wanted me to make Minnie's Chocolate Pie. If you haven't seen this movie, well, you need to! It's a great movie, and that is the only way you will understand why this would be a prank rather than a kind gesture. Here's the problem, I'd never made chocolate pie. I searched around, found a recipe that looked like it'd make sense. The batter looked and tasted good, and the pie turned out perfectly, just like Minnie's. Almost anyway. :)

The recipient was a good sport and we all had a slice of chocolate pie, and it really was as delicious as it looked.

New Flavor! Peanutbutter-Cup-Cake

I was tinkering around in the kitchen today and thought, maybe I'll try a peanut butter frosting. After a few test runs, I figured it out.

I topped a chocoholic cupcake with the peanut butter frosting and thought I was brilliant.

Just for fun I decided to try it as a filling instead with a chocolate ganache on top and O-M-G!!! It truly is a cupcake version of a peanutbutter cup candy. The chocoholic cupcake is the perfect cup for the smooth filling and the chocolate ganache literally melts in your mouth.

I only made one, so I had to practice self control long enough to get a picture of this goodness. If you like peanut butter, you'll certainly love this cupcake.

My baby's 1st Birthday cupcakes and cakes

I can't believe my baby turned 1! Even though we wanted to keep her birthday a small celebration, I just had to do a cake for her. Well, it actually turned into 50 mini ruffle cupcakes, 24 ruffle cupcakes, 1 verticle mini ruffle cake, 1 horizontal mini ruffle cake, 1 whimsical mini chocolate sprinkle cake.

I had less than 10 hours to shop for, bake, let cool, cut, and pipe (frost) all the cakes and cupcakes, and of course get my house in decent order WITH 3 kids! It was a little crazy, but my baby took 2 great naps so I could get everything done and make sure she wasn't neglected on her birthday :)

The dessert table

I baked some of the cakes in baby food jars, topped them with chocolate ganache, and spelled out my baby's name for a cute baby themed idea.

One of the cupcake towers with regular sized cupcakes

Her pink ruffle smash mini cake

A white mini ruffle cake that wasn't touched since we had soooooo much cake.

*the following day I did a FB giveaway for this white ruffle cake and asked "Why do you deserve a chEATday" I loved all the responses so much I called my grandma to choose. Here's the one she picked:

Me! I've worked 55 hours per week these past two weeks at work without lunch breaks-working hard to get the students of BYU the financial aid they need. Oh I can totally use the treat to get me through one more week of busy-ness! :)

Grandma wasn't too happy her employer wasn't giving her lunch breaks!

Gender Reveal Cake

I've seen these done before, and hoped one day the opportunity would come my way to do one as well. Imagine my excitement when it did! Some friends of ours are will be having their 6th child soon and asked me to do a cake to announce the gender of their baby to their family.

Here's how it went. She went to the Dr. and told them she didn't want to be told the gender of the baby, they put the gender in a sealed envelope and she brought it to me. I baked a tall, round chocoholic cake and cut out the center of the cake. I colored the frosting the appropriate gender reveal color (pink for a girl and blue for a boy) and filled the cavity in the cake.

For the outside of the cake I was originally thinking of doing it all white, but the hubba-bubba said that was boring and suggested I do pink and white to make it more festive for their party. I decided to do a different ruffle. Remember this vertical ruffle cake? This time I wanted to try horizontal ruffles, and it seemed perfect for a baby cake.

Then, also at the suggestion of my hubba-bubba and I piped "It's a..." on the top of the cake so by cutting into it they would see if it was a boy or girl. It turned out perfectly, I think I'll keep that hubba-bubba of mine ;)

They took the cake to the party, and I was terrified that they would slam on the breaks, the cake would topple over and the the surprise spoiled. I know, I'm dramatic. Anyway, they had everyone gather around, they already have 4 girls and 1 boy so everyone started chanting "boy! boy! boy!" they cut into the cake, opened it for everyone see, to find PINK frosting! Another girl for this great family, we can't wait to meet her and I was happy to be a part of their gender reveal occasion.

With the extra cake I removed from the center I made my very first cake pops for their kids to enjoy on the drive.

*The next day I saw several of their family members and they told me how the cake was awesome and tasted amazing. Because really, isn't the point of a cake to taste good?