Friday, March 30, 2012

The Minion

Months ago, my husband saw a similar cake and said that he wanted a cake just like it.  So, I decided to make him one for his 40th birthday this past week.

This cake was a total surprise for him, which created a whole new challenge...trying to make the cake while he wasn't home and in the few short hours I had available to do it.

I am proud to say I pulled it off!  He had no idea!

This cake was 4 layers of 8" chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  I used a bowl and Rice Krispie Treats to shape the head.  The legs and feet were also made from Rice Krispie Treats.

The hardest part of this cake was placing the yellow fondant over the whole thing.  If you've ever done a fondant cake before you know it's difficult to place fondant over a tall cake without getting lots of wrinkles.

Because I was pressed for time before my husband got home, I wasn't able to get it as wrinkle free as I would have liked.  I needed to clean up all the cake evidence in such a short amount of time!
I trimmed the bottom of the yellow fondant to cut off some of the wrinkles.  It was going to be covered with the blue overalls anyway.

For the eye, I just cut a small circle of white fondant and covered it with brown and black for the pupil.  I then gave it an eyelid and used part of a canning lid for the goggle.

As I was doing the hair, I thought it would be really funny to add some gray hairs since it was his 40th birthday.  I just poked a hole into the yellow fondant and then added small bits of fondant for the hair.  I added gumtex to the fondant to allow it to hold its shape.

I did the apple (bapple, if you've ever seen the Despicable Me shorts) last as a finishing touch.

He was very surprised and happy with his cake.  I'm still not sure how I pulled it off without him knowing.  I STILL have red food coloring on my hands from the apple, two days later!  Talk about almost being caught red handed!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Chocolate covered, peanut butter eggs

All week I've been staring at these chocolate covered peanut butter eggs on Pinterest.  I couldn't resist any longer and had to give them a try!

Anything I can make Gluten Free for my 3 year old, is worth trying as I always feel he gets left out.

You will need:
4 cups of powdered sugar
1 1/2 cups of creamy peanut butter
1/4 pound of butter
3 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2-3 tablespoons of milk
1 tablespoon of shortening

I used my mixer to combine the powdered sugar, butter and peanut butter.  I warmed up the butter and PB to help it combine easier, although the original recipe didn't say to do so.

Once those ingredients are combined, add the milk one tablespoon at a time until you reach a playdough type consistency.












Form the "dough" into egg shapes, place them on wax paper and put them in the freezer for about an hour (I only did 45 minutes because I was impatient).












In the meantime, melt the chocolate chips.  I used a double broiler method, but you can also do it in the microwave.  Add 1 tablespoon of shortening to the chocolate chips.



Coat the peanut butter eggs in the chocolate.  I tossed mine into the chocolate and then scooped them out with a fork, allowing the excess chocolate to drip back into the pan.  Place them on the wax paper and once they are all done, place them in the freezer.

I ended up with over 50 eggs about 1 inch in length.  This was a LOT of eggs, so I think next time I will only make about 1/2 the amount.









I also ended up with excess chocolate so I decided to drizzle some over the eggs for fun....can't have too much chocolate, right?  We'll pretend I'm not on a diet for now.













Here is the end result after being in the freezer.  I have so many, I'm going to keep them in the freezer for now and hand some out to friends!!