Bake Me More

In just a few hours my youngest will turn 8. I cannot believe how the years have flown by. In the course of these 8 years, her “idols” have changed. First it was (ugh) Barney, then Pooh, Butterflies, Dora… and currently Panda Bears, Hannah Montana and Guitars. Her idea of the perfect birthday party would be set in China with Miley Cyrus playing a black and white guitar. We gave her a guitar for Christmas and she actually cried. We also adopted a Panda Bear in her name through WWF. She is a loving, caring and sincere, hard headed red head who knows no enemies.

Naturally, her party has to revolve around music playing Panda’s. I started tonight working on her cake for her class at school. Tomorrow I will work on the cake for her party at home (which will be on the weekend).

I can’t wait to get pictures of this first cake posted. It is a sugar cookie “pizza” cake with chocolate “sprinkles” decorated like one of those giant cookie cakes you get from the fancy mall cookie stores. These type of cakes are a tradition for me to make for school parties. I deck them out in a real pizza box and slice them with a fancy pizza cutter right there in the classroom. I will get the pics up in the morning.

Happy Birthday Kenzie Bear!!!

Update: When I began piping the frosting on for the Panda, there was a thin layer of the top that kept coming off when I pulled the tip away. So I ended up putting a thin layer of frosting down and leaving it overnight to harden. I finished it this morning at 4 am, so it wasn’t exactly up to my expectations!

Sliders are popping up everywhere. On the internet, in cooking magazine, on cooking shows… There are also many variations on how to prepare them. Well, while surfing the net this morning I came across this post on Trim The Fat and decided that this would be a quick, easy and satisfying choice for dinner tonight. I decided on the bake in pan version which consists of preparing the ground beef, but instead of rolling a bunch of individual burgers, you flatten it into a pan. As you can see, it creates a thin burger – almost, “White Castle or Krystal’s” like. It went over great for dinner and I look forward to trying some other variations as well.

*I prepared the yeast rolls and baked them prior to working on the burgers.

**I used simple seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, but did not measure them

“Hamburger” Sliders

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
• Seasonings (use your burger preferences)**
• 18 (at least) yeast rolls or dinner rolls*
• Cheese
• Lettuce, tomato, onion, condiments (optional)

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare ground beef as desired and flatten into a lightly greased jelly roll pan (11 x 17″). I used gloved hands to press across the pan, but you could use a rolling pin etc…

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes. The beef should be browned, but have a little pink to them – they will finish cooking in the next step. Remove and let stand a couple of minutes. There was some grease in the pan. I poured it out, then patted the ground beef with a towel to reduce the grease. Slice the burger into squares. Adjust the size according to the size of your rolls. Slice each roll in the center, keep one side attached. Place a square on each roll, but do not top (or close) the burger. If desired, place a piece of cheese on top of the beef. Place the entire roll, cut sides up, on a large baking sheet and place in oven to brown bread and melt the cheese. Remove, top and serve with desired condiments.

For the side item, I took leftover baked potatoes from Sunday and diced into squares and place in one layer on a large flat pan. I sprayed them lightly with olive oil and sprinkled them with seasoned salt. I baked them at 400 for about 10 minutes…till they were warm and beginning to crisp.

These pictures give you an “idea” of what size the sliders are.

My son’s 4th grade school year has been filled with book report after book report. One every month. Most of them have not been very complicated but I am flat out tired of them. Finally, this week his last book report of the school year was due. This one was on a biography and each student had to make an oral report. They were to dress like the character they read about and some type of “audio visual” was suggested. My son picked (well, I helped him… ok, I picked for him) a college football player. Me, being the cool mom that I am decided to make his audio visual edible, and I didn’t want a plain ole cookie or cupcake. (No, I can’t do anything simple). I remembered way back seeing a football “truffle” on Bakerella’s website. These were perfect. They would be simple to make, and I had everything I needed to do so. Mine weren’t shaped as football perfect, but they were great. Granted I prepared them, went to a baseball game, then came back home and finished them after 9 p.m.

My son did great on his oral report, and his classmates enjoyed their treat. They would have each had two, but we kind of snitched too many at home to do so…which meant I took more home to snitch!

Touchdown Truffles (as seen here)

Ingredients:

• 1 package Oreo cookies (originals)
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• Dipping chocolate: Milk Chocolate and White

Directions:

Finely crush the Oreos and mix with the cream cheese until well blended. Shape into 1-inch balls*. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes, then remove and shape into oval football shapes. Return to fridge until the chocolate is ready for dipping.

*I used my food processor to both crush the Oreo’s and to combine with the cream cheese. The Oreo Truffle recipe on the Kraft site doesn’t call for them to be refrigerated before dipping in the chocolate, but I found this to be helpful in keeping the shape and setting the chocolate.

Judge me not! This recipe uses a cake mix. I know, I knowl….but, I needed a fast and easy fix and this recipe fit the bill. It doesn’t get much easier.

Banana Bread Fast!

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
• 1 (18.25 oz) cake mix (*I used a pineapple mix)
• 1 cup ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup nut or chocolate chips (I used white chocolate)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients and mix for 2 minutes. Pour into greased 9 x 13 bread pan. Bake for 40 – 50 minutes, of until toothpick comes out clean.

Note: I had enough batter to also make 6 muffins AND, I used a pineapple cake mix, white chocolate chunks and a little coconut. I guess you could call it a tropical version of banana bread. Yum!

 More Peeps Stuff!

I saw this last Easter in a Taste of Home Magazine and bought all the necessary ingredients to make it. Well, it never got made in 2008. So this year I bought the ingredients again (Peeps) determined to complete the task… and I did! It was really cool! The cake was a box mix, but doctored. The frosting however, was Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting.

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 Box Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Golden Cake
• 4 large eggs
• 1 pack vanilla instant pudding mix (4 serving size)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 18 – 20 Yellow Peeps Chicks*
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips, regular and mini

Cake Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9″ round cake pans, though I used three 8″ pans for a taller cake.

Combine all of the ingredients and mix for 2 minutes, or until smooth. Divide into pans and bake for 20-25 minutes (or until it’s done). Remove, cool layers in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove to cooling rack.

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter, melted (1/2 cup)
• 2/3 cup Hershey’s Cocoa
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

 Sunflower Peeps Cake:

Prepare cake and frost. Place Peeps Chicks around the border of the frosted cake (face in). Using regular size chocolate chips, form rings in the center of the cake. For the last few rings, use miniature chocolate chips. *The Taste of Home recipe says not to separate the chicks… but I found they wanted to keep “bouncing back” to shape…so i ended up separating them.