Diary of a Baker Mom: fruit by the foot

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Innovative Cake Ideas!

My daughter recently had a birthday and all she Really! wanted was a slumber party with a few of her closest friends from school. This being her (our!) very first one, my husband and I inhaled deeply and agreed to her request. :)

She proceeded to plan out the details of what was going to happen that fateful (oops, read: exciting!) evening. My responsibilities of course, included providing the food, drink & cake. :) So, me being me, had to find out if there was any kind of cake that was special for a slumber party. :o)

Well....low and behold... look what I found on one of my favorite sites, Family Fun! I had a blast making it; it's quite easy actually. The girls had fun picking out which one they wanted. Although the recipe calls for 5 Twinkies, since there were 6 girls, I placed 6 Twinkies comfortably on top.

Here it is.... maybe you'll give it a try for your child's next slumber party. It would be really easy to change the icing colors and the hair/face on the wafers to turn them looking more like boys. :)


Slumber Party Cake!

Little girls in their sleeping bags. :)

Cooking with Kids

USING A KNIFE...
If you're looking for some thing to use as an introduction to teach proper knife skills, cutting and chopping with your child, I think Extra Firm Tofu (I use the one from Trader Joe's) works great! It is not too wet or jiggly to start and after a couple of power pushes (kids love that kinda stuff) on paper towels, it's just right. The knife goes though easily; without too much pressure they are able to learn the cutting movement and not be worried about the piece of food flying away.

Baking Tips

SOFT FUDGY BROWNIES - Remove the brownies from the oven approximately 4 minutes earlier than stated in the recipe. Allow them to cool in the pan before cutting. The remaining heat will be enough for them to finish baking.

NON-STICK PANS - Non stick pans are great and I use many of them for baking in various shapes and sizes. However, even though they are non-stick, for baking you have to be sure to coat them with spray or the "old time" method of butter and flouring. :) If you don't, chances are your cake is not going to make it out of your pan in one piece.

MUFFIN PANS - are an awesome invention! They are easiest to use when used with a liner (nowadays available in various sizes, shapes & colors). Liners provide a great convienience in that you can just pick up the muffin or cupcake and go. They do not require any pre-work, no messy spraying or coating with butter; drop in paper cup, spoon in the batter, bake and you have minimal clean up.