This weekend we celebrated my son’s third birthday! I cannot believe he is 3! But I digress…

I wanted to do something fun and different for his cake. He loves ice cream (and will do just about anything to get some – including listen to his mother!) so I knew it would be a win for him!

The cake is an 8″ round chocolate cake. I baked that as usual and let it cool. I then used an 8″ round springform pan for the top layer. I took out a tub of vanilla ice cream and a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream and let them sit on the counter for about 20 minutes to get nice and soft. Once it was soft, I dropped scoop-fulls of ice cream into the spring form pan so half was vanilla and half mint chocolate chip. That went into the freezer.

After about an hour, I took the springform pan of icre cream out of the freezer and went around the edges with a spatula before opening the pan. Voila! I had a round layer of ice cream! I immediately popped that on top of the chocolate cake and put the cake back in the freezer.

Here is a slice:

After it was good and solid again, I iced the cake in Cool Whip. I know I could make whipped cream icing but I was worried about it separating.

Lastly, I iced the cake after it was perfectly frozen. I used buttercream icing and fondant to decorate the top.

Some things I learned making an ice cream cake:

1. Let it sit out for a few minutes before trying to cut it. It was really solid!

2. Put it back in the freezer after you serve it. The left overs melted all over my counter!

3. Have fun! And it was worth the try!!!

Need to celebrate a little princess in your life? Madalyn, my “cakery intern”, has gotten very good at making a princess crown! First for Natalie:

And then Reagan and Mackenzie:

The colors differed a little but the vanilla cake with a cream filling was deliciously adorable!

Ok – It has been way too long since we posted! Tracy was on an international honeymoon and I have been juggling 2 wee ones with little assistance from an overworked Daddy! But no excuses allowed!

Today’s post is all about my recent obsession: Baked Oatmeal. There is a little restaurant near me called Azafran that has this amazing Baked Oatmeal. But as a mother of 2 wee ones, the joy of going out for breakfast has become almost extinct. Except for the occasional trip to a local favorite, Surf Bagel, or the international fave, Starbucks!

Anyway, since I can’t go out, I brought it in. Tracy found this recipe and I have literally made it weekly since May. It is such a treat and a great meal for my 3 year old son. He doesn’t care that oats are a super food, it has healthy fruit in it, and it gives him energy to make it to lunch without a snack. He does care that it is super tasty – especially when I drown it in milk!

Enough about that. Here is the recipe which I adapted from here:

There are a lot of ingredients. But I like recipes like this. That means you can do some substituting if you are missing something and the flavor doesn’t really change. For example, I ran out of yogurt so I used sour cream. It tasted great!

Here are the ingredients:

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 to 1 cup raisins (more or less depending on how much you like raisins.)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 3/4 teaspoons cinnamon, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream works well too!)
• 1/2 cup whole milk (I’ve used buttermilk once or twice as well!)
• 1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

Directions:

1. Mix up your dry ingredients – except the brown sugar and 1/4 t cinnamon.

2. Mix up your wet ingredients.

3. Mix them together and pour into a greased 8×8 pan.

4. Mix the 1/4 t cinnamon with the brown sugar and sprinkle on top.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Cool for a few minutes (if you have the patience. I never do which is why there is no picture of the baked product!)

7. Serve with milk or yogurt. Yum!!!

I am seriously obsessed. Please make this and then come back and tell me how much you LOVE it!

I was asked to do a beachy/relaxing/retirement cake this weekend and was given the freedom to decorate as I wanted. I love beachy cakes because of the textures I can create – smooth is not the goal!

I’ve done sand before. It’s a simple mixture of brown sugar and granulated sugar. The decorations are made of fondant and I had some help from my friends Madalyn and Kristin. Thanks, ladies!

The ocean was more fun! I used an angled decorating spatula and lifted up the waves. I added some white to the crests and a shell pattern around the border.

The cake was vanilla and lemon pound with key lime filling. It was refreshing and screamed relaxation!

I am back to baking after a short maternity leave and jumped in with a couple birthday cakes, a wedding cake, and a retirement cake. I’ll show you the wedding cake now and add the others as I find time! Our new little one is being a great helper right now by sleeping in her bouncey seat at my feet as I type.

Chantal and Don chose a simple cake with scroll decoration. The scroll work is painted with a shimmer dust to make it stand out a little bit.

The cake was vanilla pound with custard in the middle tier, chocolate cream filling in the first and third. The icing is buttercream and tasted delicious!

The cake topper was a Willow Tree figure that I placed on a metal lid and surrounded with icing dots. I also used icing on top to get it to stick.

Congrats Don and Chantal!