How to make a Pretzel mix for Dad

Hubby's birthday was the other week and I was thinking of crafts for the kids to make. I wanted something that he would really enjoy and was different then past presents. He loves snack mixes and thought it would be fun for the kids to pick out all the ingredients. 

So I took a trip to the Bulk Barn with the kids and we picked out a yummy collection for our mix: waffle pretzels, pretzel nuggets, sesame sticks, salted peanuts, salted almonds, cashews, chocolate rosebuds and M&Ms. 

When we got home we put all the ingredients into a big bowl and mixed it all up. Then scooped it into a large jar that I got from the dollar store. We had some extra so we poison tested it (you know we couldn't give it to Dad if it didn't taste good, right?).

Lilo then helped me decorate the jar with curling ribbon. She was proud of herself for learning to curl the ribbon. 

I forgot to take a picture before we gave it to him which is why it's not full. He loved it and it was gone pretty fast, I think it was a win.

He also got a painted shirt from Isla. It was a freezer paper stencil like Lilo made for him last year for his birthday. I really liked how it turned out. 

The process was a little challenging because for some reason kids never want to colour on demand. I kept trying to get Isla to draw a picture for Dad but she would just scribble something. Finally I thought of just having her cut out shapes to put on a circle to be a soccer ball - much easier to cut out then little thin lines and scribbles. 

After the picture was done I traced the image out onto the freezer paper and cut it out with an x-acto knife and ironed it on to the tee. Then I used white fabric paint and painted a few coats. I pulled off the stencil once it was dry and ironed the back of the shirt to set it. And voila, a new shirt for Dad.

And don't be fooled by the photo, he's not usually so serious :)

How to make sandwich-less lunches

So a few months ago Lilo told me that she no longer liked sandwiches, or that she only liked peanut butter sandwiches. Since she can't bring nuts to school that wasn't going to work. I tried to convince her that sandwiches were ok but after a week untouched sandwiches left in her lunchbox I went a different route. 

So here are some examples of lunches I have made for her.

1. Pasta salad (left over pasta with some carrots, peppers and her fav. caeser dressing), blueberries and cheddar cheese.

2. Left over peorgies, blueberries and oranges, carrots

3. Half of apple, triscuits crackers, keilbasa sausage, cheddar cheese, mini marshmallows

4. Left over lettuce wraps - rice, beef and carrots in romain leaves, cheddar cheese, red peppers

5. Chick peas, orange, cheddar cheese and oatmeal muffin

6. Rice crackers, keilbasa sausage, cheddar cheese and cucumber slices

The lunch box also has a top with a spot for a drink and 2 snacks.

She usually gets an apple juice and snacks are sometimes easy granola bars and fruit snacks, but also cransins and raisins, grapes, carrots, cheese or graham crackers.

I got the silcone muffin cups from an exchange a did a few years back and they fit perfectly, I also like to include a mini cocktail fork - it's cute and fits nicely.

So I hope I've inspired some people to mix it up for the last month of school. 

What are your kid's favourite school lunches?

How to make a Disco cupcakes

So I haven't posted much last week because I was making, planing and get things together for my daughters birthday. We had a dance party for her. We rented a room at the local rec centre, my husband rented some lights and brought his stereo and we all had a blast. We danced, we played musical chairs, limbo and many rounds of freeze dance. It was a lot of fun.

To go with the dance party theme I was trying to think of a fun cake or cupcakes as it turned out to be. Cupcakes seemed much easier then trying to cut cake into pieces.

Isla helped bake the cupcakes, it was confetti cake mix that I made using the Saucy Sprinkles baking variation - butter makes everything taste better. I made purple chocolate stars using purple melting chocolate that I bought at The Bulk Barn and a star mould that I also got there. It was pretty easy to do, I did it a few days a head of time. The day before the party I made the pink icing but I didn't ice the cupcakes until the morning of the party (the party started at 2pm). I piped on the icing and the girls put the star on the top and add an assortment of purple and pink sprinkles, multi coloured star sprinkles and silver balls. At first I thought I wanted to add the decorations so they could look like Martha creation but then I thought it's her party and she wants to decorate them so why not and they looked great. 

The centre piece of the cupcakes is the disco ball which was bought at the dollar store and I placed it in a margaritas glass. It gave it some nice height.

I was trying to figure out what to put the cupcakes on that would be big enough to fit all the cupcakes and I finally thought of a pizza pan. I fancied the pan up by adding a bunch of curling ribbon around the back side of the pan.

I cut the ribbon, then curled, then taped.

I found an old tin book to put under the pan to add more height and show off the ribbons. I just covered the box with tissue paper to look nicer.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and it wasn't too much work. Isla liked it too, even though I think she only ate the sprinkles and icing.

So now my baby is a big girl. She is very proud that she is now 4. 

How to make Easter Egg cookies

These cookies are pretty easy to make and they require no cookie cutters or decorating afterwards. I know that's part of the fun but my kids get bored half way through and I'm left rolling out and cutting the rest of the cookies. So this worked out great.

 First make up a batch of sugar cookies and then separate into 4 bowls. Add a bunch of drops of food colouring in each bowl and mix. First mix with a spoon and then get your hands in to mix it in good.

I found mixing small handfuls at a time the easiest way to get the colour all mixed in. The girls had fun mixing - it was like playdough but they could eat some as they played with it.

This is why I suggest mixing with a spoon first. You'd think I would have learned after the first colour but as you see I have at least 3 colours on my hand. 

Now you have 4 pretty balls of dough.

On a piece of wax paper we made ropes of dough and layered them together. 

Then roll them up, pressing all the colours together. Try to form the roll so it's a egg shaped - so narrower at the top. Put in the freezer so 15 mins.

Take out of the freezer and cut into 1/4" slices.

Then put on a cookie sheet - you might want to re-shape them so they are more egg shaped before baking. 

And here you go, beautiful Easter Egg cookies.

 We also made a few roll out cookies with some of the extra dough and made some tie dyed looking flowers and bunny.

How to let the kids play with their food - snack time building

Isla the other day requested rainbow mini marshmallows for a snack which I know isn't a very healthy snack but they are super tasty so once in awhile why not. And then it reminded me of something I thought would be fun for the kids to do - build stuff with marshmallows and toothpicks.

And it was fun, they played for about 1/2 hours before Isla asked if she could eat the marshmallows now.

Here is Lilo's house she made. 

And here is Isla's lamp she made.

Hope you are having a good weekend - looking forward to nice warm day tomorrow. 

How NOT to make waffle cookies

I was looking through old photos and I came across the photo of the baking fail. Not sure what went wrong.

This is what the cookies were suppose to look like.

It all started with my husband seeing this post on making cookies in the waffle iron. It looked cool and easy. We had a tub of white chocolate cookie dough in the fridge so it would be easy to try.
We sprayed the iron with cooking spray and put in scoops of dough and waited. Then we opened the iron and it was a mess. The cookie was stuck all over. Not sure what happened but it wasn't as easy as it looked.

I've seen a few other ideas lately using the waffle iron to cook but I'm now nervous - maybe we just need more cooking spray.

How to make pretty monster cupcakes

Since Lilo's birthday is around Halloween she decided that she wanted monster cupcakes for her birthday, but not scary monsters. I showed her the monster cupcakes I made for a Halloween party but she thought they were too scary, so I thought brighter colours but same concept would be good. And then I also found some great ideas on Pinterest.

 I was trying to make big cupcakes that rise tall, that didn't work but instead they were just too big for little kids - oh well. To make them taller I put 1/2 a marshmallow on the top of the cupcakes. To cut the marshmallows run your knife under hot water and after you cut one marshmallow, rinse knife again.
Then pick a fun piping tip and add your coloured icing. The icing is about 1 1/2 cups of soften butter, about 3-4 cups of icing sugar, and a splash of milk - I don't measure just taste test. To ice the cupcake, start from the top of marshmallow and bring down to the edges and repeat until the cupcake is covered.
The eyes are just suckers with a dot of white icing and a mini M&M - the eyelashes are 3 chocolate sprinkles. And then I added a red M&M for a nose (or mouth).
And to make rainbow cupcakes you just divide and dye the batter and layer before you bake.

I made 3 different coloured monsters, using a different tip for each colour. The kids ended up eating the suckers and a bit of icing and that's it. Next year I need to make mini cupcakes instead.

How to make worms in dirt

We were inspired by a dessert on the Boston Pizza kids menu. Since we were full after our meal we decided to try and make it instead at home later. 

So on the way home we stopped off at the grocery store and picked up chocolate pudding, Oreo cookies (which we crushed up) and gummy worms.

It was a fun Saturday night dessert, but to be honest I think it would have tasted better without the gummy worms - the girls didn't agree.

How to make rainbow cupcakes

So now this is my 5th version of a rainbow cake - check out the other 4 here. This one was inspired by a photo on Pinterest posted by Mia B. I knew I saw these rainbow candy at our corner store so I had to try it. Rainbow candy or "Gay Bacon" according to Epic Mealtime - have you seen them, they make crazy extreme meals with fast food or in this case candy.

Ok, back to the cupcakes. Pretty simple, I used the cupcake recipe from Saucy's Sprinkles, then iced with blue tinted buttercream icing. I cut the rainbow candy in half and curved on the cupcakes to make an arc. The clouds are just mini marshmallows.
So cute and so easy to make. I made them for the bake sale at Lilo's school fun fair. They were a hit and sold fast.
And don't leave your iced cupcakes on top of the oven while you preheat it for dinner. The heat from the vent on the top melted a few cupcakes, I luckily had saved some extra icing so I re-iced them. The wrappers were a little sticky but no one complained.

How to make a mermaid cake

My little baby turned 3 on Monday, I can't believe time has gone by so fast. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday cake, she said a Barbie, mermaid, princess, ballerina, fairy cake. I decided to narrow that down to just mermaid - well Barbie mermaid.

I had great ideas of making a mermaid by molding it out of rice crispy cake - you know it looks so easy on tv - but then I thought better and decided to just buy a mermaid Barbie. This way it's a cake topper and present in one. To ice the cake I took inspiration from the movie Mermaidia - a Barbie movie the girls have watched too many times.

I started by making 2 round cakes, I made them rainbow by separating the batter in 3 and adding food colouring to each and then pouring them in the cake pans. I also made another batch of cake and cooked part of it in my Pampered Chef big mixing bowl and made cupcakes with the rest. The cake from the mixing bowl made the rock for the mermaid to sit on.

Before icing it all I leveled the cakes off and made sure the Barbie could sit on it.
I then iced the round cakes. I iced it in blue icing and then mixed up a darker and lighter blue and swirled it around look like water.

I iced the rock on a separate board with wax paper underneath so I could lift it on the blue cake. I made a purply grey icing for the rock and added some sugar crystals on top to make it sparkle. If you make something like this don't make the rock black - I saw some online that made their rocks black and it looks like the poor mermaid is stuck in tar.
Then I plopped the iced rock on top of the water. I piped some blue icing around the rock and pulled it up on the rock to look like waves. I had some blue tinted sugar that I sprinkled on top to make the water shimmer.

I think it turned out pretty good and more importantly I think Isla liked it.

How to make 4 different rainbow cakes

I realized that after Lilo's past birthday when she asked for a rainbow cake that I've made her a rainbow cake for the past 3 years.
Lilo's 3rd birthday was the start of the rainbow cakes. This layered cake was a lot of work - many batches of cake mix. I decided that I wanted to make the cake from scratch, not sure why. The cake was a little dry, some layers tasted better then other but I've learned to just stick to cake mixes, my mom always used them and they were always great so I'm going with it.

The layered rainbow cake idea came from here.

Lilo's 4th birthday we did rainbow cupcakes. I used cake mix this time but found a variation here, on Saucy's Sprinkles that makes it even tastier - replace the oil with melted butter and whip it all up.

To add extra fun to these cupcakes all the kids got a tray with treats to decorate the cupcakes with - it was a lot of fun that I think I will do again another year.

So for Lilo's 5th birthday she asked again for a rainbow cake so here came version 3. Again an idea from Saucy's Sprinkles blog to divide the batter and dye it up. Then scoop them into the pan and since the batter is nice and whipped the different colours don't run into each other.
I made the cake in a Pampered Chef batter bowl in 2 batches and layered them and trimmed to make it into a beautiful princess cake. Here's the directions. It was a fun surprize for Lilo's friends when I cut in and it was rainbow inside. And a freaky surprize when she pulled the Barbie out and found out the Barbie was only a torso.
And then for fun this summer when we had friends over I made the "Double Rainbow" cake. Remember that crazy Youtube video that was everywhere. Well I saw this idea and thought it would be a fun dessert. I made the cake with a angel food ring cake mold and cut it half, covered with icing and then M&Ms. I got Lilo to help me sort out the M&Ms and we got to snack on the brown ones.

Now to come up with a 5th version for her next birthday :)

How to make Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes

Isla had her 2nd birthday party last weekend. I can't believe it's been 2 years already.

Since she's a big fan of Yo Gabba Gabba it was Lilo's idea to make her these cupcakes. They were a lot of work but lots of fun and I'm super proud of how they turned out.
Here is my inspiration while I was working - plus I found some other great cupcakes online that I also used as inspiration.
I first started by making the eyes and add ons the night before. I made them with melting chocolate put into parchment piping bags. The eyes are just white chocolate and a brown mini m&m in the centre.
Then I melted other colours to make flowers, ears, mouths and their other weird things on their faces :) I piped them on to wax paper and let dry. They come off easily. For the flowers I started by drawing on the back side of the wax paper to use as a pattern to trace but then I found it just as easy to free hand it.
Then I started icing the cupcakes. I wasn't sure how to do it at first to get a smooth look. I started by just using a knife but that wasn't looking great so I tried piping it. It worked so much better. I just piped the outline of the head shape and then filled some inside.
I smoothed it out with a wet knife. I had a wet paper towel to wipe the knife clean between cupcakes. Then I dipped the knife into a glass of water before smoothing. Worked great.
Here are all the different bases for the cupcakes. I only had one icing bag so I washed out the bag between each colour (a pain but I planned it well) I started with the pink, the extra icing I turned red. I also mixed the extra yellow and blue to make the green - I added a bit more yellow colouring to make the colour green I wanted.
Then I added all the chocolate pieces as well as used a small tip to add details.
I love how Plex turned out. I was most nervous about making him and now he's my favourite.
Brodee - you don't get the true goofiness of him without his body.
Foofa - I made the pink icing a little darker than I had planned - I was trying to get it lighter than the chocolate. It doesn't take much of the gel colouring to dye the icing. Oh well, she's still cute. I added a yellow m&m to the flower and painted eyelashes using the gel colouring with a thin new paintbrush.
Mono - who can't like Mono and his big eye. The red m&m for his spots turned out cute.
Toodee - her eyes are a little off but still a sweetie.

Also in case you're wondering - I didn't make 2 cakes. The Elmo cake was made by my friend Deb for her daughter - our girls birthdays are only a week apart so we did a joint party for them. She made her cake by renting the cake pan at Bulk Barn. They have the icing pattern on the pan as well. She did a great job. Lots of stained tongues after this party.