This delicious moist cake was originally a lime cake, from a Williams Sonoma recipe. I changed it here and there. It’s a definite crowd pleaser.

Ingredients:
For the cake:
3 1/4 cups cake flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
8 oz. cream cheese
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 Tbs. fresh lemon juice (approx 1 lemon)
2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest (approx 1 lemon)

For the glaze:
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (approx 2 lemons)
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a bundt cake pan with melted butter. Here’s a tip, don’t flour the cake pan after you’ve buttered it. You will get a grimey mess of a cake.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until creamy and smooth, 30 to 40 seconds. Gradually add the granulated sugar and continue beating, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Increase the speed to medium-high and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Then beat in the vanilla and lemon juice.

Reduce the speed to low and fold in the flour mixture in three additions, blending each addition until just incorporated and stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the mixer on low, add the lemon zest.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, making the sides about 1 inch higher than the center. Place this thing on a baking sheet, it has a tendency to overflow and no one wants that crap all over the bottom of your ove, trust me.

Bake until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 1/2 hours. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and let cool upright in the pan for 10 minutes. You will find that this cake rises, so just cut off the ‘top’ i.e. the bottom once you flip it over.

Gently turn the pan over onto a wire rack, and due to all the buttering action, the cake should slip right out.

To make the glaze, in a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and granulated sugar until blended. Generously brush the surface of the cake with the glaze. Let the cake cool completely before serving.

This cake is really….realllllly good. It’s the sugar-y glaze that keeps ‘em coming back for more.
(Yeah I realize I don’t have a lot of step by step pictures. Server is screwy. I’ll have to go back and find them, sorry!)

My Kid’s security ‘blankie’ is a little Curious George doll he’s named HaHa. We’re talking the old skool Margaret Rey one, not the new Curious George 2.0 model. This is how I made good ‘ol George out of fondant. See my other cupcake designs, here.

ingredients:
fondant
brown gel dye
pink gel dye
black gel dye
cupcakes
frosting

I start by thinking out the process of how the face is going to come together. Sometimes I do a little sketch to refer to as I am assembling.

You can buy pre-dyed fondant of course. I just didn’t have any. I always use gel dye, for EVERYTHING. That includes dyeing frostings and cakes. If you are using that bottled liquid crap, don’t. Gel is superior. I use gloves when I dye, cause that stuff is a big ‘ol mess.

I only used about half a slab of fondant, I broke it into three pieces – two equal parts and one small ball. The small ball I dyed black. You don’t need much cause that will be used for the eyes and nose and mouth. The other two parts, one I dyed brown, the other a very very light pink, for the skin.

The idea is to get this thing to lay flat on your cupcake. So I rolled out the brown fondant, and cut circles. This will be the base of the monkey head.

Then I did the same with the pink, also cut circles, but then cut out the shape of the face. Sorry folks, I did this all by hand – just eyeballing it, I don’t have a template but I’m sure you can download a pic from the internet and just use that.

Then I shaped the eyes, mouth, nose and placed them on. The ears are also formed from the pink, and just stuck on the back of the head.

Whenever you are creating a piece out of fondant, just look for features that stand out. That’s how you can get the ‘look’ that you are recreating. For instance, Curious George has big ears that sit low on the head, and a large long smile. Play up the features of the characters. Even if it isn’t exact, at least people will get the gist of it. Similar to what I did with the Oscar the Grouch cupcakes, or Elmo.

Bake your cupcakes, frost them, then just top them with your monkey faces. You can make them in advance and just keep them in a sealed container. In fact I suggest it. It saves you a whole bunch of time. The Kid was happy, but it looks like HaHa was even happier.

I started thinking about last year when I made caramel apples for the kid’s school. While my caramel apples came out fine, some people emailed me to say that the caramel pooled down. Hm. Not sure what that’s about. So here’s another approach, with a different flavor.

ingredients:
lady apples
lollipop sticks
1 bag butterscotch chips
sprinkles if you so desire

I like to use lady apples cause they are tiny and make the cutest little apples on a stick. Plus proportionally, sometimes you don’t feel like eating an apple bigger than your head.

Wash the apples and make sure they are completely dry. Pull out the stem and insert the lollipop stick. Sometimes you have to cut the end at an angle to make a sharp point to get it into the apple.

Melt the butterscotch chips in a microwave proof bowl, putting it in for about 30 second intervals, stirring in between. Yes I’ve tried melting them over the stove. Don’t do that. It stinks and it hard to control the melting point. If you like horrible smells, go for it.

Get the chips to a nice melty consistency, then roll the apples in the melted butterscotch. Dipping doesn’t work as well as caramel, so you kind of have to carpal tunnel your way to a nice coating. Dip them in sprinkles if you like, they look a lot prettier. My kids loved these, but then they ate off all the butterscotch and left a gnawed off naked apple. Sad. Isn’t that always the way?

This is ’street’ food. Just rice balls, tossed on the grill, basted with soy sauce. Couldn’t be easier.

ingredients:
cooked rice
soy sauce
sugar (if you want)

Take your cooked rice and form it into onigiri balls. You can use a ‘maker’ like I did, or just form it with your hands and some saran wrap.

Heat up your grill, or you can even use a grill pan, up to you. Put the rice balls on the hot grill, baste with soy sauce, turn over and baste some more. I also sprinkle with a little sugar, which gives it more of a teriyaki flavor, but you don’t have to. Turn and baste until the rice is crispy and brown. That’s it!!

Why on a stick? Cause I was trying to make it as CLEAN as possible for the kids. Do you know how hard it is to get marshmallow out of hair and fingers? Hard. This way the cleanup is minimal. Now the chocolate dipping, well, that’s a problem for adults…

ingredients:
rice krispy treats
mini chocolate chips or candy melts
sprinkles
popsicle sticks

Make your rice krispy treats according to the package. Instead of using a 9×13 pan, use a smaller one, like an 8×8. Pressing it into a smaller pan makes the treats more compact, and easier to place on a stick.

Once in the pan, cut them into squares, and using *ahem* clean hands, or wax paper, squeeze them a little to compact them a bit more. Then stick in the popsicle stick.

Now I just leave ‘em like this and roll them in sprinkles for the kids. If you want to go even further, then dip them in chocolate as well. Quite impressive. Little effort. Here’s how:

In a microwave safe dish, pour about 1-1/2 to 2 cups of mini chips and micro at 30 second intervals, stirring until melted. Dip your treats into the melted chocolate, then sprinkles and let set on a wire rack. Candy melts are better if you want a ‘hard candy shell’.

These can be really pretty if you do them for parties and tie them up with ribbon. Just make sure Godzilla doesn’t get his hands on them.

I like to buy fresh fruits at the farmer’s markets. If there is an overload, like with peaches, I cut them up, bag them and freeze them. This is the best way to use them, months after the season has ended.

ingredients:
2 cups frozen peaches
1 cup frozen strawberries
1/4 strawberry vanilla yogurt
1 cup apple juice

Throw it all in the blender. Let ‘er rip. You can use orange juice instead of apple juice. It gives it a different flavor and texture, but still ALLLLL good.

This is a twist on my regular M&M cookie recipe. The dark cocoa looks great with these Halloween M&Ms. SPOOKY. It also makes a nice cookie for ice cream sandwiches. Say it with me, ooh, aahh.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup Valhrona cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 package M&Ms

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter or margarine, brown sugar, vanilla, and sugar until fluffy. Add the 2 eggs.

Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter mixture.

Once combined, carefully stir in the M&Ms. YES, the whole bag. Drop by teaspoon on baking sheets – or if you GIANT cookies, make big balls and place about 6 on a sheet. Both work great.

Bake for 8 -10 minutes, a little longer for extra crispness. Let cool on a wire rack.

Once cooled, take it that one step further and put a scoop of ice cream in between two cookies. You won’t believe how tasty and addictive this is.

M & Ms. Who doesn’t love them? Let’s not kid ourselves, this cookie is basically just a binding agent to get as many M&Ms in yourself as possible. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 package M&Ms

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter or margarine, brown sugar, vanilla, and sugar until fluffy. Add the 2 eggs.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter mixture.

Once combined, carefully stir in the M&Ms. YES, the whole bag. Drop by teaspoon on baking sheets – or if you GIANT cookies, make big balls and place about 6 on a sheet. Both work great.

Bake for 8 -10 minutes, a little longer for extra crispness. Let cool on a wire rack.

These are excellent and also hold up well for gifts. They look great with seasonal colored M&Ms too, just check out these cocoa ones…

The Baby is going through the Terrible Twos and being, well – grouchy. So I made cupcakes. Maybe I can toss them at him to appease his anger. Ugh. Call me when he’s three.

ingredients:
frosting tinted green
black frosting
marshmallows
m&ms
small lollipops

Tint some frosting. As always I recommend using gel food coloring. Liquid food coloring from grocery stores is AWFUL. Frost your cupcakes. You can pipe the frosting, but I found that if you just frost it…messily you get some pretty good looking Oscar ratty-looking fur.

Now for the eyes I used marshmallows, but the key to Oscar is, his eyes are kinda half slanty. Not full and round like Elmo’s. So I cut the marshmallow in half and then in half again:

Place them on the cupcake, then pipe his unibrow. Now you can use m&ms for the eyes, but since my Kid is allergic to chocolate, I just piped the eyes as well.

Using the black frosting again, I piped the mouth – I considered using fondant, but I wanted to be able to stick the ‘tongue’ in easily, so I opted out of the fondant plan. Oscar’s mouth goes all the way across his face, so make it big.

Now for the tongue I pulled the sticks out of Trader Joe’s organic lollipops. They are nice and small and the perfect size. Stick the ’stick-less’ lolli in his mouth and there you go!

In an effort to get the kids to eat AND make meals fun, I thought I’d make dinner interactive. I made baked potatoes and had a little toppings bar. There weren’t a lot of options, but it made them feel like they had a choice in the matter. But you, YOU can have all the options your heart desires…

ingredients:
potatoes
olive oil
salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wash your Russets good. Scrub ‘em. Then pat them dry and rub olive oil over the skin. Why? This softens it up while it bakes and makes for good eating. Eat the skin, it’s good for you. Then sprinkle salt and place in the oven. Now, you can put it right on the rack, but if that freaks you out – it sort does me – I place them on a wire cooling rack and then stick THAT in the oven.

Why don’t you want to wrap it in foil like at the crap buffets? Because that is not baking a potato that is steaming it, sucka. Don’t do it. It’s better this way. Trust me.

After an HOUR your potato is all done. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. Literally. Now for the toppings. The options are endless. Cheese is always good, as is a little veggie, perhaps some meat. Who knows. Go for it.

toppings:
shredded cheese
broccoli
tomatoes
salsa
olives
chicken
bacon
guacamole
sour cream
chili
mushrooms
shrimp
Whatever makes you happy…me, I like to make a BTC. Bacon. Tomato. Cheese. YUM.