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Charm City Cakes in NYC

Posted on August 13, 2010 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Next weekend, we are having a birthday party for NHL. Once again, I need to find out what type of cake he would like me to make. I have made a giant volcano for dinosaurs to parade around and some simple Cars cupcake cones. We shall see what this year has in store.

Making cakes has become a BIG business and art form thanks to shows like Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. I’ll admit that I am a big fan of Duff Goldman. Watching the quirky antics of the staff in Charm City Cakes as they create masterpieces is inspiring.

Little did I know that last Saturday evening I would come face to face with a creation by Charm City Cakes.Take a look:

Sure enough, the Sparklecorn cake was made by the amazing people at Charm City Cakes. You should have seen people (me included) jumping up and down. We were in awe that there was a cake by Ace of Cakes in the building.

My question to you this week is inspired by the cake that we were lucky enough to try while at BlogHer10:

If you could have a cake made by Duff and crew from Charm City Cakes, what would the cake look like and what flavors would you like it to be?

A huge thank you to the amazing people that organized the Sparklecorn Party – what a fun, fun, fun night it was!

Categories:
Aloha Friday baking Blogging Conference BlogHer food glorious food photos yummy

Winnie the Pooh 3rd Birthday Party

Posted on May 20, 2010 11:12 am by TheAngelForever

As I have mentioned in the past, JSL is quite ~~obsessed~~ in love with Winnie the Pooh and friends. Since our trip to Disney in February, he has declared that he only wants to wear items with Tigger and Pooh, watch their movies/shows and play with those toys. Thanks to this, we knew exactly what theme would be in place for JSL’s third birthday party over the weekend.

Everyone arrived to the party as we were still preparing the food. During this time, we had a little fun and excitement that many of us could have lived without. When we took the pizza bagels out of the oven, I put them down onto a trivet. Mistake #1 – it was plastic and must have adhered itself to the bottom of the cookie sheet. Thanks to this, when TechyDad put the cookie sheet back into the over. . . the plastic trivet went in to bake.

Nobody noticed anything until the time was up and we were pulling the goodies out of the oven. At that point, TechyDad and I both saw flickering. Sure enough we had a fire. Both of us yelled to get attention of others to come and help. I immediately turned off the oven and made sure the kids were not coming into the room. Meanwhile, my father and TechyDad worked to make sure that the flame was going out. It was at this point that we figured out the culprit of the fire. Luckily it went out pretty quickly, but left a rather large mess. This is what the rack that had the trivet and cookie sheet looked like in the end:

When all was said and done, nobody was hurt, the oven appears to be ok and the food was fine. Here is the food that was served for lunch:

We had veggies and dip, whole grain white rice (testing it for a review), vegetarian "meatballs" with sweet and sour sauce, pizza bagels, Mac & Cheese (Toy Story shapes), and mini bread bowls filled with two types of toppings.

As some of the kids cleared out from the kitchen, Uncle M sat down with NHL, JSL and SG. They were too cute sitting there together and chatting together, so we had to take a photo.

As we transitioned from lunch to cupcake time, the kids were able to play and baby be held by lots of people. JSL and SG had a ton of fun with each other, while Mimi and Aunt T held baby BA.

Two weeks earlier, I asked people for suggestions on what kind of Winnie the Pooh cake I could make. In the end, I went with something I had done before and was suggested by Maryellen Hooper (you are such a Rock Star – love ya!). I made cute cupcakes wrapped in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger liners and had JSL’s characters parading around them on the table. Simple, practical and no real worries. I had wanted to make a giant cupcake, but was not sure how it would work with egg substitute (my niece is allergic to eggs). Since there was no time for a test run, we did regular cupcakes. Here are all of the goodies ready to be devoured:

Thanks to my handy dandy decorating tool and Aunt M for helping me with operation frost and sprinkle, the cupcakes came out really nicely. It was soon time for the little guy to be shy and have everyone sing Happy Birthday to him. After several attempts, he was finally able to get the 3 candle blown out with a little assistance (we were all a little fire phobic for a reason ya know).

JSL had asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (not my kid), so we bought those to make. When it was time for him to eat his cupcake, he did not want it. Note him eating it with a spoon and not being too enthusiastic. Meanwhile big brother and cousin SG loved theirs.

Once the kids were cleaned up, it was present time. More on this tomorrow for my Aloha Friday topic/question of the week.

It really was a nice party. Aside from the fireworks from the oven, it went rather smoothly. One thing is for sure, thanks to that we will always remember JSL’s third birthday party.

Categories:
baking birthday cousins family food glorious food fun jsl messy photos TechyDad weekend yummy

3rd Birthday Wishes and Themes

Posted on May 14, 2010 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

It’s official, I am now the mother of a three year old again. Today is JSL’s third birthday and going to be an action packed day and weekend with family and friends. Yesterday, I blogged about the past year of memories with my little fellow – Goodbye to my last two year old.

This year, JSL is quite into Winnie the Pooh. My Wordless Wednesday this week, All things Winnie The Pooh, show cased all of the items that we have been trying to track down. Believe it or not, getting Winnie the Pooh toys/clothing/decorations is not the easiest thing in our area. Had he picked Toy Story it would have been a lot easier since Toy Story 3 is all over the place for the release of the movie this summer.

This made me think about all of the different themes we have had for past birthdays with the kids. Here they are:

1st NHL – Bear in the Big Blue House
2nd NHL – Finding Nemo
3rd NHL – Madagascar
4th NHL – Curious George
5th NHL – Dinosaurs
6th NHL – Cars
1st JSL – Sesame Street
2nd JSL – We were at Disney World

So my questions for you this week:

What was your favorite birthday party theme from when you were a child? Now be a kid again, what theme would you like for your next birthday?

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #99

Categories:
Aloha Friday baking birthday decisions food glorious food jsl photos yummy

Winnie the Pooh Birthday cake ideas needed

Posted on April 27, 2010 12:30 pm by TheAngelForever

Yikes. . . my baby is going to be three in 16 days! Last year, we celebrated JSL’s second birthday at Walt Disney World. We actually had an extra special meal at The Crystal Palace where JSL began his love for Winne the Pooh, Tigger and friends.

During our first day at Animal Kingdom in February, JSL kept crying to see Pooh Bear. While we tried to go on rides, see animals and have fun with other things….he kept demanding to see Pooh, Tigger and company. After a while, we finally made our way to the area that had Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore (my favorite).

Flash forward to the last month or so. JSL has been beyond attached to all things Winnie the Pooh. Thank goodness, I think we have all of his birthday presents set. Seems like it would be easy to find Winnie the Pooh things right? Well, we thought so until we started to look at stores and found next to nothing. Who knew that getting things having to do with Winnie the Pooh would be so difficult in our area? Of course, not having a Disney Store here does not help matters. Had we known this would be a dilemma, or seen JSL’s fascination continuing all this time, we probably would have bought a few special items while at Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. At the time, JSL bought a set of Pooh Bear characters that he loves and takes all over the place with us (another post on that coming soon – along with the items that we have found).

Later in the week, we have to go out and get a few birthday supplies. Once again, I plan on making JSL his birthday cake. This started with his first birthday and has continued with each subsequent celebration for the boys. Since we are obviously doing a Winnie the Pooh theme, I need to figure out a cake. I was thinking of taking the giant Wilton Cupcake pan and making it into a Honey Pot a la Winnie the Pooh style.

So my question: Do you have any other homemade cake ideas that would go along with a Winnie the Pooh theme. Remember, I am not trying to end up on Cake Wrecks here.

Thanks in advance for any suggstions.

Categories:
baking birthday Disney DisneySMMoms jsl photos shopping

Making things sweet with Splenda

Posted on April 4, 2010 11:51 am by TheAngelForever

Making things healthier for our family is a major goal in our house. We do not bake sweets too often because of extra sugar in these items. In addition to this, my mother and TechyDad’s mother are diabetic. We try to watch things because we know diabetes is in our genes. I was recently asked by Mom Central to participate in a Splenda tour to receive a free sample of Granulated Splenda No Calorie Sweetner and the Splenda Tastebook. I agreed since it was a fabulous opporunity to have some recipes to try with my family and friends that are diabetic and/or trying to watch their sugar intake.

We had Splenda packets in the house before this, but had never really used it for anything beyond adding to drinks. Splenda recently teamed up with celebrity Mom chef, Katie Brown, to offer recipes and tips on how to use Splenda in more items than you can imagine. Brown offers recipes for cookies, cakes, breaks and even smoothies.

Our sample and cook book arrived just before Passover . We wanted to try something quick and easy that did not require baking. TechyDad mentioned that we had a lot of overly ripe bananas. I opened up the Splenda Tastebook and found the Banana Strawberry Shake. It was the perfect fit since we had strawberries in the freezer. Bananas, strawberries, Splenda and fat free milk was all we needed with our handy dandy blender.

If you are interested in the recipe you can find it here. One item that I especially liked was the nutritional information was included – big kuddos for that! As you an see below, both of my boys loved it. My little guy actually drank a lot and told us he now likes strawberries. We liked it SO much that TechyDad and the boys actually made three batches of this for the entire family for a snack. It was delicious!

When Passover is over, there are a bunch of other items that look really good including the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars. I will also be looking at other items to add to my online cookbook to make for my son’s party to bring special for the diabetic members of the family present. I know I have a lot of options with the online recipes and ones in my Tastebook thanks to Katie Brown who included not only drinks, desserts, but also side dishes, sauces, salads and salsas.

Have you used Splenda in any recipes that you liked? Please share, I would love to know.

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Splenda and received products necessary to facilitate my candid review. In addition, a donation was made in my name to the Meals on Wheels organization to thank me for taking the time to participate.