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Tie-Dyed Cheesecake Results and B-day summary

Posted on August 6, 2009 8:31 pm by TheAngelForever

All day Monday, JL and I kept talking about how we could not wait to try the Tie-Dyed Cheesecake experiment that we made on Sunday. We were anxious to see if it would live up to our memories of the amazing cake that we had while at Disney’s Pop Century Resort in May. Monday evening finally arrived. JL and I dropped the boys off to have dinner with Nana and Papa. From here we drove to a new Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurant to try. On our way we saw the fire engine that was mentioned on my Worldess Wednesday.

It was so nice having dinner together and not worrying about what the kids would eat. We quickly decided on some sushi rolls to share and ordered our meal. After a little while, our sushi appetizer arrived. Not only did it look amazing, it was absolutely delicious.

Just as we were finishing these up, our meals arrived. I decided to go with something safe, but not something that I typically get (beef and broccoli) and JL tried something quite different (spicy orange tofu).

Thanks to my digital camera being with us most of the time, we were able to capture the photos of our wonderful meal. Of course, taking photos during your meal gets you looks. Our waitress came over. Of course, I had to explain that we blog and take pictures to show JL’s birthday meal. A little while later, while waiting for our packaged leftovers, the waitress and another come over. The two of them were singing happy birthday to JL while carrying ice cream with a lit candle on top.

Once we were done with dinner, we went back to my parent’s house to have the much anticipated Tie-Dyed Cheesecake. I quickly opened up the spring form pan so we were able to see more of the colors.

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday to JL and dig into the cake.

Finally, it was time to cut inside and see if it looked anything like the much loved cake from Disney’s Pop Century Resort. Here is a reminder of what the cake there looked like.

This is what we saw when we sliced inside the cake . . .

As you can imagine, we were all disappointed. It looked nothing like the cake of our dreams from the memories in May. This cake was 2/3 red velvet and only 1/3 cheesecake. NHL actually thought the cheesecake was frosting on top of the regular cake. Basically the proportions of the cake were flipped.

Don’t get me wrong, the recipe is not a bust. It was not horrible. However, as cheesecake fans we loved the cheesecake part, which was a mere blip in the cake. In the end, we figure we would try this recipe again. Next time we would likely use 1/3 of the cake mix, or possibly only 1/4 of it. Then we would at least double the cheesecake portion. We figure this would fix the proportions. In addition to this, we would not cook the red velvet all the way during the first time in the oven. We figure mostly baked would allow it not to dry out quite as much. Of course, we may also try this recipe that my friend who made this on Monday found after we had both made these cheesecakes. Certainly not going to be any complaints from the family about eating another cheesecake!

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Submitted as part of Grace’s Kitchen Friends on Feels Like Home.

Categories:
baking birthday Disney food glorious food jl looking back photos yummy

The Pop Century Tie-Dyed Cheesecake experiment

Posted on August 2, 2009 10:13 pm by TheAngelForever

Back in December, we did a lot of research to try to figure out which Disney World resort to stay at. Several of the Disney message boards had amazing posts with information about anything and everything you could ever want to know. Seriously, they had information about the rooms, pools, buses, and even the food. Best of all, they had photos of items that helped to lure us into staying at the Pop Century Resort.

One night, JL and I were sitting at the laptop reading about the Pop Century. At the time our reservations were at a different value resort on Disney property. We read about all of the activities that took place at Pop Century each day, especially for kids that were NHL’s age. Then we looked at photos of things from the food court. We were immediately intrigued by something called tie-dye cheesecake. The photos were amazing and we sat there almost drooling. Several days after this we changed our reservations to Pop Century Resort.

When we went to Disney in May we knew that we HAD to try the tie-dye cheesecake. Of course, we did just that one morning as part of our breakfast splurge.

We had this colorful, delicious treat twice while on our week long vacation. . . so did my parents. A short while ago JL did a search for the tie-dye cheesecake on Google. He found a recipe mentioned on Slashfood.com that compared itself to the cheesecake at the Pop Century Resort. Today we went grocery shopping and JL mentioned that he wanted to try making this. It seemed like the perfect time since his birthday is tomorrow. So we bought the red velvet cake mix, got bricks of cream cheese, and bought food coloring just in case we needed it.

When we got hom JL and NHL baked the 9" round red velvet cake in our never used springform pan from my bridal shower. It also made a dozen cupcakes with the extra batter. Then I switched out and made the cheesecake part. We opted to only do four colors this time around. So I mixed green, blue, purple and yellow for our experiment. Here is the cake just as it was heading into the oven to bake the cheesecake part on top of the red velvet cake.

Now this colorful creation is baked, cooled and chilling.

Tomorrow we will slice in to test and see how our colorful creation tastes when we have it to celebrate TechyDad’s birthday.

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Submitted as part of Grace’s Kitchen Friends on Feels Like Home.

Categories:
baking birthday Disney food glorious food jl looking back vacation yummy

Red, White and Blueberry goodness

Posted on July 6, 2009 11:18 am by TheAngelForever

Happy belated 4th of July to everyone! We were lucky enough to have gorgeous weather this 4th of July. Of course after weeks of rain, we almost had forgotten what to do with sunshine. In the morning we went to the free Home Depot event where NHL was able to make and take home a project (more on this soon).

After that we went to the grocery store to pick up some cherries, fruit and a few other items. Then we went to BJ’s to buy diapers, wipes, a new toaster oven and other items. While there something else caught our eyes. Yes, we opted to splurge and buy this cheesecake for the 4th of July.

I called my father to see if he and my mother would share it with us after dinner. In the end we were invited to have dinner with Nana and Papa. We had a fun evening. Yummy hamburgers, corn on the cob (which NHL refused after Friday night), pierogies, and salad.

After dinner we went outside with the kids to run around some. We came back in to have dessert. There were grapes, watermelon and of course the cheesecake. Everything was delicious and the little guy especially loved the watermelon. He never tried the cheesecake – strange child!

After that everyone piled onto the couch to watch the 4th of July celebration from Washington DC. The boys were anxiously waiting to see the crew from Sesame Street. Of course my father had fun teasing me about my former crush on Barry Manilow when I was in preschool.Oy!

The boys loved watching Sesame Street and managed to stay awake to see the fireworks on the show. Once they were over we packed the sleepy boys up and took them home. Much to our surprise both of the boys slept until 8:20 Sunday morning! This is something that never happens. They are both usually up well before 7:00.

So what did you do for the 4th of July this year?

Categories:
family food glorious food fun holidays jsl nhl photos summer yummy

Bakerella style cake balls for kindergarten

Posted on June 16, 2009 12:58 pm by TheAngelForever

Tomorrow the kids in kindergarten are having an end of year celebration. They have ponies and other animals coming to visit for rides thanks to the school PTA. This will be also be to culminate their transportation unit. Parents have all been invited to come for the fun. After the rides there will be a pizza lunch. We were asked to sign up if we are coming and also let them know what we could bring. I told NHL’s teachers to let me know what they needed the days before.

Yesterday when I picked NHL up from school I was told that they had plenty of paper products and drinks. She asked me to bring in a dessert item. Immediately I started to think about things. Cupcake cones would be fabulous, but it may be for both classes and all of the extra adults. That would be too hard to bring. Then I thought about making bonbon cookies like my friend J’s mother used to always make. These are easy to make, but very time consuming and not inexpensive thanks to the Hershey kiss filling. Of course I asked my Twitter followers for suggestions. Lots of great ideas came in. Then I had an idea. What about making something from Bakerella?

After looking at all of the options, I thought the Bakerella cake pops or cake balls would be a great idea. Today JSL and I went out to the store to get items to bake them. Here is what we bought:

Some of these items were already on hand at home. I wanted to have the lollipop sticks just in case I try to make those. I think they may be a little more work than I have time for (especially on my first attempt). There is also the worry about how to take them to school if I have them in pop form. In addition to this, I have since changed my mind on the frosting that I am going to mix with the cake. I had planned on using the cream cheese kind seen above, but now I think I am going to use the Rainbow Chip by Betty Crocker. I think that will be more fun for the kids. On the outside I have the yellow melting chocolate and a variety of sprinkles. I had thought about the blue ones to make it the school colors, but will see what NHL thinks when he helps me contruct them later on.

On that note I am off to check the two cakes. Both of them are now baked and cooling. Will update later with more photos of my experiment a la Bakerella. Oh, if you have time check out Bakerella’s fabulous collection of special cake pops. – amazing!

Categories:
baking decisions food glorious food photos shopping yummy

Frosty for Father’s Day

Posted on June 7, 2009 10:38 am by TheAngelForever

Growing up, I remember my Nana picking me up and taking me out for rides in her car. We would play music and just ride for hours. On the way home, we would always stop for something special. That treat was almost always a Frosty from Wendy’s. It was special sitting there in the car, scooping the thick chocolate dessert and waiting for it to be ready to drink with a straw. Most of the time, we were too quick gobbling it up with our spoons to ever need our straws. I have continued this tradition with my boys. Both of them love to head out with me and we often will stop at Wendy’s for a special outing. Of course, when at Wendy’s we have to get a Frosty.

Over the past three years, Wendy’s has started a tradition on Father’s Day weekend. They have what they call Father’s Day Frosty Weekend where they donate 50 cents from each Frosty sale to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Once again this Father’s Day weekend (June 20-21), they will be holding this event at all Wendy’s. The money that is raised will go to the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program. This fund assists full-time adoption recruiters at local agencies across the United States. These recruiters them help to pair up parents with foster care children that need loving homes.

Please join our family and head to Wendy’s this Father’s Day weekend to help a great cause. While you are enjoying your tasty Frosty, you will know that you are helping children to find a home of their own. You can also stop by your local Wendy’s and buy a Frosty Pinup for $1 at any time to help Dave’s charity.

Another fun way to involve your kids while helping out is to have them make a Father’s Day eCard on FrostyCard.com. Wendy’s will donate an additional 25 cents to the Dave Thomas Foundation for each card that is sent. The best part is that kids can be creative with them and add on coupons for "taking out the trash" or "washing the car" with the cards for Dad. There are also cards that are designed by celebrities or you can design your own.

Do not forget, you can pick from any of the Frosty menu items. So which will you pick, an Original Frosty, Frosty Shake, Frosty Float, or a new Twisted Frosty?

Thanks to Mom Central for introducing my family to this fabulous event. Now be sure to mark Father’s Day Frosty Weekend on your calendar like I did!