The Ultimate Layer Cake - Made of ALL your Favorite Desserts

With so many desserts and dessert combinations around these days I'm constantly changing my favorite.  I mean so many cookies, brownies, cheesecakes, doughnuts and not to mention the red velveting of everything! #redvelvetallthethings

Plus every other day there is a new kind of surprise inside cake.  Filled, rainbow, ombre, designs, etc. AND you guys already know my love of mash-ups, so the logical decision was to make an ultimate mash-up - a layer cake with a bunch of everyones favorite desserts!

I brought this to a family party and it was totally eaten up! I think there's enough in it to satisfy anyone's sweet tooth!

See all the details over here at sheknows.

Chinese New Year - Year of the Ram/Goat/Sheep Red Velvet Oreos

Chinese New Year is February 19th this year - and it's the Year of the Sheep (or depending on what you look at Year of the Goat or Ram or apparently it can be any horned mountain animal!)

Although I'm half Chinese, we really never celebrated Chinese New Year.  My mom's family came over to the US way back when China went communist and has never really looked back since.  I think it was just a little to painful to celebrate anything that reminded my grandparents of home. 

But as my kids are getting older, we have been trying to get them familiar with a lot of cultures and religions.  They are 25% Chinese although you'd probably never guess it by looking at them.  They are also 25% Italian and 50% a mix of European Ukranian and some German - they are real little melting pots.  

To celebrate the arrival of both Chinese New Year and these bad boys aka Red Velvet Oreos, I made some Year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram decorated Oreos.

The "head" detail is made with black melting candy wafers and some yellow candy coated sunflower seeds.  And you get some very simple ram or goat shapes - although if you look at them like my hubby did, you may ask "Why did you make demon cookie?" Thanks husband.  

Do you know the story behind Chinese New Year?

According to Wikipedia, the myth is that Chinese New Year started with Nian, a mythical beast (think the Chinese New Year parade lion/dragon beast) that would come on the 1st day of New Year to eat all the villager's food and kids (yikes!).  To ward Nian off, the people put food in front of their doors at the beginning of the new year thinking that if Nian ate the food, he wouldn't attach any more people.  One villager had enough of Nian's shenanigans.  A god visited him and told him to put red paper in his house and to place firecrackers all around.  Turns out Nian was afraid of the color red so the villagers started hanging red lanterns and red spring scrolls on their windows and doors and used firecrackers to scare him away.  From then on Nian never came back to the village again.  

Sounds pretty plausible to me, and why not celebrate every year with a parade and firecrackers? 

Happy Chinese New Year to you! We are going to hunker down and keep warm from the brutal cold front in the Northeast. These little red velvet Oreos should help! 

a whole bunch of fudge...!

so although i really wanted to start 2013 off with a healthy treat...i haven't gotten to that yet!...so you get a whole lotta fudge to kick off the year....

this is from the holiday season and made for all the kid's teachers....i think i was making fudge every other nite for all of December!...good thing they were all really simple to make....

cranberry: 1 can (14 ounces) of sweetened condensed milk, heat on stove top and add 1 bag of white chocolate chips (12 ounces), and dried cranberries (add about 1/2 cup of dried cranberries in a food processor and chop nice and fine); add cranberries to fudge while it's still warm, pour into 8X8 baking pan, let harden and cut into shapes.

lemon: super simple, 1 can of store bought lemon frosting added to 1 package of melted white chocolate chips (12 ounces); add to pan and let set and cut

cinnamon: 1 can of store bought vanilla frosting to 1 bag of cinnamon chips

red velvet: 1 can of store bought chocolate frosting, 1 bag of chocolate chips, 2 tablespoonfuls of red coloring gel (ok yeah it's really just chocolate fudge, but i cheated and called it red velvet!)

pumpkin spice: 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces), heat and add 1 bag of pumpkin spice hershey's kisses (unwrapping them was the longest part!)

mint chocolate: 1 can of store bought chocolate frosting to 1 bag of mint chocolate chips (added some green tree sprinkles on top for fun!)

green tea: 1 can (14 ounces) of sweetened condensed milk, heat and add 1 bag of white chocolate chips and 3 tablespoonfuls of green tea matcha

fruit loop: 1 can of store bought vanilla frosting to 1 bag of white chocolate chips; add in 1 cup of crushed fruit loop cereal, and some rainbow non pareils on top

...since i made mine ahead of time, i wrapped and froze each large square of fudge and took them all out the day before i was making the treat boxes to cut and divide them up....

.....go get your treat boxes on sale post the holiday season!...the fudge made with frosting is very sweet and my kids loved this kind (surprise surprise!)...the fudge made with sweetened condensed milk is also sweet but also more creamy in texture....my kids are mint chocolate fans so that was their fav but if i had to pick one it would probably be the green tea or the cranberry....!

the cranberry would even be great to make for this valentine's day....maybe cut out some cute little hearts...right??

...and you get some super simple to make fudge in a bunch of flavors--for some very special teachers and staff at the kids' school....i can't say enough about how much our teachers do each and every day for our kids, and a little treat here and there to say thank you is the least i can do....

...hope your 2013 is off to a great start! I'm sure all the Valentine's Day stuff will be showing up soon....i think i spotted some candies already in stores, so get ready!

Have an awesome week and thanks for stopping by!

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Santa Cupcakes plus a bonus Santa Zombie.....!

...so i know you are thinking "again with the little people cupcake toppers"? i know i know, sorry! but i can't seem to stop myself, but i have a feeling i'm about out of ideas...but how about some mini santas....?

mini saint nick is made the same way as the gnomes--the body/head is a hershey's chocolate bell (which you should be able to find these days), the hat is a candy coated bugle, and the rest of the detail is candy melt, an edible food writer, and a black sprinkle for the belt....

also added some hershey kiss christmas trees (use either 2 or 3 hershey kisses--cut off the very tip of the kisses not on top) then use candy melt or white chocolate to stick them together...add a star sprinkle on the top....(i saw these trees made from kisses and peanut butter cups which are so very cute, but my kids have peanut butter allergies so figured why not use all hershey's kisses for this)

....thee little guys were added to some red velvet cupcakes for a party.....made from scratch from this mocha muffin recipe over at the food librarian....(i added some food gel to get the red color, but essentially used the same recipe and now they are "red velvet"!)

and although they are muffins, they are now cupcakes since i added some cream cheese buttercream on top (oh what is cream cheese buttercream? thanks for asking! it's my go to buttercream recipe--but i had 1/2 can of duncan hines cream cheese frosting leftover from another goodie, so in an attempt to not waste, i added that to the homemade buttercream....and i have to say, very tasty! i really don't like store bought icing anymore, so adding a little to the homemade was actually very nice and not too cream cheesy...and the whole shebang made for a quite tasty cupcake :)

AND...of course just to show you, my little guys don't always come out perfect--this guy was not loving the dunk in candy melt (too blobby)....and as i was about to call one of the kids over to see if they wanted to eat him, i kinda thought "eat him"....yeah actually he could be a great little zombie....and what's better than a santa zombie???!

...i'm sure there's a tv show or movie in here somewhere....santa brings presents and also looks for something for himself---like BRAINS!....but only the kids who have been naughty.....right right? are you with me...?!!

ok, maybe not, we don't want to give little kids nightmares about santa (like that creepy elf on a shelf---i know there are lots of fun things he's doing at night, but really if i was a little kid i'd be like "mom, can we throw him away, he's giving me the heebie jeebies!")

...anyhoo at least he is a cute santa zombie, no??? and i can't promise i'm totally done with making these little guys, but there will be a break (for now!)...thanks for stopping by, and have an awesome week!

Also entering these santa cupcakes in the Creative Holiday Recipe Contest being hosted by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen and Cookies and Cups! (wish me luck!) 

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It

Works for Me Wednesday

Made by You Monday

Creative Me Monday

Carolyn's Homework Today's Assignment Be Inspired

Crazy Sweet Tuesday

Trick or Treat Tuesday

Cast Party Wednesday

Share Awesomeness Thursdays

Tatertots and Jello - Weekend Wrap Up Party

More the Merrier-DIY Home Sweet Home

Happy Hour - Freestyle Friday

Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday
The Feature Friday Linky Party - Blissful and Domestic

happy heart day cake....!

...nope didn't mean valentine's day.....happy heart day.....january 16th is a really special day around here....today is the 3rd anniversary of our daughter's new heart.....she had a transplant when she was 8 months old.....(and knock on wood....has been doing absolutely fantastic ever since)....spent the entire day as a family enjoying the day....and made her this heart cake....because it is such a special day....and actually it will work for valentine's day too....!

....found this red velvet cake recipe....and since i've been meaning to do less with the artificial colors....went with beet juice for the red coloring.....you mix about 4 ounces of beet juice with the cocoa powder.....it's not a really intense red....and with the cocoa it ended up coloring the cake like a cafe au lait color...hence the "red" velvet.....(i was so tempted to just add some red americolor.....but in the end wanted to see what the beet juice did....if anything....)

.....the cake is a 6 inch layer cake.....baked 3 layers....and once cooled cut each of the layers in half....so there were 6 layers iced with vanilla buttercream.....crumb coated first.....

.....then iced with a thicker layer....and used a spatula to make the side markings...amanda from i am baker gives a great tutorial on how to do this.....the hearts are made from what else...?....candy melts!....made from a heart mold in all the different colors.....before they were totally hardened....add a tooth pick (kinda like a heart lollipop) so you can insert them into the cake....the little hearts in the middle of the candy hearts are from a valentine's day sprinkle mix.....attached with some melted candy.....

...so you can see that it wasn't really a red velvet cake with the beet juice....next time i might try beet powder to see if that works any better for red coloring....if anyone has any other suggestions let me know....!

....but it was pretty tasty regardless...and we just called it a chocolate cake and the kiddos had no problems with that....!.....also need to work on getting more even layers with a layer cake....all in all an awesomely awesome day....

....and if you are not already....please please please consider becoming an organ donor....there are so many people on waiting lists and our little shmoopy would not be here had another's family not given such a special gift.....find out how...here....thanks so much!