cake n' cereal treats....!

....so this is kinda like halloween in august...remember these monster cereals...?

....frankenberry, count chocula, and my all time fav....boo-berry (for some reason i love love love blueberry flavored stuff)!...i found these on sale at tar-jay for like $2 a box at the end of the halloween season and had to get them....i loved these when i was a little kid and begged and pleaded until my mom gave in....now that i have kids i totally get why she gave us a hard time on the sugary cereals....but they always remind me of being a kid...so i usually also say no when the kids beg for a box of trix...but randomly i do bring one home for them (although i don't let them eat it for breakfast--just can't do it....but it's a "treat" after dinner....)...anyway.....since i had all 3 boxes i was trying to think of something to do with them....so decided to food process the heck out of them and get some cereal powders to add to stuff....

....the first was cereal and cake bites.....i usually freeze extra cupcakes i make since it's so easy to do a "quick" project/idea with them....for these i used 1 cupcake and about 1 cup of the cereal powder and mashed them up until nice and crumbly.....then added enough icing until moist enough or until you can make a ball/bite that sticks together nicely....(don't these look like multi-colored meatballs??)....

.....then coat in candy melt/wafers like you would do for any other cake bite....and while still wet..... just roll in some of the crushed monster cereals....

.....and you get some really yummy monster cereal n' cake bites...

.....see yummy....!

....or add a stick to them, well because as meaghan from the decorated cookie says...everything is better on a stick (at least i believe that's a quote...!)....

...and you have some very nostalgic monster cereal n' cake pops on a stick....!

....or of course you can add some of the cereal powder to some boxed cake mix batter.....

....and also add some powder to to some of your favorite vanilla buttercream.....

....and you get boo-berry, frankenberry, and count chocula cupcakes....!

....that said you could always just eat a plain ole bowl of boo-berry and pretend you are 8 years old again....

....these were fun, fun, and fun....unfortunately my oldest kiddo told me never to make this kind of cupcake again.... :( oh well....you can't win 'em all...and i enjoyed these probably more than i should have....!

....happy monday to everyone....and a very happy early halloween!

tidy mom works for me wednesday

graham cracker sandwiches....!

....these are so ridiculously simple that they hardly need a post....but they came out cute...so why not?....you'll need:

• frosting (i had a little bit of left over frosting from these cupcakes and hate to waste perfectly good homemade buttercream!)
• graham crackers

....slather some frosting in between graham crackers....and ta-da....you are done....

....and don't worry if the graham crackers break....just make mini sandwiches.....they are so cute and the kids loved them....i kept them in the fridge so the icing didn't squish all out when you bite them (well for the little bitty ones, that's not a problem since you can just pop them in your mouth)....

....and you get some super simple graham cracker sandwich snacks....i love using up stuff without wasting it...this is a recycled treat....and so is this.....and i know it's just frosting, but there's a lot of love that goes into making it...!

...happy thursday!

tidy mom works for me wednesday

vanilla cupcakes with fruit glazes...!

....so ever since seeing these cupcakes in an issue of martha stewart's living...they've been on the "to do" list....the glaze colors are so pretty!

...these are homemade vanilla cupcakes from the magnolia vanilla cupcake recipe.....the glaze icings are cantaloupe, blueberry, strawberry, and mint....and the color is all natural...only from the color that comes from the fruit (or mint).....i love that as i tend to use a lot of color in my stuff (well because stuff looks more awesome with a lot of color!) but if i can get the same cool look without adding the extra coloring gels...even better....

...the blueberry, strawberry, and mint glaze icings are made like in the ms recipe....decided to add a cantaloupe glaze because we had a super ripe melon that the kiddos probably wouldn't eat (you know kids, kinda mushy fruit and it's "yucky")....so cut it up and food processed it into a mush....

...then added a little sugar (maybe 2-3 tablespoonfuls) and heated it until it reduced and thickened a bit....then strained out all the big particles....

...and you are left with a super condensed and thick cantaloupe syrup....

...i did all the fruit syrups ahead of time and stored them in the fridge til i was ready to use....for the mint syrup (we have a small herb garden so it was great to use some of the ton of mint we have growing!).....make sure you blanch really quickly in boiling water to brighten the green color...then puree with a small amount of the blanching water.....then follow the ms recipe...it works great and has such a great fresh mint taste!.....

...then just add some powdered sugar to the syrups until you get the glaze consistency you want (thick enough for dipping the cupcakes so it keeps the color without becoming transparent through the glaze).....

...the strawberry, blueberry and mint glazes' flavor are definitely yummy and pretty concentrated....cantaloupe is tough for a fruit flavor because it's so subtle....using really ripe fruit and concentrating by cooking it down definitely helped....you do get a cantaloupe flavor from this glaze icing but it's not as intense as the strawberry or blueberry....the mint is my fav though and i love the color that is ended up being (oh and the mint syrup is great for drinkee drinks too..!).....

....then just dip (or drizzle the glaze) over your favorite cupcakes....and you get some super moist vanilla cupcakes with a bunch of au natural colored and flavored glazes....!

....i need to figure out something to do with the left over glazes....i'm sure they'd be great on a lot of things....thanks for stopping by, and have a great 1st week of august....!

tidy mom works for me wednesday