How to Make a Surprise Cake - Easter Version

Last week I mentioned that when the kids and I colored eggs, we also made a Easter themed surprise cake.

(You can click here if you missed that post)

What's a surprise cake?  That's what I call a cake that looks like a standard cake, but when you cut into it a yummy surprise falls out of the center-
sort of like a pinata but without all of the sticks and beating 😆

Check out how easy it is to make one yourself:

Supplies

We used a boxed mix and pre-made icing along with chocolate bunnies and jelly bean 'eggs'.

After preparing the mix according to package directions we baked in inside of two standard round cake pans.

Step 1

Arrange your bottom layer onto the cake stand or surface that you will be using to serve the cake.

Step 2

Use a serrated knife to remove the center portion of the cake.

Side Note:  The pics in this post might show a bit of hastiness- I had three eager helpers and 3 dozen eggs being colored in the same afternoon so........😉

Step 3

Apply icing to this bottom layer of cake.  I went ahead and iced the center as well, just because I thought it looked a little nicer that way.

Step 4

Have your helpers toss in those jelly beans!

Step 5

Add the second layer of cake on top (I cut the center out of this layer before putting it into place) and fill in the rest of the way with jelly beans

Side Note:  Hang on to the center piece that you have removed, you will need it again in a minute.

Step 6

Remember that center piece?  

Trim it down to a thin layer and rest it directly on top of your jelly bean center.

Step 7

Now cover the entire cake with icing as you would with any other cake.

Tip:  Use care around the patch covering the jelly beans so you don't inadvertently break open the top of your cake.

Step 8

Now decorate!  

After seeing the cake in plain white, we thought it could use more color and raided the baking cabinet to find something pretty.

We ended up using green sprinkles around the bottom of our cake (to create the look of grass) and then added pastel colored confetti sprinkles on top.  Lastly, the kiddos carefully stuck the chocolate bunnies into place.

Bunny Close-Up

Isn't he cute?  He has no idea that his ears are going to be chomped off in about five minutes....😁

Overall, the cake turned out pretty cute.  Though I was a little disappointed that the bunnies were so much taller than the top of the cake.  I was thinking about this when I remembered that I have cake pan specifically designed to be taller, narrower and with an insert that creates a hollowed center....ah well, next time maybe!  😆

Surprise!

Now serve your cake and enjoy the surprise 🍭

Side Note:  Obviously, we used jelly beans, but you could substitute all kinds of candies or even small toys for a birthday party.

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I hope you enjoyed this how-to post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2018

Coloring Eggs - 2018

With one of my nieces in town this week I knew we had to begin our Easter fun a little early.  Together the three kids and I baked an Easter surprise cake, played with glowy eggs and I supervised while three dozen hard boiled eggs were artfully designed 😍

(You can click here if you want to read about glowy eggs)

  I'll have a new post coming soon featuring our Easter surprise cake, but for now check out these photos from our afternoon coloring eggs:

We used standard egg dying kits to create the base colors before adding additional details with markers and stickers.  Bubby preferred  a simple solid layer of color for his eggs, but the girls created layers of color by dipping the eggs in more than one hue.

The eggs in the photo above were all decorated by my Bubby while

the photos below contain eggs designed by the girls. 

The kids did a great job and had a lot of fun....especially when my two started experimenting with different ways to waste, I mean crack and peel their eggs....It's the memories that count, right? 😊

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2018

How We Celebrated: Christmas Cookies 2017

Welcome back to our holiday kitchen!

A few days before Christmas the kids and I spent an afternoon in the kitchen baking up our holiday cookies.  Check out these photos from our fun:

Supplies

This baking adventure started out with several cookie mixes (the gingerbread failed 😖),  a cake mix for Mamaw's birthday (dark chocolate & Andes mints 😊), a gigantic pile of sprinkles, M&Ms, icing, color gels and the crock pot. 

I included the crock pot in the photo because after four hours of baking, there was no way that I was cooking dinner.  I can't remember what I had in the crock pot, but I was glad it was there! 😁 

Sprinkles!

I love having a large variety of sprinkles for decorating my baked goods, but they can get expensive really fast. My strategy is to wait until right after a holiday and buy them when they are 75% (or more) off. 

Tip:  Check the 'sell by' dates to be sure, but usually they are good for a year or two after purchase.  Store them in a cool, dry place and you are good to go 😉

Little Hands

My Baby Girl and my Little Man had different 'techniques' when it came to 

rolling out dough, but both had a lot of fun 😀

Sugar Cookies

Tip:  We cut and baked our sugar cookies first so that 

they would have time to cool before decorating.  I highly recommend having a set of cooling racks on hand if you are going to be baking a lot of anything at once.  It doesn't take long to run out of work space and stackable racks are a life saver!

Sprinkle Tray

In the past I've set all of the sprinkles out on the table and let the kids shake them out as they wished.  It worked but a whole lot were wasted on the floor 😏 

This year I decided to take a couple of mini muffin tins and use them to create sprinkle palettes.  Each of the kids got their own tin and spoon and had a much easier time.....Well, my girl did.  The Little Man just sat there eating sprinkles with the spoon, but that's ok 😀

Santa Cookies

Each of the kids made a special cookie to be left out for Santa on Christmas Eve.  The rest they divided between themselves and Daddy 😉

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Here are the rest of the cookies we made that day:

Chocolate chip with red sprinkles

Double chocolate chip with Andes mints and green sprinkles

Chocolate chip with M&Ms

Snicker doodles with red, white and green sprinkles

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Those were our holiday cookies this year.
I hope you enjoyed the baking post, thanks for stopping by!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2018

Holiday Wrap-Up: Gingerbread Houses

Christmas may be over, but 2017 isn't quite yet finished.

  

I didn't want to let the holiday season go by without sharing these adorable 'gingerbread' houses that the kids made a couple of weeks ago (and, well, ya know, I already took the time to edit and upload these photos so..........😏)

Keep reading to share in our fun and discover a graham cracker tip:

Graham Cracker Secrets

I learned this trick when my Baby Girl made gingerbread houses in kindergarten; instead of baking, measuring and cutting actual gingerbread, use graham crackers for the walls and roof.  Not only are the crackers inexpensive and lightweight, but the perforations make them easy to break apart into smaller pieces.  I love easy 😊

One box of graham crackers was enough for two small houses, but I did use two containers of icing.  You won't actually need two containers, but what is the point of making gingerbread houses if the kids can't squeeze icing all over the place, right?!?!

Lots of Candies

I was going to use just gumdrops and gummy bears but my Little Man had other ideas-
hence the M&Ms and the gummy worms.

"I don't want bears. I want worms"

You gotta love a kid with style...
😁😁😁

Icing

You can click here for tips on creating your own icing bag.  I made one for each of my kiddos, using one entire container of icing for each bag.

The Little Man's House

A rainbow of M&Ms makes up the sidewalk leading to this gingerbread house.  

What's that on the roof?  Why a giant worm of course! Happy holidays!  😂😂😂

My Baby Girl's House

I love the careful thought and consideration that my Baby Girl put into her gingerbread house.  Not only did she make sure that each M&M along side the house was the same color, but she had a family of three green gummy bears posing outside of the front door.  My very favorite part is the rose bushes.  She made these by tearing small pieces from a red gumdrop and attaching them to a green gumdrop with tiny bits of icing.

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I've got one more photo post from our holiday baking marathon that I'll be sharing soon.  After that it will be time to race the rails right into a Thomas the Train birthday party 😄

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday post, thanks for stopping by and happy new year!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Tree Ornaments and a Bonus Photo Tip - 2017

My Kitchen Tree Collection

The ice cream cones and macaroon on the left are available at Wal-Mart for just under $1.  The ice cream cone on the top right I found treasure hunting this year, but can't remember the price.  I want to say that it was .25 but I'm not sure.  The set of silver snowflake measuring spoons were part of my birthday gift from Husby's parents this year.  All of these have been incorporated into my kitchen candy tree.

You can click here to see more of my kitchen tree.

Side Note:  I had no idea that the macaroon was a macaroon until Baby Girl told me so, I just thought it was cute! Let's hear it for super smart kids! 😁

Baby Girl's Ballerinas & Barbie

Each of these were found treasure hunting this past summer for $1.50

  Apparently this was a steal because I just saw similar ones at Kohl's last week for $14.99 each 😁

The Little Man's Doggy & Plane

The blue puppy can be found at Wal-Mart for under $2 and the plane was another $1 treasure hunting find.  My Little Man loves his ornaments so much!  Originally, his ornaments were dispersed evenly around the tree, but I've been noticing that they keep moving.  Now we have an entire section (in the back by the couch) that features all of his personal ornaments along with anything of Daddy's that he also took a liking too 😉

Care Bears

Baby Girl has an entire box of vintage Care Bear toys that she no longer plays with, but the Little Man, however, loves to drag them out and drive them around in their little cloud car.  So when we were treasure hunting and found a set of Care Bear ornaments ($3 I think), he begged to have them.  He generously gave the larger pink one (Cheer Bear) to his sister and kept the tiny one (aptly named Share Bear 😍) for himself.

Husby's Truth

I found this one at Wal-Mart for under $4 and had to grab it because, yeah, he'd probably rather be hunting...or trapping...or fishing...😁😁😁

Aside from the very first photo, all of the remaining ornaments in the post were added to our family tree in the living room.

You can click here to read more about this tree.

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Bonus Photo Tip:  Another treasure hunting find this year was a set of plain 16x20 canvases that I found for $1, still in the original packaging (the wrapping says that they are sold at Hobby Lobby, $7.99 for a set of two).  Any way, I grabbed them thinking that for that price the kids could have fun painting on them, but I've ended up using them as canvas backgrounds for my blog and eBay photos.  Each of the photos in this post was taken by simply laying the ornaments onto an unpainted canvas.  I have also had great luck using them in the same way for my wedding package flowers.  The framed canvas means that you don't have to worry about wrinkles like with fabric, and the light reflects really well without creating any shiny flash spots.  I also like how easy they are to keep clean and ready to go without taking up much storage space - In other words, I don't have to go to the trouble of getting out and setting up my light box and backgrounds, etc.

I'm always looking out for photo tips so if you have anything you'd like to add, hit me in the comments section!

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I hope you've enjoyed this holiday & photo post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

My Life in Pictures - Christmas Decor 2017

Right after Thanksgiving I managed to put up all of the holiday decor - just in time to get hit with the flu and a cold😖

Needless to say, it's taken me awhile to find the energy to take and edit my holiday decor photos.  I'm happy to say that here they are today though, along with a few 2017 decor updates.  Enjoy!

The stockings were hung with reckless abandon...ok... not really.  In fact, I carefully placed each one.
But ever since I heard a guy on tv say that (during my days and days of sick-girl-couch-time), I've been dying to say it myself.  So there you go.  😁

Christmas bulbs and glassware in the dining room.

Dining Room Ornaments

You might remember these from previous posts.  My dining room tree is my decorative tree and features only chocolate and gold ornaments.  Originally, these ornaments were individually hung on ribbon loops, but the white color of the ribbon was bugging me.  I also didn't like the way that having so many ornaments of the same size all over the place made a bit of a cluttered look, so I decided to cluster them into groups of three with pipe cleaners.

Clustered Ornaments

Dining Room Tree - Day

I think that having the ornaments clustered made a big difference (to visually picky people like me, anyway- regular people probably don't mind one way or the other 😁).

You can click here to see last year's tree with the ornaments hanging individually.

Dining Room Tree - Night

Colorful Village Lights

I added a few colored lights to the under tree village this year.  I think I would prefer that they were all rainbow, but for now this will do.

You can click here to see more about this village.

Golden Garland

I found this garland over the summer while treasure hunting and
decided to add it to the living room tree.

Living Room Tree

Here you can see the living room tree with just the new garland, chocolate and gold ornaments and gold snowflakes.  I like to use these decorative ornaments as the base and then layer all of our sentimental ornaments on top.

You can click here to read more about the chocolate and gold ornaments and the golden snowflakes (that used to be birthday party decor 😎)

Living Room Tree - Day

Here is the tree all finished and complete with our sentimental ornaments.  We had quite a few days with weather mild enough to keep the door open, it was divine 😍

Elfie has been hanging out below with the gifts 😊

You can click here to read about some of Elfie's adventures
You can click here to read how to make Elfie's skirt.

Happy Gingies

I tucked my faux gingerbread cookies into the top shelf dishes of my china cabinet.  I got these last year (along with my glasses of fake milk) and decided to keep them up out of harms way.  They are made of a spongy material and I can guarantee that if certain little hands get a hold of them....bye bye gingies!

You can click here to read more about my artificial milk and cookies.
You can click here to read about my china cabinet.

Cupcakes & a Gingy

This friendly face tucked away in a corner makes me smile and I love the soft light from the tree.

Kitchen Tree

Ahhhh, my candy tree - absolutely packed with sugary goodness!
I added a few new tasty ornaments to my kitchen tree this year which I'll share in an upcoming post.

You can click here to read more about this yummy tree.

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017