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Monday, July 22, 2013

Let Them Eat Cake (Recipe Included)

An award winning Cub Scout cake
Made by me and my boys
By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

When I was a kid, my mom used to make all of our birthday cakes.  I can remember she even took a cake decorating class to hone her skills.  That's exactly what she ended up doing.  Family birthday cakes were the launching pad.  Mom was soon doing cakes for friends, and then friends of friends, and even complete strangers.  The craft went from just birthday or baby shower cakes and she made several wedding cakes as well.

I knew when I had kids of my own I wanted to continue this tradition.  I, however was no match for my mother's culinary skills.  But for the first several years of my kids lives, I baked and decorated their birthday cakes.  I used the Superman cake pan from my childhood to recreate Mr. Incredible and Batman.  My wife and I would take turns, and I must give credit where it's due, her volcano dinosaur cake blew the doors off of any of my creations through the years.

Because I wanted things to be perfect with the cakes, I of course tended to screw them up.  I always had a much cooler picture in my head of how I wanted to the cake to look, as opposed to the reality of the situation.  To keep myself from going insane, we've done a lot more store bought cakes.  But my mom makes a pretty mean chocolate chip cookie and the last couple of years, the kids have requested a giant cookie with icing instead of a cake.  Anyway, here's my mom's recipe for icing.  It's really pretty good, and very sweet. I've also included some of our cakes through the years.

Memaw's Cake Icing (she doubles this recipe, as it only ices one small cake  typically.)

1/2 cup Crisco
1 stick of softened margarine
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 TBS milk
1 pound powdered sugar

Beat first four ingredients (Crisco, margarine, vanilla, and almond extract) well and slowly add the powdered sugar.  When mix becomes dry, add the milk.  Beat an additional two to three minutes.


Elmo
Mr. Incredible
Elvis

Doll

Rubber ducky (fail)

Volcano made by my wife

Batman (hard to see)

Lily pad (made by my wife)


1 comment:

  1. Your ideas are so cool! I wonder where those ideas came from. Nevertheless, I think you nailed it to make your daughter's birthday really special without spending a fortune.
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    ReplyDelete