Clapboard Cake

My friend's daughter recently turned 12, and she wanted to have a movie-themed birthday party. My friend, Kelly, did cute invitations and party favors, but she doesn't like to bake. So she asked if I could make a cake. After asking the birthday girl what she wanted, I came up with a clapboard cake design.

It is a chocolate buttermilk cake that is so very soft and moist! The frosting would, I guess, be considered a buttercream. I just make my own frosting. I doubled the cake recipe and made it in four 9x13 pans (I only used three). I also made two batches of the frosting (one white, one black).

When I bake, I don't measure very accurately, if at all. So these are all approximations.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 cup Hershey's baking cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• Kosher Salt (pinch or so)
• 1 1/2- 1 3/4 c buttermilk
• Splash of Vanilla
• Splash of Orange extract
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 c) softened butter
• 3 eggs

Chocolate Frosting

• 2 sticks of butter
• 2 squares semi-sweet chocolate, melted
• 4 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
• 1 box of confectioner's sugar (sifted)
• splash of vanilla
• splash of buttermilk (to get to the right consistency)
• Black food coloring

White Frosting

• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 a box of confectioner's sugar
• splash of vanilla (use clear vanilla if you want it to be really white)
• splash of buttermilk

Monster's Tea Party

My kids' birthdays are both in April. While I love having their birthdays close, and getting all the birthdays in the family over with early in the year, it is pretty stressful to make cakes and other things one right after the other. Not only that, but Easter was in April this year as well. It's ok. I got all done, with two successful parties!

My daughter wanted a bear birthday party. Then, of course, she changed her mind to a tea craft party after I ordered some things. Luckily, I was able to meld the two ideas together. Anna's birthday was a lot simpler than Leif's. (See yesterday's post) She wanted some friends to come over for a slumber party, have "tea party food," and craft. I bought a few crafty things online for them to do, including: painting ceramic bear banks, sand art, and making their own t-shirts.

The invitations were really simple. I used Stampin' Up! paper and supplies, including punches and the Circle Scissor Plus. I free-formed the handle and spout of the teapot.

The food was the real fun part of this party! I made everything small and dainty for the girls. Most of the food was gone by the end of the night, so that's a good sign! We made chocolate covered strawberries, mini quiches, mini muffins, mini pigs in a blanket, mini cookies, and cucumber sandwiches. Then the girls got to make their own mini pizzas for dinner.

For the cake, I baked about 3/4 of a recipe of batter in a greased/floured Pyrex bowl. I frosted it in bright pink butter cream, and then made flowers out of M&M candies. The spout and handle were free-formed. The cute candles were bought online.

My favorite part of this party was how much my daughter was able to help me to make everything. She decorated her own cake, and made most of the food for her party.