What does this have to do with baking, decorating and delicious treats?

If you had asked me 6 weeks ago how to make a cake, I would have told you to call Costco and place an order.  If you had persisted and wanted that cake to be baked in your home oven I would have told you which aisle in Walmart the boxed cake mixes could be found though I rarely, at that point, had even ventured to do THAT.

When I decided to make my son’s birthday cake (I didn’t want to pay the hundreds of dollars other people charge to have my son obliterate it, but I did want him to have something special) I didn’t have a recipe.  (Thank you Swan’s Cake Flour for putting the recipe right on the back of the box) I didn’t have a mixer or even a pan.  I was not equipped for the task at hand, but I did have the motivation and curiosity it took to TRY.

My mother-in-law let me borrow her mixer:

Since then, my super amazing and generous friend, Joslyn donated her Sunbeam to BakeosaurusRex.  God is GOOD!

And I put out a little plea on Facebook to borrow a pan.  Many friends responded to my need.  Ultimately I ended up borrowing the one pictured below from my friend Colleen which she since then has donated to BakeosaurusRex.  God is GOOD! (what do you have collected dust in your cabinets? I’d love to clear your clutter!) 

Since that moment, which was now a month ago, God has revealed a talent within me, not even I knew was hiding.  As Confucius said,

Choose a Job You Love, and You Will Never Have To Work a Day in Your Life- Confucius

I do have to find humor in the call though.  I had been praying for willpower and the WANT TO motivation (as suggested in Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst) for my health and weight-loss and God answers by given me the opportunity to exercise willpower and to draw closer to him to seek my WANT TO with all these delicious goodies around 24/7.

I had also been praying for assistance and clarity with time management strategies… the answer seems to be that the more you have on your plate the more hours there are in a day as you HAVE to manage the time you were gifted more carefully to accomplish your home, family, BSF, hobbies and BAKING all while putting CHRIST first.

This month has been full of learning and a lot of fun!  Thank you, God for equipping those you call to do Your Will!  -Amen!

Happy Baking,

BakeosaurusRex

• 1 Tablespoon Lemonade (or vodka…most of my cakes are kid cakes so I feel a little weird about using vodka and lemonade works great)
• Gel Food Coloring (color(s) to meet your specific designing needs.

Instructions

1. Put lemonade in a shallow dish or palate
2. Start adding your first gel color, remember you can always add more, so use a toothpick and dip it into the color and stir the lemonade with this.
3. Add the color or combination of colors until you achieve your desired color.

To paint the griddle marks on the pictures above I used:

brown as my base color, and added golden yellow, copper and a VERY SMALL amount of burgundy to make the colors you see on my son’s cake top and sides.

Take your Yellow Cake Base Recipe and add two things before you batter your pans.

1) Cinnamon

2) Nutmeg

No, I am not kidding you! It is THAT easy (and delicious!). As not to confuse anyone clicking back and fourth, I will re-write the ingredients and instructions here for your convenience.

Ingredients

• 3 cups Cake Flour, sifted
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs (room temp)
• 1 cup milk (room temp)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• ½ tablespoon nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions

1. Sift flour with baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. (Bowl 1)
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy in your blending bowl. (Bowl 2)
3. Crack eggs into their own small bowl (Bowl 3)
4. Beat butter and sugar mix at a medium speed, adding eggs one at a time. (pour them in there, they will plop out one at a time if you go slow) (Bowl 2)
5. Add flavor extracts. Reblend (Bowl 2)
6. Add spices (nutmeg and cinnamon). Reblend (Bowl 2)
7. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, creaming until smooth after each addition. (Bowl 2)
8. Pour into a SprayJoy’ed Pan of Choice (10-inch bundt pan or (3) 9 inch round pans, (2) 8 inc round pans or cupcake pans how many cupcakes you yield will depend upon the size and how full you fill your pans. I fill mine ½ full and yield 3 dozen cupcakes.
9. Bake at 325 degrees and bake. 1 hour and 25 minutes (one hour for round cake pans). 15-18 min. for cupcakes. 1 HOUR for the jumbo cupcake pan I used for Poppy’s smash cake.
10. Cool in pan 10+ minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack.

These cupcakes were also on the tray for my son’s 1st birthday.  I just used my leftover french toast cake batter and made cupcakes, then pipped on leftover maple frosting and added a cute little fondant mini pancake and drizzle.  HUGE HIT!

When I started this, I had only PLANNED on making Poppy’s Pancake Stack Smash Cake and my awesomely generous Mother-In-Law took care of ordering the cupcakes for the guests which I planned on topping with mini fondant pancakes and drizzle (like above but white cake and vanilla buttercream) to fit the theme.  However, with all the practice I had done I ended up with more silver dollar stacks and those cupcakes pictured above.

Do you like the theme, and the idea of dressing up an ordinary ordered cupcake to fit your theme? Check out these pictures below: