Rainbow Layer Cake

With school winding down, it meant time to celebrate a successful school year for both my children. As previously posted, the ice cream cone cupcakes were the item of choice for my son's kindergarten class, and now my daughter selected rainbow cake to serve her fellow classmates.

I was super stoked to have another opportunity to prepare this super colourful six layer cake for her grade 2/3 split class.  It was a total show-stopper! The kids loved it, the presentation turned into a question and answer session {the perfect opportunity for my little squirt to practice speaking french, and a chance to me to see her do what she's been studying for the last three years}. Confirmation that my faith in the school's staff and the leaving my child's education in their hands has paid off :)

Unfortunate for me, I only have 2, 8" cake pans so the baking of the colourful treat was quite timely. The end result made it all worth while though!  Note to self: Indulge, buy more cake pans.

So, I first saw this delectable cake on a Pinterest post by Sweetopolita...we gave it the first run back in March for my Dad's birthday. It was good, but we didn't get any pictures and to be honest, it was filled with whipped topping {not the same as a good swiss meringue buttercream}.  THIS cake was the cat's meow!

You can find the instructions on how to make it {Sweetopolita's doodle cake, not Avery's Class cake...this was an original made by me } on Sweetopolita's blog, just follow this link here.  Avery wanted to make it representative of school, so we topped the tower of cake with fondant covered, rice krispie treat apple decked out with the resident worm.

Enjoy!

Supersized Frogs...would you like Flies with that?

Spring is soon to be upon us, and before I know it the back yard will be swamped, gushy and an atrocious mess... the perfect conditions for after school puddle jumping sessions, soggy pants and mud riddled clothes. Ah, the smell of melting snow and the croaking of frogs?

Earlier in the week a neighbour contacted me to follow up on a request she had made months ago. Her daughter was soon to turn seven and she felt cookies would be a perfect send-off token for all the little buddies attending the party. Like any good neighbour and delighted by the request I said "Yes, I can bake them for you." Followed by "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" NO! Not really, I did have a late night door knocking a couple weeks back though and this was the exact conversation...

{firm knock at door}

Me:  "Hi."

Neighbour : " Hi, sorry to bug you - my wife decided to make some muffins, she ran out of eggs."

Me:  -

Neighbour:  "Could she borrow two eggs?".

Me:  "She can have them, I don't need them back.{smirk, poor late night humour.}"

Then I handed over my eggs, calculating how many I too would need for the week to tie us over to payday shopping, deliberating with myself if I should have given them up...that was equivalent to 1 double batch of sugar cookie dough. 

Me: "Happy Muffin Making, what time should we be over in the morning for breakfast?" {Smarta#$} 

{Door closes, neighbour leaves with my eggs in hand}.

I love my neighbours, they really are great, I had never experienced that before where someone would just walk over and ask to borrow something of that sort. Perhaps it's the small community we live in.  As long as the requests stop at baking supplies and not

 "Hey, can I borrow your wife Chad?  I need her to bake me a cake."

ANYWAYS... attempt at humour will now be cast aside and I will get to the order of today's business.

The other neighbour, with the cookie request - {before the side bar, and interlude of neighbourly commentary}  told me her daughter just loves frogs.  I recalled this from our original conversation and like a kid in the candy store went to town and began drawing up templates for potential winners to use for this very occasion.   Remember back a little while ago to my Princesses and the Frog post?  Well, that's the frog! With a few minor tweaks for eyes and mouth.  He was a little smaller than I figured for this party favour though, so I enlarged my pattern {ugh! the P word, I need to get me some cutters that can do double duty...ah, Sugarbelle...share with me your inner knowledge on "How the heck you do it?"}

Moving forward, a sucker for punishment  {as may already know for past posts} I drew my picture on paper, then traced the outline onto a piece of parchment paper.  Then I outlined this onto a piece of chipboard and cut it out.  This is what I got...

What do you get when you take a double batch of cookie dough and a quite house?  PRODUCTIVITY!!!  Roll, Cut, transfer, bake, cool, repeat.  Twenty four cookies later I was done and ready to move onto icing these little froggies. {Note time to complete - 1 hour, 10 minutes. Including clean up. YEAH ME!}

I made my icing ahead of time, thinned it to piping and flood-filling consistency, added my colours and then let them sit to allow for any air bubbles to surface and vanish in an attempt to have flawless cookies.

Day 1: Bake & Pipe outlines

First I piped the eyeballs using a Number 2 tip.

Then I filled in the gaps with the face outline, again with a Number 2 tip.

Then I made the crown outlines with a number 2 as well.

I let the outlines set up for about 45 minutes.  Then I proceeded to fill in the eyeballs and crowns. 

Wait some more, about 30 minutes, flood fill the green.  I wanted my frog warts to be flush with the green and not raised up, so I piped them randomly onto the bridge of the "nose" so they would settle in.

Then I left them over night undisturbed to harden up.

Day 2: Adding the finishing details

Using a Number 2 tip I piped the arch for the frogs smile, and added the pupils to the eyes with black, and added the rosey pink cheeks for added cuteness. 

Then I added the Monogram with a number 1 in piping consistency in black so they would pop out.  Time to finish drying.  I wrapped them up on Sunday, tied them with coordinating ribbon and attached a cute little tag on them. I love plays on words, how could I resist this time?

Mission complete, party favours ready for pick up.

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Candy Corn Toss - Halloween Bootique Party Game

My kind of candy corn!  Soft and squishy and ZERO calories...Ethan and I whipped this guys up today with the intention of using them for one of the games to be played at his upcoming Halloween birthday party.

 ...Meet "Candy The Corny Kitty" Bean Bag Toss...
She turned out better than I imagined :)  I just have to make sure her eyeballs and mouth will be big enough for the candy corns to fit through when thrown. {The white parts will be cut out to make holes}