Emergency chocolate cake...

I got this recipe idea from my very thoughtful mother-in-law (Thanks Mary!), and after playing around for a while in the kitchen we came up with this very moist, nearly flour-less recipe.
This cake literally takes 5 min, start to finish. I even had just enough time to clean up while the cake cooked!

Emergency Chocolate Mug Cake

1 teaspoon flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons softened butter
Splash of vanilla extract

Add all ingredients to a large microwaveable coffee mug and mix well.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 2 minutes on high.


The cake may rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed it will sink back down as it cools.

Allow to cool for a couple minutes, and invert onto a plate if desired.


This cake is somewhat fun to share, but it is more fun to hog it all for yourself!
Enjoy!

Milo's birthday bash...

On Friday we celebrated another big birthday in our home! Just last month I posted about our daughter turning one, and this week we celebrated our son's 2nd birthday! (Yes, our children are just 11 months apart!)


We celebrated Milo's birthday with a simple, bright decorations, cupcakes and plenty of homemade vanilla ice cream.


We had an impossible time finding simple party hats that didn't have a character on them, so we ended up purchasing some themed hats and covering them with some cute polka dot paper that we ran off of our bubble jet printer. After they were wrapped in the new paper, we trimmed the edge with scissors and then finished it with a bit of leftover ribbon from Christmas...


For Lola's birthday we made homemade cupcakes from scratch, and they were good... but everyone actually enjoyed Milo's "cheater cupcakes" even more. To make them I prepared a box of chocolate cake mix to the package's instructions with the addition of 2 chocolate pudding cups, baked them off in cupcake cups and then topped them with Betty Crocker's Whipped Frosting in the Whipped Cream flavor. These were some seriously moist little treats...


My birthday boy enjoyed them after our simple birthday supper of Shepherd's Pie topped with cheddar garlic mashed potatoes, rustic Italian bread and Greek salad...

A cupcake party for my cupcake...

We celebrated our baby's 1st birthday yesterday with a cupcake themed party. Pretty darn appropriated, since Lola is a lot like a cupcake. Small, sweet and just girly enough!
When I first decided on the theme I came across this recipe for chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream in Amy's Notebook on the Mom Advice blog. The recipe can be found over on the Farm Chicks blog. They were moist and chocolaty and they were a cinch to whip up.

The birthday girl completely approved...



To decorate the table we found these sweet cupcake gift boxes over at Target and filled them with white gerbera daisies from the grocery store...



We lined three of the arrangements up on the table and instead of setting it the traditional way, we put our knives in one mason jar and our forks in another in the middle of the table and stacked our plates with the napkins interspersed at the end. The silverware placement was more out of necessity than design, since we do have two little silverware thieves in our house, but the overall effect was cute and tidy...



Last, but not least, we embellished our own bibs with cupcakes made from felt. We purchased a package of inexpensive plain bibs and I cut out the design and had my husband sew them on for me. Sorry ladies, he's taken! Aren't they just too sweet for words...

Homemade teething biscuits...

Our daughter is teething, so we decided to make our own teething biscuits from this recipe that we found in Wondertime Magazine:

1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 tbs apple sauce

Preheat oven to 300˚. Combine ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon. On a floured surface knead dough until smooth. Roll out to 1/3" thick. Cut out cookies using a large drinking glass and to make the ring shapes cut out the middles with a clean bottle cap. Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 30-35 min or until just barely golden. Let cool.

They felt soft at first, but they hardened up as they cooled. A lot. Like cement. Or wood. The kids had fun playing with them, but they ended up more like home made teething rings. Lola liked them a lot, but Milo loved them. In fact, he didn't even want to give his up for bath time, and since we were only having bath time for the play portion of it and were not going to be using soap we figured that there would be no harm with him taking it into the bath with him. So into the tub the cookie went, and even after a 15 minute soak, the darn thing didn't dissolve. In fact, it was still as hard as it was before, and now Milo was insisting on taking it to bed with him! We drew the line there for fear that his precious lovey would be replaced by a disgusting cookie that he would carry everywhere with him for the next 3 years because it would just not dissolve or crumble. I will, however, keep the dough recipe on hand for Christmas ornaments next year. Or better yet, when the kids are done gnawing on and playing with these we can paint them and add ribbons and not bother with making more.

Aren't they cute though?

And they made Milo happy...

Shhhh, it's a secret recipe...