race track cake

To celebrate my son's 2nd birthday i made my first ever fancy cake: a race track cake.  It's a chocolate sheet cake recipe copied from the back of hershey's unsweetened cocoa box frosted with 7-minute white frosting which i colored green. I would have wanted a darker shade of green to mimic grass but instead came up with a lighter one which is still ok.  For the race track i outlined number '2' and flooded it with chocolate fudge frosting topped with crushed oreo chocolate chip cookies to resemble dirt. Then i used white jimmies candy sprinkles (i chose the long ones) to create the track. Sooo easy!

I topped the cake with new cars toys and surrounded the side with oreo cookies to cover the imperfection... they look like tires too, don't you think?  Then i added a California plate with his name on it (the letters i had to stick one by one which explains why they are not perfectly aligned). It was a party just for the three of us and he had fun licking on the oreo cookies, the chocolate frosting and "driving" his cars on the track. He loved it! Talk about eating your cake and playing with it too!

Now, our 2-year old is licensed to drive us crazy! ^_^

Happy Birthday baby!!!

heart-shaped egg in a toast

This morning i was in the mood for fun so i thought of fancying up ordinary eggs and toast.  The result: heart-shaped egg in a toast.  

 Here's how to do it:

1.  Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut a hole in the center of a slice of bread.
2.  Toast cut-out hearts and set aside. (i used bread toaster)
3.  Lightly butter a frying pan over medium heat and place bread slice. 
4.  Carefully crack an egg directly into the heart-shaped hole, sprinkle with salt and pepper. 
5.  Cook for a minute or two until your desired doneness is achieved.  Cover the skillet to allow the egg to cook a little quicker.
6.  Flip and cook the other side of bread (optional). When done, carefully remove and place on a plate.
7.  Serve together with the toasted hearts for dipping into yolk.

How cute is that?   My husband loved it and my little boy got excited he wanted me to make him a star-shaped egg next time.  Well, why not? 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

banana chocolate chip muffins

Another ugly sorry-looking bananas sitting at our kitchen counter this morning and waiting for me to decide on their fate. In the past their only destination would be the garbage bin but after i baked my first ever basic banana bread more than a year ago, i never looked at overriped bananas the same way again.

So what's a pretty girl to do? transform them into banana chocolate chip muffins! So simple, fun and easy to make. yum-my!

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIPS MUFFINS

Basic banana bread recipe is from Simply Recipes.  I just made it into muffins and added chocolate chips. :)

Ingredients
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup chocolate chips, divided

1.  Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2.  Using a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.
3.  Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla.
4.  Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.
5.  Add the flour, mix.
6.  Add 1/4 cup chocolate chips, mix. 
7.  Spoon mixture into a muffin tray (i use ice cream scoop) and sprinkle the top with the rest of the chocolate chips.
8. Bake for 25 minutes. 
9.  Remove tray from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes.
10. Remove muffins from tray and transfer to cooling rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

To make a loaf bread, pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour.  Cool on a rack then remove from pan.

For mini-loaf bread (3x5 inch), bake for 40-45 minutes.

If you don't like chocolate chips, just disregard it.  You can also substitute chocolate chips with nuts and dried fruits.