Blueberry Almond Crumb Cake

Are you ready for the EASIEST dessert you're ever going to make? This Blueberry Crumb Cake is it! Five (YES 5!) ingredients and less than one hour of your time are all you need to make this scrumptious dessert.

Carrot Cake Easter Bunny Cake

I know Easter is over, but today is Jelly Bean Day and since the only time we eat any sort of jelly beans in this house is on Easter, specifically for this cake, I figured I'd share it with you and you can make it next year!


Every year, for as long as I can remember, we have made a bunny cake for Easter. It was originally made with yellow/white cake, white frosting and coconut on top to make it look like a fluffy bunny. My kids LOVE to decorate one every year, but no one really ate it because we're not huge coconut fans in this house. So last year, I made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and this year I opted for a carrot cake with homemade cream cheese icing. Turns out, this was the best version for our family as carrot cake is just about everyone's favorite. I even make it easy on myself (since I'm usually preparing most of the other food too) and I buy the Duncan Hines Decadent Carrot Cake. I LOVE this brand as it has actual dried carrots and raisins that you reconstitute before adding it into the mix. The cake is extremely moist and you don't have to shred any carrots (besides, baking cakes/pies...not my thing!). 

Carrot Cake Easter Bunny Cake
1 Package Duncan Hines Decadent Carrot Cake


Prepare cake according to package directions and bake in two-8" round cake pans. Remove from oven and let cool. 


Cream Cheese Icing
1-8oz. Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 c. Butter, softened
1 tsp. Vanilla
3 c. Confectioners Sugar (a.k.a. powdered sugar or 10x sugar)
1 tbsp. Milk


Cream together the cream cheese and butter. Next, add the vanilla, sugar and milk and mix until well blended. 


Decorations
Jelly Beans
Black Licorice

Place one round cake on a flat board or serving platter. With the second round cake, cut out the 2 ears. The middle will become the bow tie. Ice the cake with the icing, then decorate using the jelly beans for the eyes and mouth and the licorice for the whiskers. 


Enjoy! 

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

If you read my post yesterday, you would know that it was hubby's birthday. Now in our house, you get to select whatever it is you want to eat for your birthday dinner and I'll make it, no matter what it is.  So hubby decided he wanted sauce and a Red Velvet Cake, which surprised me since he said it was his favorite but I can't recall ever seeing him eat it let alone ask for it in the 18+ years we've been together, but I'll go with it. He even gave me enough warning and started thinking about this a few months ago, which was perfect timing because right around that time, I saw a recipe for Red Velvet Cake from America's Test Kitchen pop up on one of the blogs I follow; which I can't seem to find out which one it was but they posted a link to ATK to get the actual recipe, so if someone reading this posted this recipe in the last month or so, let me know. :)

Anyway, so here I go baking. This is not my forte, especially cakes so I followed the recipe to the T and it came out perfect! Minus a little fight I had with the food coloring. Splatters of red all over my kitchen. Did I mention I have white cabinets, a white tile floor and sink and, though I hate them and will hopefully be redoing our kitchen next year, light grey countertops? Lucky for me, the Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen Cleaner cleaned up the entire mess. The only thing I did different with ATK recipe is use a different Cream Cheese Frosting (by Janni on All Recipes.com). I had found her recipe about a year ago and what I like about it is that it only has 4 ingredients and is FABULOUS on carrot cake so I figured it would be just as good on Red Velvet Cake too...and it was!

Enjoy!