Gone are the days where I can secretly make birthday cakes for my kids. They know I'll be making a cake and Katrina now asks to help. So for her 5th birthday party, she asked to help make her Princess Celestia - My Little Pony cake. So once the cake was assembled and covered with white fondant, she helped cut out the flowers and put them on her cake.

She did a fantastic job and she was so proud when she told all her friends she helped Mommy make her cake.

Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba was the latest request for a birthday cake. Muno who? I had to Google this one. My kids haven't discovered Yo Gabba Gabba yet, but apparently it's quite popular. Muno is a tall, friendly and clumsy red cyclops. It's an American children's television show that has featured guests like Elijah Wood, The Killers, Jimmy Eat World, The Roots, MGMT, and many others.

Who knew! You learn something new every day!

It was a perfect wintery Sunday – we built a snowman outside, drank hot chocolate and enjoyed a lazy afternoon cuddled by the fire. It was also the perfect day to bake, so I wasn’t surprised when my four year old asked if we could make some cookies. I love baking with my kids, so of course I said yes, but my dilemma was making relatively healthy cookies. Like everyone else on the planet, we’re trying to detox from the overload of sinfully delicious goodies over the holidays.

So  I grabbed my iPad and looked on Pinterest to see what  yummy, but healthy cookie recipes I may have pinned during one of my pinning frenzies. I came across a recipe for Skinny Monkey Cookie at OnceaMonthMom.com.  No flour, sugar or eggs – sounds pretty healthy to me! Going through the list of ingredients with my daughter, we had everything we needed, and since the recipe called for bananas (I have a huge inventory of frozen bananas in my freezer) I was eager to give this recipe a try!

Ingredients:

• 3 bananas
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• Dash of cinnamon (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mash bananas in a large bowl, then stir in remaining ingredients. Let batter stand for approximately 20 minutes, then drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes.

And the verdict? My kids and I loved them. My daughter ate four cookies as soon as they cooled! Moist and chewy and the natural sweetness from the bananas and applesauce was enough to satisfy my sweet tooth!

When it comes to deciding what kind of birthday cake I should make for my kids, the decision always comes quickly. It's easy to see what they get excited about. For Ian, anything with wheels makes him point and squeal in delight. So a big, yellow dump truck seemed like the perfect cake to celebrate his 2nd birthday.

My daughter was so excited to help make her little brother's birthday cake. She helped make the rice crispie tires and it was her idea to fill the back of the truck with boulders (2 bite brownies) and worms.

The cake was chocolate and vanilla with a vanilla custard filling.

This cake was so much fun to make because of the variety of shapes and colours. During the decorating process, I kept my book handy to use as a reference. The cake itself tells the story of the caterpillar's journey. Starting at one end, you can follow the trail of delicious things the very hungry caterpillar eats his way through.

The cake itself was a layer of vanilla and a layer of chocolate with a vanilla cream filling and then covered in fondant. 

The smash cake was inspired by another another Eric Carle - Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?

Published in 1969, Eric Carle's children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar has delighted generations of children all around the world. It surprises me when someone admits they didn't read the story as a child or they haven't read it to their child. Not only is the story captivating for children and parents alike - a little green baby caterpillar hatches from an egg and is famished. Off he goes in search of food to satisfy his humongous appetite -
the illustrations throughout the book are beautiful.

I still have my original German version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar from my childhood. Tape is holding the spine together, but incredibly, the pages are intact and neither my brother or I doodled in the book. My kids have a English, board book version, which they both love. Little fingers are always pushed through the holes as the caterpillar gobbles his way through the book. I read that Carle was inspired to write the story after he used a hole punch to punch holes in a stack of papers!

So now I've begun work on a very special little boy's first birthday cake featuring his favourite book. Here's a sneak peek.  I'll post more pictures throughout the week to share the progress. The very hungry caterpillar made out of rice crispie treats and covered in fondant is going to crawl on top of the cake.

Who are you going to call when you need a cake for a client's video? Well, your in-house cake addict, that's who! When my colleague mentioned she was in need of a cake for a video shoot, of course I was going to volunteer.

To expedite the process, I used a fake base (Styrofoam tiers) covered with fondant. On camera, it looked great, but some of my other colleagues did voice their frustration that there was no cake to eat afterwards!

Happy Halloween. Since I was a little kid, I've been a huge Muppets fan. Actually, I'm a huge Jim Henson fan. So when it came to deciding what I should dress up for Halloween, my thoughts automatically turned to the Muppets.

After rummaging through the closet, I found an old chef jacket from my days working as a sous chef...grease stains and all. It didn't take long to find a few accessories in the playroom. My kids love playing kitchen so there was a big selection of food to choose from!

So to showcase my culinary love, I dressed as the Swedish Chef. What do you think? Not bad, eh?

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

What better way to celebrate than by making some ghoulishly delicious finger cookies. On the menu today, we have Zombie Finger Cookies and Severed Monster Digits, oh and don't forget the eyeballs!

Using Martha Stewart's Lady Fingers cookie recipe, I made two batches of dough, one which I tinted a very light green. Next step, shape your cookies. I know you can buy shaped finger cookie baking pans, but honestly, you don't need it. Simply roll out the dough, flatten the end where the nail will be attached (almond cut in half), pinch the dough to form the knuckles, and then use a knife to add detail to the knuckles.

Once baked and cooled, I used candy melts to attached the almond nails and add some gruesome details.

Happy Halloween!

I’ve been making homemade ice cream for a few years now, but I've never tried making caramel ice cream before. I had no idea what I was missing!

This was by far the most decadent ice cream I have ever made and to be honest, in creaminess and flavour it compared to Haagan Dazs’ dulce de leche ice cream.

I started by using Epicurious’ salted caramel ice cream recipe and modified it slightly. For a Saturday night treat, start making the ice cream on Friday night so it can sit in the refrigerator overnight. Then Saturday morning, churn the ice cream in an ice cream maker and freeze until dessert time!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar, divided
• 2 ¼  cups heavy cream, divided
• ½  teaspoon sea salt such as Maldon
• ½  teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3 large eggs yolks
  

Directions:

Heat 1 cup sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a fork to heat sugar evenly. Once it starts to melt – STOP stirring and swirl occasionally so sugar melts evenly, until it is a dark amber. I made the mistake of stirring and ended up with sugar rocks. Not a big deal since I easily strained the caramel to get rid of the sugar rocks.

Add 1 ¼ cups of cream slowly to caramel, but be careful because it will splutter and splatter until the cream heats up. Allow the caramel to dissolve in the cream and transfer to a bowl. Add the salt and vanilla and cool to room temperature.

Make your ice cream base by bringing milk, remaining cream and ¼ cup sugar to boil in small saucepan, stirring occasionally.

Whisk eggs in a bowl and add half of hot milk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Once the custard coats the back of the spoon, remove it from heat and slowly add caramel mixture. Once mixed, pour the ice cream into a bowl and refrigerate over night.

Saturday morning, I churn the ice cream in my Kitchen Aid ice cream maker. It takes about 20 minutes and this particular ice cream was softer than other recipes I’ve tried. Once it’s the consistency of soft serve, I pour it into a Tupperware container and put it in the freezer to set.  

Luckily this recipe only made a small batch. If there had been leftovers, I would have been tempted to eat it for breakfast the next morning! Dark chocolate morsels or toasted almonds or pecans would have been a nice addition to this recipe, which I will definitely add next time!