Butterfly Ice Cream Cake Goodness

How to make an Ice Cream Cake

(special thanks to Laura Oler for teaching me this cake/ice cream method)

Ingredients:
1- "2 layer" cake mix- any normal sized box mix will do. We used Funfetti.
1- 2 qt container of ice cream- we used strawberry
1- large (16 oz) tub of cool whip. I used a little over half, so just an 8 oz one might not be enough.
Purple food coloring- and any candies you might use to decorate.
Butterfly cake pan, or shape of your choice. (Bought mine at michael's with 40% off coupon)
A cake leveler, or large serrated knife

Estimated cost for just the food- $7-$10.

1 day before the party, or super early in the morning if you're party is at night:
So here's what you do- prep the pan. Slather it with shortening, dust with flour, let no crack or molding be shiny.

Get out your mixer. Here's mine, named Natalie.

Make the cake mix as usual, pour into your pan, bake for time as outlined on the little booklet that comes with your pan. Or as usual for a round cake pan.



Let cool for 10 minutes in pan. Take a knife or cake leveler and trim the hump or uneven parts of the cake, so when it's flipped over, it's on a level surface. Put a plate over the back of the pan, flip it over, slide it onto the cooling rack.

Let cool for the next hour or so. Put your ice cream in the fridge to soften. Check it periodically to see how it's doing. When it's good and soft, do the next step.

(Side note, if you forget to put it in the fridge ahead of time, you can do like me and microwave it, but you'll end up with ice cream still slightly frozen in the middle, and soupy ice cream. You'll have to mix it together, it won't be pretty. Just think ahead a little.)



Then you wash out the pan, stick plastic wrap all over the inside.

Slice the cake in half, as shown above. Use a cake leveler (which makes it really easy) or a knife carefully. The tricky part is once it's cut, to put the pan over the cake, and flip it. Now there's two sides in the pan. I then put the rack back over it, stood it up vertical, and slowing seperated the pan and rack, pushing on each side so the top is in the pan and the bottom is on the rack. Good luck. A husband or friend might be helpful at this part.

Here comes the fun part


Slather the ice cream all over the cake. I used all 2 quarts. It gave a good inch or so layer of ice cream in the center. Flip the rack with the cake bottom onto the pan.

Cover with saran wrap and foil. Keep in the freezer for a minimum of 4 hours to freeze the ice cream, and I'm not sure the maximum. Place your cool whip in your fridge if it's not there already.

So that afternoon, or the next day or the day before the party or right before you serve...

Cover a baking sheet with foil if you're eating the cake another time. OR put small pieces of foil around the serving platter if you're serving right then.

Flip the cake onto the pan/platter. Peel off the plastic wrap. Cover it with cool whip, like the first picture here.



Take a small amount of cool whip (I used about 1 1/2 cups) and tint the color of your choice, put it in a plastic baggie, cut off the corner, and decorate as you'd like. Remember cool whip is thick, so I used a large opening and not a whole lot of detail, like rosettes or any of that fancy pants stuff.




If you're serving the cake in more than 10 minutes, stick plastic wrap and foil over the cake and freeze until serving. If you're eating immediately, pull out the foil and cut. Enjoy!

Variations:

• Use vanilla ice cream instead of cool whip (that's reportedly what baskin robbins does)
• The cake/ice cream combinations are endless- mint ice cream with chocolate cake, chocolate and strawberry, etc.
• Add crumbled up cookies or graham crackers under or over the ice cream layer.
• Cupcakes- Coldstone makes these cupcakes that are similar concept yet delicious.

Enjoy your cake! It's worth the effort!

Butterfly Birthday Party

Yesterday was Sophia's 5th Birthday Party.

We did a triple birthday party with two of our friends from our church, who's birthdays fell on the same week.

I made the invitation above on MS Publisher, using free digital scrapbooking elements I'd collected over the past few years. Then I saved as a .jpg, and sent it to CVS to get 4 by 6 prints. Love the glossy effect and the quality. Plus they were free with signup online.

the birthday girls with their wings on

As guests arrived, we passed out these wings to wear, they were one of the favors. Hooray for the dollar store Halloween costumes!

Last week we cut out 50 or so butterflies from scrapbooking paper, then the day of the party the kids stuck them all over the walls. It was a great job for the kids while we hung up decorations. And I realized just how much wall space I have as they decorated the foyer and living room and kitchen area....we could have easily had three times as many. For full effect, it would be fun to do the butterflies in a line across the walls in waves.



Here's a shot of the decorations of the kitchen and living room. I put up my girly banners from the baby shower last year, Happy Birthday banner and we made additional pom poms. (Half of them fell by the time the party was over, which added an element of surprise).


As the kids came in, we passed out wings and had them decorate paper bags with more scrapbook butterflies and tissue paper cut to look like grass. I got this idea from martha stewart, but her idea was a bit more polished (but then again, it was made by editors, not 5 year olds). They liked it.




Then the games begin.
First up: Freeze dance. We used the Nutcracker soundtrack.

Second: Caterpillar, Caterpillar, Butterfly. (duck duck goose basically).

Third: Was supposed to be elefun , with paper butterflies. But mine were too big and heavy. So I tried to have them fly off my hand from a huge house fan. Um. FAIL. The butterflies flew about 6 inches from my hand, resulting in a massive 5 year old pile of hands and bags. So I just threw them in the air. Worked great. All two minutes of it. If you try this, practice first.




Then we made a craft (of course, this is a crafty house, remember?)

The kids colored wooden butterflies or flowers, then they were hot glued to a clothespin, and a self adhesive magnet attached to the back. Voila! Paper clip for the fridge. Wide possibilities for this craft- attach glitter, or use markers, use whatever shape fits your party, whatever magnet's you've got. By the way, wooden shapes go on sale 5/$1 at Michael's every couple weeks.



Alisha did face painting, in case you noticed, and then the kids played outside while we got the cake ready.

Oh the cake! Another post on that coming shortly.


Pretzel butterflies were also served, modeled after pretzel butterfly cupcakes from Martha Stewart. Alisha did ganache for the bodies, some with marshmallow for our allergy kids. Big hit.



We sang Happy Birthday, blew out the candles (notice natalie helping), ate some cake, and played outside.

The girls took home their decorated bags, their magnet craft, a set of wings, and the scrapbook paper butterflies they caught during the butterfly game.

All in all, all our plans happened with only a few hiccups, the kids were extremely well behaved, a triple party is definitely less work overall, and we had a ton of fun.

Happy Birthday Sophia!

Reason #24 to come visit me in Indianapolis

Indianapolis Children's Museum!

Don't you wish your town was cool like mine?

There's a carousel and a huge train and a glass works exhibit...Star Wars and digging for dinosaurs and sand and water play and huge dump trucks...a hall of mirrors and a trip to Egypt. And ocean play and the list goes on.

I've gone twice, four hours each, still haven't seen it all.

It's that good.

I've got a pass for my family plus two.

COME ON DOWN!

Kettle Corn Challenge!

First, there was the facebook question:

Anybody know a good recipe for kettle corn?

Instead of recipes, I got suggestions on where to buy.

FAIL.

So, I looked it up on allrecipes.com

500 plus people liked this recipe for Kettle Corn

This recipe is all about making popcorn in a pot on your stove, and you add sugar with the oil, so the popcorn cooks in the syrup mixture.

Tried it. Took too long, sugar clumped but not around popcorn, and it burnt. Tried it twice.

FAIL.
I know it doesn't look that burnt here, but trust me.

So I looked up other methods. The next method was to make up popcorn in your normal method (for me, that includes an amazingly cute hello kitty popcorn maker, which don't worry, i got on sale for 10 dollars), and then make up a sugar/salty syrup over the stove, that you pour on top. You can find this method here, on kidglue. It's copied below.

SUCCESS!


Holly always shows up ravenous to my house so I have
to feed her treats so she doesn't devour my children...

Sarah Matheny's Kettle Corn recipe from Mama's recipe box on Kid glue:

Here’s my fool proof recipe:

8 cups airpopped popcorn

2 T. canola oil

2 T. water

1-2 t. salt (depending on how salty you like it)

2/3 c. sugar

Pop your corn and put it in a large bowl. Put the oil, water, sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Once the syrup comes to a boil, allow to simmer for three minutes. Remove syrup from heat and pour over popped corn, tossing in salt while stirring. Allow popcorn to cool and enjoy!

The humungous obligatory Halloween post

First it started with a trip to Watermen's pumpkin patch... which included over rambunctious goats and a spinning pumpkin and a t-rex that eats pumpkins...

Natalie was pretty excited about all the pumpkins all over. Then she wanted one that wasn't dirty...pretty much mission impossible.

The straw mountain was the best, as was gazing at ponies from afar..



Then there was pumpkin carving....Sophia and John did a very simple cat pumpkin with pipe cleaner accessories.

Natalie picked features from a sheet of different shapes, and we ended up with a classic.


Natalie loved it. A lot.


Then there was the candy. A lot of candy. That they wanted to swim in.

Trick or treating quotes-
"Look mom, Nem and Nems!" - Natalie
"Mom, I got milk jugs! Just like Daddy likes!" -Sophia
( um, that's milk DUDS sophia...)

As we walk down the street, Natalie was singing " Someday my prince will come..." in the highest voice possible.

My princesses, looking dreamy for their prince at the ward Halloween party.

Happy How-oh-ween!

J is for...

Jack be nimble


Jack be quick....jacki's students jump over the candlestick

Today was Letter J.

J is for...jewelry. Mixed beads on pipecleaners. I bought a cheap 3 buck bag of beads for Sophia when she was sick. It teaches fine motor skills (as in finger skills) and patterns, as well as being time consuming. We used to use floss, but pipe cleaners keep the beads in place, and even the tiniest beads fit.

J is for...jack o lantern jello. As in, orange jello cut with a pumpkin cookie cutter.

J is for....jumping over the candlestick. And jumping over cardboard letter J's.

J is for...jingle bells. Don't you love Christmas songs in the wrong month? I do.

And that's all folks. Have fun with the letter J!

Letter J!

Halloween Festival at the Park

This past week Natalie ran a high fever everyday, and it finally went away on Friday. Luckily I'd been able to get out of the house everyday to do various errands, but Natalie and Sophia were dying to go to the park. On Saturday a local park had a fall festival. As you'll see in the pictures, it was beautiful weather and the park is very picturesque.

First there were some mandatory head in the hole witch cut outs...



Then we went trick or treating "on the trail"- a walking trail through the woods. Every 100 feet or so there were tables of local businesses giving out candy and brochures/coupons. Amongst other things, we scored some pain relief gel from a chiropractor, coupons to chick fil A and apple bees. Sweet. I had yet to explore the trails in this park, and I was thankful for the oppurtunity to enjoy the fall leaves and get out in the woods. And my kids liked the candy.



on the trail...

Here's a pic of peaceful Natalie and Sophia doing a fake smile. More like elvis, but whatev.


And we picked out two pumpkins ($1 each! Sponsors of the event offset the costs). See how John is just carrying around that kettle corn bag like someone's going to steal it? Smart man, I totally ruined my dinner with half that bag.



Here's a picture of another walking trail around the lake. This is a popular place to take family pictures. Already on my calendar for next year...






And the best costume of the night goes to the two cupcakes with fluffy shirts and cherry hats. One had a foam banana across her shirt; the other girl had sprinkles. Totally copying that whenever my kids stop wanting to be princesses...I took a picture of their back because I felt awkward taking a picture when they could actually see me...


And here's my feeble attempt to get a picture of the girls with the fall leaves. They were ready for home, and not having it. Natalie hates looking at the camera and Sophia just doesn't care anymore. But leaves make great hats, don't you think?