Something Fun

Whenever I am at the grocery store and am waiting to be checked out....those god-for-saken BAKE OFF BOOKS!!!!

"HI, My name is JennyMac and I am a cookbookaholic."

Bloggers say in unison: HI Jenny!!!

I have one large bookcase in the dining room full of cookbooks. Another tall and narrow one here in the basement and another bookcase of cookbooks that I took to school to have and use. I think I have some in a box up in the attic that I was trying to sell this summer at my yard sale.

I LOVE READING COOKBOOKS....it gives me ideas for meals and more importantly....provides me FUN STUFF to do for school. I love my job....the freedom to demonstrate something fun is really NEAT-O. And it makes my really popular amongst the students....hehhehee. Making a cake that looks like a ghost with eyes afire....hearing them all go 'oooooohhhhh' is pretty fun.

Once I got roped into judging a father and son cake baking contest for a boy scout troop. There we saw this cake they made that looked like a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. Immediately I studied it for replication in school.

Here is the Spaghetti and Meatballs Cake Recipe....

Cake Mix
2 cans white frosting
1 box of devils food doughnut holes
1 bag of frozen raspberries or strawberries (mashed)

1. Prepare one cake mix (from scratch tastes better but if a pinch use a box mix) Grease one large metal bowl or glass bowl. Pour prepared cake mix into bowl and bake. This will be tricky since you are using a different size than specified on the box/recipe you usually use...so start with 35 min and test with a toothpick. If still not done, keep testing every five minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

2. Make homemade white frosting (if you are too lazy use the stuff from the can). Turn cooled cake upside down in big wide pretty bowl. Frost the cake. Don't worry about being neat you won't see this frosting.

3. Take second can of white frosting and place in a heavy duty ziploc bag. Cut a small hole in the corner of it. But if you have a potato ricer, put the frosting in and press it through onto the top of the cake moving it in a circular motion to make it look like spaghetti.
4. Next pour the berry puree of your choice....

5. How real does THAT look? Now, place doughnut hole meatballs around on top and sides just before serving.

6. Isn't this adorable? You have some choices for the 'meatballs'. Some doughnuts come yellow cake yet 'chocolate covered' and some are chocolate cake with a glaze (like pictured above). These 'meatballs' will soak up some of the berry juices but the chocolate covered ones will be almost like 'waxy' and not seem to want to be a part of the chocolate/berry goodness.

So perhaps now that I will be spending more time reading the foodie blogs for recipe ideas rather than spending $ on those books. So maybe I will go back and look in those books and see what drew me to buy it and share it on here. I certainly don't use those books for cooking like I used to....number of pages of recipes is too much compared to reading recipes on here.

Tonight's Menu: Mom's Beef and Beer (from allrecipes.com)
Mashed Potatoes

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Mommy, you on the computer AGAIN? Doesn't my cute face warrant some treats?