More Pinterest Fails for Fall

Hello, everybody!  The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got some very cool projects here! We'll take it step by step. Ready? GOOD!

 

Get some pumpkins.

 

Drill some holes. Light some candles.

See? Totally easy!!!

Honestly, I love Pinterest but it drives me slightly batty. (harhar, get it?) Everything looks SO easy. And then.... reality.

How about PUMKIN CAKES??

 

So, I saw these cute little things. How easy does this look? Instructions and everything included, and I already had the ramekins. You know I love those little ceramic dishes. TOO FUN.

 So, we started with a mix. Note small children stirring the goop. Wheeeeee!

This picture makes me laugh. This is probably a good pictorial rendition of their personalities.

 Place goop in greased, floured ramekin until half full. Put it in the oven for 18-20 minutes. They're like giant cupcakes. You can check at 15, but mine were still raw in the center.

 Mix orange frosting. This may be where I started to go wrong.

 And green frosting. This one turned out better.

 My friend gave me these. Aren't they hilarious?? Salt and pepper shakers... Pillsbury style.

 She also had this awesome Pyrex bowl. I saw it on her porch, filled with water for her dog. I tactfully suggested she take that gorgeous piece of vintage cookware and put it in the kitchen. Ok, maybe not so tactfully. I might have been sobbing in distress. Anyway, my friend decided I should be the new owner of the dog bowl... I mean, vintage Pyrex (Amish butter press pattern). She also makes home made biscotti. She filled the bowl with it (AFTER washing it, in case you think she was getting revenge) and handed the whole kit and caboodle to me. *thrill*

 So, back to the mini pumpkin cakes.

 Slice the round parts off so it sits nicely.

 Uhhhhhhhh. I poured the frosting on.... And dripped on a bit of green for the top.

 At this point my kids are howling with laughter. We couldn't even think of anything it COULD have been... It's all starting to remind me of last year when I tried to make a fancy cake and it turned into the Frankencake. In case you need a refresher of that disaster, it's here.
So, it obviously wasn't working and I had no idea how to salvage it. Then I remember Ruthy once saying that cake is only a vehicle for the frosting.

Hm. What if.... we made a backwards cupcake? An anti-cupcake? An inverted cupcake? A.... puddle of frosting with cake on it?

So, this is what we ended up with and it was a huge hit! I love kids. They're so thrilled with anything. No matter how really odd it is. As long as it's chocolate cake with a fun color of frosting, they don't really care how it gets to them. It was pretty messy and I was glad no one actually tried to drink the frosting out of the bottom of the plate, but all in all, it will go down in our family history as yet another EXCITING fall craft.

 Until next time!

Of Mice and Men and Cakes

Hello all! The Fresh Pioneer is back and even though we're in the thick of produce heaven. I thought I'd share my recent cake adventure. (Also, I'm hugely competitive and saw Mindy's post on chocolate cake. I just can't let her get away with that kind of thing. So, watch and learn. Nominate your favorite. Winner gets.... cake at midnight with no guilt.)

  Now, I saw this recipe in a cookbook at the library and jotted it down. (Those last three words are important. I have notoriously bad handwriting. And am lazy. And take lots of shortcuts telling myself I'll remember what language I was writing in later, "for sure"!)

 

  It was for a green grasshopper cake. Not the bug, the flavor. It looks sort of like this.

 

But with chocolate inside, so maybe sort of like this. But also a bit like this...

(pictures removed so we don't get sued for copyright!)

You get the gist. I had some ingredients and some VAGUE idea of the order and an even vaguer idea of what it was going to look like, except that is was going to be stunning. And everyone would ooh over it and think I should take up professional cake decorating. All my friends would want one for their birthdays, I just knew it!

The recipe called for heavy cream. That should have been my first hint of impending disaster. Heavy cream and lemon juice mixed together in a bowl?? Probably wrote something down wrong but I told myself it would be FINE.

(Side note: the worst thing my husband has ever called me is 'stubborn woman'. Not too bad, eh? But in his conservative culture, being a stubborn woman ranks right down there with psychopathic axe murderer. Now, I've been raised to embrace that stubborn streak. It's got me where I am today! Which is... making this cake.)

Now, I added and mixed and melted chocolate and turned around three times with my arms in the air. It came out of the oven looking like this. SUCCESS!! Of course I celebrated because I KNEW this would be beautiful.

And my first clue was this sad little layer. But hey, it's on the bottom. No one will notice.

Um, you know, a little of that pretty green frosting with peppprmint extract and we still have a chance. I KNOW IT WILL BE AMAZING! So, I mix the frosting with (I think it said this, pretty sure... sort of) more heavy cream, cup of real butter, powdered sugar.

Um. Um, um, um. I'm sweating now. Where is the pretty cake?? Don't panic. THINK. Kids are in the next room, excited to see the work of art. Husband is... I think he gave up and went outside somwhere around the time I couldn't read the instructions, about an hour and a half ago.

So, I have these leftover pieces of the cake when it fell apart. Maybe this? Maybe not. Looks like a gangrenous zombie bear gone bad.

Okay, zombies, scary... Hey, it's close to Hallowe'en! We usually straddle the line somewhere between All Saint's Day (dress as your favorite martyr, the bloodier the better) and avoid those crazy costumes that scare small children. We always have candy for the trick or treaters, carve pumpkins, celebrate the fun holiday, and go to church the next day. So, hey, I'm all over a Hallowe'en cake... in September.

Um, after some hair and eyes and blue pimples...

He needed a mouth! A scary red mouth...

Now, this is why everyone should be surrounded by young children at least once a day. Because whatever you do is AWESOME. He thinks this is wayyyyy better than that other green one with the chocolate shavings. This one has a MOUTH.
  Don't know what I'll do when they're teenagers and can't be distracted by candy eyeballs.
 My oldest daughter looked at it and said, "Hey this reminds me of that poem with the mouse. You know, the one who loses his nest?"

 Ohhhhh, right. Here's the famous part that Steinbeck made more famous.

"But little Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often awry,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!"

 
  If he were here, I'd offer Mr. Burns a bit of this cake. I think he might appreciate the tragedy of it all. He could have a slice with some hair AND some eyeballs. Because we disappointed types have to stick together.


So, go ahead and vote for the one you'd want to see on your table. (Sorry, Mindy, I already know what they're going to say. Who'd want to see that sky-high tower of chocolatey goodness when they could have a cake with HAIR??)