How to make a Classic dessert: Pineapple Upside-down Cake!

Now here’s a beautifully wonderful classic dessert that I haven’t tried for ages!!  Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever even tried making it before, but the last time I tried tasting it was ages ago for sure!  I saw a delicious photo of this cake made by Averie Sunshine over at Averie Cooks and I couldn’t stop staring at the photos, with mouth watering.  After that, I was just waiting for a special occasion…..

A very special occasion soon came to pass, the double birthday of my dear Father- and Sister-in-law!  So I tried out the cake…and well….it was…….everything I had hoped.

The recipe from Averie Cooks is super!  And quite easy.  Brown sugar and butter glaze, with sliced pineapple and maraschino cherries, covered in sour cream batter.  Bake, rest, flip, photograph, eat!  Here are a few how-to-assemble-the-cake photos that I took as I whipped together this baby: You can find the recipe here on Averie Cooks.  I added my photos so you can see how I layered the pineapple and cherries.  The only thing that I did differently from her recipe was to use a 10 inch round pan instead of a 9 inch one and to accidentally put the side pineapple pieces upside-down!  oh, and a few extra cherries!  It was so easy to flip it out of the pan after it had baked and rested awhile…123 flip!  I had to take a whole bunch of photos of the luscious beauty….

See the yummy sweet juiciness? 

Since I used a slightly larger pan, the batter wasn’t very deep, but that was fine.  The taste was……….so…………wonderful!!

Here’s my little glass hen, coming to check it out…

For some reason the flavor of this cake transported me to my childhood….(though my Mom says she didn’t make it very often)

The lovely cake was devoured quite quickly, though it was very very sweet.  Needs a cold glass of milk!  Even with all my photos of the cake, the ones on the blog with the recipe are even more amazing! 🙂Ahem, if you know me, you know that my in-laws live very far away….so they didn’t actually get to taste the cake….um, we gobbled it down while we thought of them.  It’s our way of celebrating….. 😉

 

Baby Boy Birthday Cake Topper

Have some more birthday cake!!  Here’s the paper cake topper that goes along with my last post for a Baby Boy Birthday card.  I saw these printables for a paper jungle train…usually they are used for favor boxes at a party…but I thought I could shrink them down and use them for a cake topper, just for something different for a One Year Birthday cake.

You can find the jungle animals and paper carts for downloading here at Paperglitter.  As I mentioned in my last post, I used 2 kits, the colorized version and the blank Color-Me version….I felt like mixing and matching!  First I printed out the color-me carts on kraft paper, shrinking them down to 45%.  The colorized animals I printed at 48% to get them just a tad larger.  

You can customize the text, so I wrote something different on each cart.  On one side of the first cart was HAPPY HAPPY, and on the other side of the same cart it said FELIZ FELIZ.  the next cart said BIRTHDAY and CUMPLEANOS.  So each cart had the English on one side and the Spanish on the other…so later on I could decide which side I wanted to have facing the front.  I don’t know why, but I put the English side facing out….here’s the back view, I should have done it the other way around!!  Oh well, everyone at the party spoke both languages! 🙂In planning it all out, it helped to jot down a plan (so I wouldn’t mess something up!), like which animal was going with with word on which cart!  After cutting out the carts, sticking the edges together with double sided tape,  I printed out the color-me  jungle leaves on light green cardstock and cut them out.  For the wheels, I decided to use my new button punch and a solid color cardstock instead of the printable wheels.  Here’s the button punch/embosser (from Martha Stewart) I love it!:After assembling the carts and cutting out the animals, I taped each animal onto a toothpick and then taped one inside of each cart.  Then before I glued the wheels on I taped a toothpick (the flat kind) to the back of each cart, right where a wheel would go, and stuck the wheel on over it.  (note: also a good idea to plan out which side of each cart the toothpick should go!) Back view:(I was in a rush, that’s why the tape is visible.  The best way would be to glue, or maybe even hot glue, everything on with time for them to dry, then you wouldn’t see any tape!)  Here’s the front of the cart:After the four carts are all assembled with wheels and animals, then make your cake!! haha.  Long pause…………I wanted 2 different sized layers, since I wasn’t sure if the whole jungle train would fit across the 6 inch layer cake. ( The cake ended up being yellow and light teal alternating layers inside).  I was trying reallly hard to match the icing color up with the cardstock wheel color!!

After the cake was iced,  I carefully stuck each little cart on.  Some of them could have probably used 2 toothpicks to help stabilize them, but I just tried to push the wheels of the end carts into the sides of the cake!Without too much rearranging, I was pleased with the “random” train across the cake.  Looks like they are going for a wild ride!When the carts were pushed into the cake, I joined them up with the little jungle leaves (with little slits cut into them).I photographed the cake at home, and then took it to the party….not realizing how windy is was outside!!  The little paper train shifted a bit, but we were able to get it to the party intact!!  (Just a few leaves needed to be stuck back on).

Oh yes, don’t forget to add the Birthday Boy’s name and age!!The birthday boy seemed happy with his jungle animal train cake!!  Happy First Birthday!!

Mermaid Party

Under the ocean blue, swam a mermaid or two, a school of fish, a sugar starfish, and an octopus cried boo hoo! (he was about to be mermaid food!)

For weeks my daughter and I had been planning her mermaid party (for her 6th birthday), and the day finally arrived!  Mermaid invitations had been sent out:

Everything for the party had been thought out, but we had to do all the decorating last minute! (nothing new there!) Our dining room was transformed into under the sea caverns.  Blue and purple origami fish swam by in schools (made by little mermaid’s big mer-sister!)Under the table was the Secret Sea Cavern, where the girls could hide, relax on some sand-colored pillows and blankets and watch some Backyardigans mermaid movies for a little while…This little mermaid was hanging around in her undersea world (hanging from some fishing line) She was the inspiration for this party!  See Mermaid Color Palettes.  Swimming by was her friend the Paper Jellyfish.Starfish crafts were popular and expanded the undersea population.  How-tos for crafts are here.Many of them drifted up into the “fishing net” suspended from the ceiling.Silver glinted off the walls of the undersea caverns.  (10 minute picture frame makeover: just covered up my wall-art with wrinkled tissue paper and ripped silver wrapping paper and secured with lots of green painters tape on the back!)A sandy sand castle complete with shells and starfish appeared on the bottom of the ocean, along with beach glass and that rock that floats: pumice…

Mermaidy mirrors were around (dollar store) so our little mermaids could check out their face-paint (face painting by mermaid Avery)!Surrounded by sea friends, our little mermaids were starting to feel hungry….but not exactly for seafood!See some more under the sea party food ideas here.  Guzzling down the “goldfish guts punch” (named by Carrie….hey get out of that punch!), the girls also munched on veggies and octopus dip, “clam sandwiches” and other goodies like oatmeal sand dollar cookies.This is the octopus that was about to get eaten!!After munching away for awhile, the little mermaids smacked around the piñata for a bit….just waiting their turn….to rip up the piñata!!And after that, time to gobble up the purple octo pops that they had made during “crafting” time.The party favor bags (piñata bags) were really organza wine-bottle covers from the 50 cent bin at Michaels, just perfect colors.  Add a mermaid fin (glue or sew) and some fishy tags for great party bags!A few more crafting ideas:  cute clothespin mermaids….(painted body or silver paper wrapped body, glitter glue and ribbon)…and a bottle filled with sand, paper “lucky stars” and shells and a small paper boat (this would be more fun for the boys…if any were brave enough to show up at a mermaid party!)Wrap the end with “pearl” bracelets from the dollar store (I sure got a lot of use out of those bracelets!!)The girls (and I) decorated some cake box favors, and I made some to match the cake,

Here are some variations of mermaid cake.  🙂Ahh, we’ve come to the end of another party!  And I know the photos make everything look less crazy than they really were, but that’s ok.  My little mermaid and I had fun (and work) celebrating her birthday.  I think she’s already coming up with ideas for next year’s party…..!