The Party (Warning: Food Porn!)

 

(Warning! Do not read this post if you are hungry or are forcing yourself to eat a salad! Even creating this post was challenging. My tummy wouldn’t stop growling and I kept having to stop so I could wipe the drool off my chin.)

It’s been a busy few days. Lots of stuff going on around here. Last night we received a couple inches of snow and had freezing temps about 15F degrees below zero.

Speaking of last night….. 

Jax and Jem invited their best bud over for a sleep-over party last night and they had a blast staying up late (is morning considered late or early?), eating junk food and playing video games.

For dinner they asked me to make my famous home-made pizzas, especially one with green chile.

I start off making the pizza dough, the 2 lb recipe in the breadmaker. I add some garlic powder and crushed dried basil and oregano at the beginning, too.

Then when it’s done, in about an hour, I split the dough in half and roll each dough ball into misshapen circles on my old Air-Bake baking/pizza pans.

Then I lightly butter each pie, sometimes I use olive oil, then sprinkle salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder and a little crushed dried basil leaves across the top.

I follow it up with some spaghetti sauce.

Then my daughter shows up to help by setting out the shredded mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and some fire roasted green chile from our freezer stash.

She and I sprinkle the cheese all over and then lay the pepperoni over the cheese.

 

One pizza pie will stay just pepperoni because Jen doesn’t like green chile and neither does Jax and Jem’s buddy. I know…how strange is that? *grin*

Then they go into the 375F degree oven for about 20 minutes and come out bubbling hot, and smelling mouth watering delicious!

It’s funny to me how when we make DiGiornio pizza or come home with a couple of restaurant pizzas, we always have a couple pieces left over, but we never have any of my home made pizza left over. Not even the crusts. It’s all devoured, every last crumb.

It’s all gone within minutes! I always make sure to grab my slices, because I can count on there never being any pizza left if I show up for seconds. It’s so scrumptious! Mmmm!

My twinlings also asked me to make them a home-made cake for their birthday dessert, too. We’ve been buying ice cream cakes for many years and it’s become quite a tradition for our family, so I felt honored that they wanted me to make something home-made for them instead.

I got the recipe from from Life on a Southern Farm.

Homemade Boston Cream Pie Cake

Cake:
2/3 cup butter or 1/3 cup butter or margarine(softened) and 1/3 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
2 3/4 cup self rising flour
1 1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.
Grease2 9 inch cake pans with shortening and then floured
Mix 2 eggs,2/3 cup butter or 1/3 cup butter and 1/3 cup shortening(that is what I used yesterday) 1 3/4 cups sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
Mix on low until blended then beat on high speed for 4-5 minutes until light and fluff
Next is 2 3/4 cups of self rising flour and 1 1/4 cups milk. Add about 1 cup of flour then 3/4 cup of milk and mix on low speed until blended good then add the rest of flour and milk and mix well. About a minute or so
Pour batter into the 2 pans and bake for about 35-40 minutes until golden brown or center is done.

While cake cooks make filling

Cream Filling
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch. (I use flour if I don't have cornstarch)
1/8 teaspoon salt(if using cornstarch)
1 1/2 cups milk`
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in medium saucepan. Combine milk and egg yolks. Gradually stir into sugar mixture. Cook over medium heat. Stirring constantly(or it will stick to bottom of pan) until mixture thickens and boil .
Boil and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Cool to room temp.

You can make two individual cakes with this recipe, but I decided to make one biggun’ instead! If you do like me, slice off the top of one cake to make it flat. The kids will eat the scraps. Or you can feed them to your chickens.(the scraps, not the kids). They will thank you.

Then spread the pudding/cream mixture on top of the bottom layer.

And place the other cake on top of the bottom layer and pudding layer. My kids said it looks sort of like a hamburger.

 

Now it’s time to make the frosting glaze.

Fudge Frosting
1/2 cup granulated sugar (reg. white sugar)
2 tablespoon cocoa
2 tbl butter or margarine
1/4 cup milk
1 tbl light corn syrup
1/2-3/4 cup powdered/confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix in saucepan: 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa, 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, 1/4 cup milk and 1 tablespoon light corn syrup. Bring to boil and let boil for 3 minutes.

Mmmm! Can you smell that yummy cocoa?

Cool enough to beat in 1/2 -3/4 cup powdered sugar.

Spread on cake while the frosting is still warm and liquid because it will get hard like fudge when cool. If it gets hard while still in pan, you can heat it back on the stove until thinner.

You can also use store bought yellow cake mix
1 package vanilla pudding mix for filling
Any store bought chocolate frosting mix.

 

I used boxed cake mix and boxed vanilla pudding, but I did make the frosting home-made…..and boy! Was it yummy!

When the boys woke up this morning…..

Good morning boys! Hmmm. I think there’s a boy in there?

I had planned to make them waffles, but the waffle maker decided to give up the ghost, so I had to move on to Plan B:

I made pancakes instead….with sprinkles baked right into the cakes! And I even swirled some of the home-made fudge frosting on top, left over from the Boston Cream Cake the night before. Everyone seemed to really enjoy them.

Ranchman John was kind enough to feed and water all the critters up at the barn while I made breakfast. Jax started wearing that elf hat during Christmas and he’s rarely ever taken it off since then. Their best buddy is a lot of fun and goofy, just like Jax and Jem.

Sometimes Plan B works out better than Plan A.

And soon after breakfast, they were back at the video games again. Have you heard of this game?My twinlings requested it for their birthdays. This game is just plain adorable, creative, imaginative and fun and up to 4 players can play together. It’s a PS3 game, a rare Rated for Everyone game lacking blood, gore, sex, language and violence, and is called Little Big Planet .

  

 

It was a fun party and today I’m resting up and catching up on household stuff and some blogging.