Today was our first day of school....and I decided to start a little tradition.
Cake for breakfast!
Oh, I know I've served cake for breakfast before, with our Breakfast Cake or Blueberry Breakfast Cake -
but this now, real chocolate cake with buttercream frosting...I've never gone that far.
I baked the cake from scratch from start to finish yesterday afternoon while the entire family was watching Olympics on the telly....and much to my surprise, not a single person realized that I was doing it.
We have a very open floor plan, with the kitchen, dining area, and living room all in one big space. I was watching stuff with them while working.
How did they not smell it, at the very least?
I have no idea.
The funny thing was,
after the kids went to bed last night and I started to make the frosting to decorate it, Grant asks, "Where did that cake come from?"
Anyways, I was really happy about their lack of observation, because it made the surprise this morning that much better.
I started out with a 13x9" chocolate cake (Hershey's Deep Dark Chocolate Cake),
which was obviously cooled. Wish I had had time to freeze it so it wouldn't be quite so crumby for frosting, but oh, well.
Then I made a batch of Buttercream -
2 sticks of room temp. butter
1/4 cup shortening
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2-3 T. cream or milk
I had a little less frosting than I would have preferred, very nearly ran out when I was piping, in fact, so I would recommend using at least 1-1/2 times that much, if you want to have larger borders.
I just used some storebought piping gel for the letters, paper "holes" and apple.
(oh, and in case you don't know, CMAEM is the first initials of all the kids.)
The cake was a HUGE hit and so much fun.....and made the start of school definitely a celebration, which is always a good thing.
I love this idea! You have got to be the coolest mom ever :) And, you chose a good cake -- Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Cake is the only chocolate cake I've ever enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteThat is a fun tradition to start with your kids!!! Cake for breakfast is going to be something they talk about for a long time:-) Cute idea to make it look like a notebook paper!!!
ReplyDeleteMy oldest is now 21 and on her first day of kindergarten I started the tradition to make a special cake for their afterschool snack and I would make sure I was home on that first day to have a slice with them. I generally work later than that but it was a special day. Being creative for 16 cakes has been a challenge but they have all been different. Lunch tray, locker, school house, books, bus, graduation cap cupcakes, iPod...and the list goes on. It is a wonderful tradition, once the older ones left for college they were really disappointed not to get their cake with the younger ones :)
ReplyDeleteThat is AMAZING!!! How wonderful to create those special memories for your children. :) Thanks for sharing.
Delete