Slacker Cake

Good Lord, I'm a slacker lately! The last time I waited a month between posts was when Jude was born. I have at least half a dozen baby food recipes sitting in a pile to be blogged, but haven't gotten around to it, yet. I have a pile of shop updates to do, but I haven't gotten around to that either. I think I've just been having too much fun with my kiddo and the shop to blog lately, and I'm not going to feel bad about it. If you want a shop update, you can pop over and visit:) If you want some new recipes, I swear I will get to them! Or email me, and I'll send you some:) If you want to bake a little monster cake, here you go! You'll need this ridiculous Big Top silicone cupcake mold for the shaped cake. Or get crafty and see what else you can come up with!

Jude's Monster Mash Birthday Cake


Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 cup water
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. white vinegar
For decorating:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
8 oz. cream cheese at room temperature
1 cup shredded carrots
White and dark chocolate melts

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients. Fold in wet ingredients until well combined. Pour into a well greased pair of cake pans or a 9x13 inch glass baking dish if you are not using the Big Top cupcake mold for the monster shaped cake). Bake 30 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. If you are making a monster, you'll want to bake it longer and keep checking every ten minutes or so, the top took at least 40 minutes and the bottom almost an hour! Allow to cool for ten minutes before inverting out of the pan to cool completly on a wire rack.

To create your monster:
Draw your monster arms, horns, mouth and eye onto a sheet of paper. Top with a sheet of wax paper. Melt candy melts according to the package instructions and pour into a squeeze bottle. Draw your monster parts according to the pattern you made and let them harden for at least an hour. Don't stick them in the fridge or they get all dewy! 
Beat powdered sugar into cream cheese. You may need to trim the top and bottom of your cupcake halves to make them flat. A serrated bread knife does this nicely. Smear a bit of frosting onto the top of the cupcake base and top with the em, top, duh. Frost with most of your icing, leaving a few tablespoons for just in case. Press the monster parts into your cake and secure with extra icing if needed. Press carrots into the icing to create fur. And done.

Good luck getting your kiddo to eat it. Mine just pulled off the carrots to snack on, so I ended up eating it all! How did I have a child with no sweet tooth!

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