Sushi Cake

This cake was both fun and a little irratating at times to make. It turned out great.... but it did take a bit of time to make it.

You'll need
Box of your favorite cake (and ingredients stated on box)
pans for cake
Orange Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
Green Jolly Ranchers
One red fruit roll up
Icing color paste- Juniper color(I don't recommend food coloring but can be used)
Water
A Bag of mini marshmallows
Bag of coconut flakes
White Icing (any flavor)
Mini Chocolate chips

This cake is pretty self explainitory if you look at the final cake picture. Make your cake according to your cake directions on your box of cake. I suggest making a three layer cake. I had to buy two boxes of cake to do this. I made 4 9inch cakes and just threw out the last layer. I also ended up using two things of icing on my cake because i put icing on every layer.

LET YOUR CAKE COOL.

This is very important since you will be putting layers of icing in between the cake. If you don't wait. The icing will melt and your cake will become an epic fail.

Take your first thing of icing and mix in about a handful of mini chocolate chips. You may need to transfer the icing and chocolate chips to a bowl for mixing. Layer the first two layers with the chocolate chip icing. Leave the sides with no icing (yet). Your top layer will have no icing as well. You don't want your sushi cake to look like its growing mold. hehe.

When your layers have chocolate chip icing its time to put the icing on the top of your cake and the sides. Your cake should look completely white.

Take the jolly ranchers and break them in half with a knife. These represent your cucumbers.

Take the jolly ranchers and jelly beans and place them the same way as shown in the picture. This will be your cucumber and roe.


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(Fondant- but not really)
Now its time to make your fondant. This will be for the shape of the "fish" and the "nori" around the outside. This really isn't fondant. It's made to look like fondant but not taste terrible.

You need:
2 cup marshmallows
4+ cups of confectioner sugar
8 teaspoons water
color paste

This part is really messy. Make a lot of room on a counter. First you will take the marshmallows and water and color and mix it around in a bowl (try to cover all marshmallows). Put it in a microwave safe bowl and microwave it for 10 seconds at a time until everything is melted.

Let cool for a few minutes

Mix in a half cup at a time of the confectioner sugar. You will know when you are done when the mess is almost like playdoh.

Let cool to room temp

You can use more confectioner sugar on your table to roll out the "fondant". Make sure you have confectioner sugar on your hands, roller, table, and anything else that is touching the fondant. If you find its still too sticky just add more sugar.

You will need green and pink fondant for this recipe. I suggest the full recipe for the green fondant and only 1/4 for the pink.
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Now that you have green and pink/red fondant you are going to wrap the green fondant around the whole cake.

The pink stuff is actually a piece of fondant shaped and a fruit roll up wrapped around it.

At this point the only thing left is the "rice". Just sprinking the coconut on the top of the cake avoiding the center where your fish, cucumber, and roe are.

Baseball Cupcakes

You will need:



1 box of cake mix (and ingredients listed on box-usually eggs, water, and oil)
Twizzlers Pull n Peel
White icing (any flavor)
Red icing (optional)
Paper cups for cupcakes
1/3 measuring cup (dry)
Liquid measuring cup
Toothpick

Preheat oven according to cake mix directions. For this recipe I made Funfetti. You can use whatever your favorite is though.

A little hint when making cupcakes... use a measuring cup (dry) to put cake mixture into. You'll always get cupcakes that are the same size and you won't drip cake batter all over the place.



You may want to use a spoon just to get all the cake mix out. You'll notice I didn't use paper wrappers... But I suggest you use them. I with I had. I had a tough time getting the cupcakes out.



Put your cupcakes in the oven for the time stated on the back of the box. DO NOT OPEN THE OVER DOOR UNTIL THEY ARE DONE. Opening the over will cool down the oven and will probably result in your cupcakes flopping over. When the time is almost up (like 2 minuts before) check the cupcakes with a toothpick. Make sure it comes out clean.

When they are done cool down the cupcakes.

When they are cool. Ice the cupcakes with your white icing.



This will make the base of your baseball. You have two options now. You can pull apart the pull n peel and make laces.



(You could also make the laces with your red icing)

You can also add your teams logo. I used the red icing I had to put on a Phillies "P".

I added the laces to the rest of the cupcakes and by that time... it was time for the game to start.. so I ended up just sticking with the baseballs with laces and no logo. But you should know it's totally a cute option if you have extra time. Here's how they turned out.

Recipe: Super Double Decker Nachos

This is the recipe for my super double decker nachos. I'm a Jersey girl and love the Phillies. Everytime they are in a post game I make something. Nachos happen to be a popular request among my friends. This is one of those recipes that you can adjust easily and things aren't really measured. I'm including pics for most steps instead of including exact measurements.

You will need:




Green Onions/Scallions (chopped)
1 red or yellow onion (chopped)
1 tub of Curley's Pulled Pork or Lloyd's Shredded Pork
McCormicks Barbeque Seasoning
Tostitos Restaurant Style Chips (1 bag)
Tostitos Queso Cheese
Penn Maid Sour Cream
Kraft Shredded Mexican Style Taco Cheese
1 Jalepeno
1 Tomato (Jersey is preferable)
Glass cooking pan/cassarole pan

Optional ingredients: (not shown)
Black olives
Refried Beans

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat up your pulled or shredded pork in the microwave.

For the nachos, I use a glass pan/cooking vessel for this because the presentation of the food is much nicer when it come out to guests. If you needed to you could use a regular pan.

Take your Tostitos chips and spread a layer on the bottom of your pan like this:



Take your pulled pork out of the microwave. Use a fork to put 1-2inch globs of pork on your nachos. Do the same with the tostitos cheese. (If you love refried beans you can put some cooked refried beans on your nachos now. Treat it the same way as the pork and cheese globbing it equally. I did not include refried beans here but I wanted to let you know it is an option.) Your bottom layer should now look like this:



Now take your chopped tomato and scallion/green onion and sprinkle it on the nachos. Remember the best nacho is a nacho that has most of the stuff on top of it. It should now look like this:



Now take your chopped onion and sprinkle it around the nachos just like the tomatos and scallions.

Take your BBQ seasoning and sprinkle it all over the nachos. Put just enough to flavor each chip.

Take the shredded cheese and sprinkle it all over the nachos. It may look like a lot now but once it melts down its perfect. It should look like this:



You are now finished the first layer. Repeat the steps above starting with adding the chips. Your last step is to add jalepeno. Just add them to the top of the entire nacho try. (You can also optionally add black olives in the same manner at this point but I did not do this in the following picture)Your nachos should now look like this:



Now its time to put these in the oven. Please note I do not include a time on this because this is something you will have to watch. Put the nachos in the center of the oven, close the door, turn on your over light, and watch. In less than a few minutes your cheese will get all melty. When the shredded cheese has melted down it's time to take it out of the oven.

Your final step is to add sour cream by globbing on the top of the nachos. You can add some additional cold/fresh chopped tomatoes at this point just for color on the top of the sour cream. It should look like this:



Make sure you have enough plates for everyone. I normally make one tray of this.. but recently my guest have been "coming hungry" to my house and I now usually have to make an additonal one. Just last night I made three trays for 12 people. They all went by the end of the 9th inning. I should mention..if you are going to make three trays you are going to need an additional bag of the chips.

I hope you like my first recipe I posted and I hope everyone has time to leave comments. Thanks for reading.

Hello

Hi everyone, I really wanted to start a blog about all the really awesome things I cook. Some of the things I cook are things I make up myself while others are recipes I find that are just so delicious I have to share. I hope to start posting recipes as soon as possible. I also hope I can review and share my thoughts on other recipes I find. Thanks for viewing my blog. I love comments so make sure you comment!!!