Sunday, April 21, 2013

Happy Spring!

Our Wisteria had lovely blooms on it for about 2 weeks.
Happy Spring!  I realize there are some parts of the country that have recently gotten snow, so they might not be feeling too Spring-y......but here in So Cal we've gone head first into summer weather!  It's been in the mid-80's the last few days.....it's beautiful, I gotta say.......

I've been so busy with the monkeys this year (between school, birthdays, activities, holidays), that I realized I completely forgot to blog about Easter.  The first Easter we got to host for our family!  Easter in our family involves all of the cousins (9 kiddos in all) and it's a sugar-fueled day of fun.

Adding into the fun, was the fact that the day after Easter was the hubby's birthday, and the day after that was my nephew James' 7th birthday.  So, on top of doing an Easter dessert, I needed to do something that could also double as a birthday cake.  I had seen a couple of people do Peeps cakes on Pinterest, so I took that idea and ran with it.

I made a white cake (any recipe, or white box cake mix will do), and tinted the 3 layers to match the colors of the Peeps that I found (pink, yellow, and purple).  For frosting I used my go-to Dulce de Leche buttercream frosting from Bakers Royale.

Once the cake was frosted I added my Peeps to the sides of the cake and topped the whole thing off with a bag of Easter colored M&Ms.  Completely over the top and loaded with sugar, but so much fun.  And check out the adorable Happy Birthday candles I found at Target......perfect for having the two guys blowing out the candles!

But it's the inside of the cake that surprises everyone.......

It's colored to match the Peeps on the outside!

I also decided to make an edible centerpiece for the dining room table.....check out my little lambs!


These are straight off the cover of Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pies, Oh, My!  They were a cute and fun little addition to the table (their bodies are pound cake, the head is a Milano cookie), but kind of time consuming considering all of the other things I was making for the day.  If you'd like to give these bad boys a try, here are the instructions.

Well, that's it for now..........off to go make some dessert for a dinner party we're going to tonight (adults only....yeah!).  Enjoy!

All of the cousins on Easter!
My little monkeys
The birthday boys!