Don’t miss my post on Make & Takes today! Cate and I had a lot of fun stenciling our brownies with powdered sugar!
Category: Kids
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Wednesday, February 17
Post on Make & Takes: Stenciling Brownies
Posted by Jane Maynard at 11:39 am 3 Comments
Categories: Guest Blogger, Kids
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Friday, December 18
Birthday Cake Success!
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember my annual stresses over birthday cakes. Last year I begged you all for birthday cake tips, and then I chickened out and made a layer cake that was cute and tasty, but not very adventurous. Our little Anna likes Spiderman a lot. It’s pretty cute. I decided that I would make her a Spiderman cake this year. Thankfully his head is a simple oval, so this was a good cake for me to get my feet wet with.
Do you mind if I brag a bit? I love her cake! I’m so happy with how it came out. YEA!!!!!
I will say this. I didn’t cheat at all in the process.
- I used cake strips, of course.
- I froze the cakes before assembling and frosting.
- I made the frosting from scratch, so I could make a ton for not much money and have plenty to work with.
- I used wax paper to keep the cake platter clean.
- I applied a crumb coat of frosting first before doing a top layer of frosting.
- I used tons of food coloring to get the color of icing I wanted.
- I practiced decorating with frosting before attacking the cake itself. (This was big for me, I hate “wasting” time practicing!)
All of this meant it took longer to make, but it was well worth the effort. Thank you for indulging me and letting me show off the cake! Maybe next year I’ll try a more interesting shape. Or maybe I should just stick with things at are oval-shaped.
Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:17 pm 19 Comments
Categories: Kids, Kitchen Tips
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Wednesday, October 21
Guest Post on Make and Takes: The Joys of Meal Planning with Kids
Don’t miss my post today over on Make and Takes, The Joys of Meal Planning with Kids. Hope you enjoy it!
Posted by Jane Maynard at 7:30 am 3 Comments
Categories: Guest Blogger, Kids
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Friday, May 29
How to Make a Polka Dot Cake
Who doesn’t love a polka dot? And what better place to put a polka dot than on a cake?! Seriously, how cute is this?
My friend Natalee has been making these cute polka dot cakes lately and I asked her to please share her secret so that I might pass it on to you! She kindly obliged, so here’s the lowdown on how to polka your cake to the nines.
To give credit where credit is due…our good friened Melissa from ISLY turned Natalee on to this post from inchmark, which is where the original idea came from. Natalee has provided additional information below, including the recipe for the icing. Thanks to all of your beautiful minds for providing such a wonderful idea!
Icing for the Polka Dots:
- 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 2 egg whites, beatenDirections to mix icing: In a bowl, sift together confectioners’ sugar and cream of tartar. Using electric mixer, beat in 2 beaten egg whites for about 5 minutes or until mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.
Click here for the original tutorial. Here are Natalee’s most helpful notes on the process:
I ended up having to water the icing down a little bit, but I think you just have to play with it until it seems right. It needs to be thin enough that it will pipe into the circle shapes without any peaks, but thick enough that it won’t run outside of the parameters of the circle. Better to err on the side of too thick.
As far as the food coloring, I’ve found that if you really want GOOD colors, you have to get the cake decorator’s gel paste food coloring which you can find at either Michael’s or Diddams (and I’m sure any party/cake decor store) and online. All you have to use is a little glob on the end of a toothpick to get the same color you get from an entire bottle/tube of the stuff you buy in the store. Plus, I’ve found that if you add the whole bottle from the store, your icing tastes like chemicals.
After the icing is colored, you just need to put it in an icing bag with a large round tip (or if you don’t have one you can do what I did and cut a corner off of a ziploc). Then Rob (her hubby) made a template (click here to download) of different sizes of circles, printed it out on paper and put the template under some waxed paper. Then I piped right on to the wax paper in the shape/sizes of the circles. Once they are all piped on, you just let them harden at least 12 hours and then they will come right off and you can put them right on your frosted cake. I recommend going directly from waxed paper to cake as stacking them for storage causes colors to bleed if there is absolutely any humidity in the air/fridge.
It really is such a cute idea…and look how festive the cake looks on the birthday table! Happy Polka Dotting!
Posted by Jane Maynard at 8:56 am 5 Comments
Categories: Featured Recipes, Kids, Kitchen Tips, Recipes
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Wednesday, April 29
Cooking with Kids!
Here’s a snapshot of dinner preparation hour in the Maynard home: Mom trying to get food on the table as quickly as possible, Cate & Anna playing in their room. Rarely do I figure how to get Cate involved in the food prep process (Anna is still too young). I know Cate loves helping me cook, but I’m usually in a rush and not creative enough to get her involved.
Last night we had english muffin pizzas. She helped me “chop” (with a butter knife, which she THINKS is a sharp knife) mushrooms for the pizza and strawberries for the salad. She helped put toppings on the pizzas and adding ingredients to the salad. I could tell she was in HEAVEN, so happy to be at my side, cooking like her mom.
It’s pretty easy to get kids involved with baking since there is lots of dumping and stirring. But what about other types of cooking, especially at dinnertime? I would love to get Cate more involved with cooking, beyond cookies and english muffin pizzas.
So, a call to all the parents/aunts/uncles/grandparents/friends-to-little-ones out there: Please share your fantastic, safe, and fun “Cooking wth Kids” tips!
Posted by Jane Maynard at 9:09 am 13 Comments
Categories: Kids, Kitchen Tips
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Wednesday, December 17
Birthday Cakes….ARGH!
I grew up with a mom who made amazing birthday cakes. Snoopy, rainbows, lions, cars…you name it, she’s caked it. I remember my birthday cakes. I loved my birthday cakes. I want my kids to remember and love theirs.
There’s one slight problem. I stink at it. I had trouble just frosting this tiny little cake for Anna this week! Seriously. And the reason the bundt cake in the background looks cute is because it’s out of focus. It did NOT live up to the image in my brain. It DID taste good, though…anyway…Cake masters! I know you’re out there! Divulge your secrets! Please share your best cake decorating tips, recipes, anything. I need help!!!
(Oh, and Cate wants a “strawberry” cake for her party later this week…any ideas on that front are welcome, too!)
If you want a taste of the ideal that’s in my head…here’s the cake my mom made for Cate last year. Too cute! Yeah, my car cake would NOT have looked like that.
Posted by Jane Maynard at 10:59 pm 15 Comments
Categories: Call for Recipes, Kids, Kitchen Tips
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Friday, August 29
English Muffin Pizzas
Looking for a fast, super easy dinner? Maybe even one your kids can make? Look no further… (Wow, do I sound like a commercial or what?) English Muffin Pizzas are here to save the day!
Super easy for your kids to make.
Very customizable for each member of the family.
And they actually taste good! This meal was a staple in our early married years…which is perhaps why I steer clear. Um, yeah, I was still learning back then, so those early-days recipes aren’t always as great as I remember.
ANYWAY…Nate reminded me of them this past week and it seemed like something Cate might like. She had a lot of fun making her pizza, and they honestly, truly tasted good. I was even a little surprised how much I liked them.
There you go, easy, kid-friendly. And, if you have a toaster oven, you can bake OR toast them in there and don’t have to heat the oven in this hot summer weather. I just put a little foil over the toaster oven tray and I didn’t even have pans to wash. Awesome.
Posted by Jane Maynard at 5:01 pm 12 Comments
Categories: Featured Recipes, Kids, Recipes
Hello! My name is Jane Maynard and you've landed yourself on my blog, This Week for Dinner™. Every Sunday I share a weekly menu...and then count on you to share your own! You'll also find other deliciousness that I hope you'll enjoy!
