Rainbow Cake: Happy 6th Birthday Sammy!!

Today Sammy turned six years old. She wanted me to make her a rainbow cake. So I googled "rainbow cake" and I found many different ways to do it. I showed Sammy all of the pictures and this is the method she liked best. Thank goodness because it's certainly a lot easier than layering cakes and all that jazz. Here are some photos from my process. I just used white cake mix and A LOT of food coloring. Haha.

I used two boxes of White Cake mix. Then separated them into six bowls, food-colored them (yeah, that's a term!), and just dumped them into the 9X13 pan at random spots. Here's what it looked like. A work of art, I think!

This is what it looked like after baking in the oven. I sliced off the top so the top would be even and flat for decorating. Isn't that a pretty cake inside?! So cool!

Then I used TONS of frosting and A LOT of food coloring to decorate her cake. I used three jars of white confetti funfetti frosting and food coloring to make pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple frosting. I put them in ziplock bags to pipe them on. I've never really decorated a cake before. Haha. But I did my best!

Then Sammy came and drew on two hearts and helped me frost the sides of the cake. And violá... a rainbow cake fit for a six year old! Beautiful!

Happy Birthday Sammy!!

I can't believe you are six years old!

Please leave any questions or comments below. Happy birthdays and rainbow-caking! Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

SUGAR COOKIES

We decorated cookies with the kids yesterday. What fun! :)

Before I show you all the pictures (taken on my phone by the way,) I'll show you the recipe. I found it on Mel's Kitchen Cafe. Great website with a ton of recipes! You should go check it out. I just changed a couple things. I didn't add almond extract (Sammy's allergic) and I didn't add lemon zest (we didn't have any lemons.) So if you want to see the original recipe click here. Here is the recipe that I used.

Sugar Cookies

All You Need Is (LOVE):

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened to cool room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 5 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

What to Do:

1. Preheat oven to 400˚F
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars for 3-4 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Add vanilla extract and mix. Add two cups of flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix. Add remaining flour and mix until flour is incorporated and the dough is soft and smooth.
3. Dust a counter with powdered sugar or flour and roll the dough to desired thickness. 1/4 inch works well. Cut the dough into shapes. Place the cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 7-8 minutes. The cookies will not be brown. Don't over bake them.
4. Cool completely before frosting.

Before I Go:

I didn't cut them into shapes. I just spooned them onto the cookie sheets. I made little cookies with half the dough and one giant cookie with the rest of the dough. The giant cookie took approximately 15 minutes. I kept checking the oven to make sure that it fully cooked and didn't over bake. And it turned out perfectly. The kids laughed at seeing such a big cookie. These cookies are excellent for frosting. They are so soft that they melt in your mouth. They aren't that sweet, so they aren't "stand alone" sugar cookies to me. But they are perfect with frosting on top. We used Confetti Funfetti frosting because Sammy's not allergic to it. It has no milk. I split it up and added food coloring as shown below. Blue, green, and yellow. We had five types of sprinkles. The confetti sprinkles that came with the frosting, along with a set of four different sprinkles (Carnival sprinkles, star mix, sequins, and dinosaurs) I bought at Sur La Table (LOVE that store!) They had so much fun decorating their own cookies. Sammy quickly ate hers. Kai kept adding more sprinkles. Kona just liked decorating it. He didn't actually eat his, haha. Silly boy. Here are some pictures from our adventures in cookie decorating. Sammy (age 5), Kai (age 4), Kona (age 2).

Supplies are ready:

Ready to decorate sugar cookies

Five types of sprinkles

Blue, green and yellow frosting

Let's decorate!

Finished products :)

Sammy

Kai

Kona

Wait... Take a few bites, add more sprinkles...

A little more... Yes! Hooray! SPRINKLES!!!

I made a GIANT cookie!

And a little "mini-me" cookie.

Yum.

Please leave any questions or comments below. Happy cookie-ing! Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥

S'MORES COOKIE BARS

Camping. That was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. Spending time with your family. Sleeping in tents. Seeing all of the stars at night. Swimming in the ocean. Sitting next to a cozy campfire. But of course, the thing that I most looked forward to when going camping were the... S'MORES! Graham crackers, chocolate and roasted marshmallows, yes please! Oh how I love to reminisce. Now on to the recipe! I found this recipe for S'mores Cookie Bars on one of my favorite blogs. Definitely go and check out Lovin' From The Oven. She's great and has tons of delicious recipes.


S'mores Cookie Bars

All You Need Is (LOVE):

• 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 King-sized Hershey's Bars
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff/creme

What to Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in the egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combines.
3. Divide the dough in half and press one half of the dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place the two chocolate bars side by side over the dough. Spread the marshmallow fluff on top of the chocolate. Place the rest of the dough on top by flattening it into little pieces and laying it over so that the marshmallow layer is completely covered. Then press the dough together so the top layer of cookie is nicely meshed together.
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Before I Go:

These are so delicious so be careful not to eat them all at once. Share some with the kids! These taste best when warm. If they don't completely disappear and actually make it into the refrigerator, just heat it up in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds to warm them up before eating. Still so tasty. Please leave any questions or comments below. I'd love to know if you try these and how they tasted to you. Thank you for stopping by!

Have a great day!

♥ K i K O ♥