Pigs in the Mud Cake Recipe

It's Valentine's Day today and what better way to celebrate than with my daughter turning 2?  Ok she doesn't turn 2 for a few more days still but it's nice to have daddy at home on the weekend especially for a special celebration!

For my son's 2nd birthday, I made Smitten Kitchen's monkey cake (he is truly a little monkey - always on the move, always being silly, always jumping or climbing on top of things.  And he likes bananas.  I'm just saying...). 

For my daughter, I have had my eye on the Pigs in the Mud cake for a while now. And aptly, she is my little piggy. In the cutest and most loving way imaginable. She loves to eat. I always say "Where there's food, there's Eva!"  She doesn't mind making a mess when it comes to food. Or anything for that matter. And she hates cleaning up!  My son is the neat freak. At almost-four, he takes pride in making his bed in the mornings. 

Back to The Pig Cake. The simplest way to break it down is probably to outline the steps I took in order, then share the recipes I used. In my usual style, I collected info from several parts of the Internet to make sure I was on track. 

BASIC STEPS

Step 1: Make pink pigs with marzipan and pink food coloring 

Step 2: Bake 2 cakes (I used 9-inch cake pans) and let them cool

Step 3: Make the buttercream frosting to mold the cakes together and frost around the circumference of the tiered cakes to stick the Kit Kat bars

Step 4: Stick on the Kit Kat bars (I used precisely 45 sticks)

Step 5: Tie the ribbon around the bars to keep them in place (I found mine to stick just fine but the internet warned me of falling walls of Kit Kat so I took the precaution just in case. Plus who can resist cute pink gingham ribbon)?

Step 6: Make the chocolate ganache for the "mud" and let it cool for 5 minutes 

Step 7: Spoon the mud onto the cake. Be careful not to pour too much around the edges so to avoid seepage through the Kit Kat bars.

Step 8: Place the pigs on the cake

Step 9: Step back, admire your work and snap a few pics!

DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS

Step 1: Making Little Piggies

Ingredients:

- Store-bought marzipan

- Pink food coloring or if you're like me and only have food coloring in RYGB, use 8 drops of red, 1 drop of blue and 2 drops of yellow and use a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of this to mix into your marzipan

- cutting board or large surface to work on

- 2 toothpicks

Then I simply followed this 2-minute video before making the pigs, then placed the box in the refrigerator.

Step 2: Cakes

I chose to make banana cakes to avoid chocolate overload and used the same recipe I had used for my son's monkey cake from Smitten Kitchen.

Step 3: Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I slightly modified Deb's (master of Smitten Kitchen) recipe for frosting and used the following proportions:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (room temp)

2 cups confectioner's sugar

4 tbsp whole milk

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Method:

1) Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend. 

2) Sandwich the cakes together with the frosting and then spread more frosting along the circumference of the tiered cakes. 

Step 4: Walls of Kit Kat

Break the Kit Kat bars into twos and place each pair of bars along the walls of the tiered, frosted cakes.  
I read on several blogs that it was safer to place the bars at an angle to avoid a wall-collapse, but with the frosting in place, the bars stuck to the cake pretty well.

Step 5: Tying the Gingham

In my hours of pregnancy-induced insomnia, I looked up "how to tie the perfect bow" because I am awful at bows. I'm not saying the bow on my cake is perfect. In fact it's very imperfect, but I thought I'd share for those who are interested.

Step 6: Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients: 

1 cup heavy cream

12oz Semi sweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli chips) 

Method:

Once again, an easy and quick recipe to make the ganache.

Boil cream. Add to dish with chocolate milk pieces. Stir. Cool for 5 minutes. 

Step 7: Spooning the "Mud" onto the Cake
Pretty simple.  I used a tablespoon and was extra careful when spooning the ganache along the edges of the cake.  I didn't suffer any seepage and found the ganache to be a perfect consistency.  If yours is too runny, you may want to wait for it to cool a bit more.
I saved the remainder of my ganache to serve on the side in the event my choco-loving family wanted a wee bit of extra frosting.

Step 8: Placing the Piggies in the Mud
I did this with my hands, but felt I might have needed a pair of tweezer-like tongs for more accuracy!  It looked fine in the end.  The marzipan stuck pretty well, so I didn't end up with headless pigs.

TA-DA!  Here it is, and here they are!  What a fun little project! 

DIY: iCracked My iPhone 5S Screen... and iFixed it (by myself)!

And it took a LONG time.  3+ hours to be almost exact, but that was with a toddler and her curious older brother hovering around wondering why their mommy was bent intensely over the dining room table.

Overview:
Skill Level: Extreme beginner
Time: 3+ hours (with distractions)
Equipment: iCracked iPhone 5S Screen Replacement Kit, fine razor blade or equivalent (I used a box cutter as it was the only really sharp and thin object I had on hand), device with Internet connection to watch the tutorial as you go
Cost: $55-$65
Fine Motor Skill: High (the tiny screws on the iPhone are... TINY)

Let me start by saying that this project is NOT for the faint of heart.  There are many, many ways (it seems) that things can go wrong, but over everything, it requires an enormous amount of patience and time for a newbie.

I did not spend hours looking through video tutorials.  I did however read about the palatability of the project and the opinions were 50-50.  Some successes and some fails.  I was also determined not to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone, or even on professional repair.  So I took my chances.

My beloved phone screen cracked in the most unexpected way.  I've dropped in on several occasions, but my Speck case had always saved it.  So if you really want to know: as I was strapping my toddler into her car seat, I tossed my phone, keys and shopping receipt onto the front driver's seat so my hands were free of clutter.  Unfortunately, my driver-seat door was wide open, so the phone bounced off the seat and fell, face down, onto hard cement.  Unsuspecting me, after making sure my daughter was well secured, picked up my phone, and my mouth fell open...

I called local iPhone repair stores and the quotes I received ranged from $129-$199+.  I did not dare call Apple, partially because I read somewhere their price was in excess of $200.  I quickly surfed the web for DIY possibilities and came across iCracked iPhone screens.
I didn't want to waste too much time/effort in trying to find the cheapest DIY kit possible (although I did see some for cheap on eBay and Amazon), but I did try to look for the most reliable one.  With Black Friday specials, I ended up paying about $55 for the kit, with shipping!

It was a Friday when I heard the plop of the box through my mailbox at my front door.  I knew it was here.  My son was at school and my daughter was taking a nap.  I had 1 hour before it was time to leave to pick my son up!  Perfect afternoon project!  I ripped apart the box and took a pic of the contents:

The box had very simple instructions on what to do.  As instructed, I turned on iCracked's YouTube tutorial, which was 44+minutes long.  The perfect amount of time before I had to pick up my son! Or so I thought.

The first step was by far the most time consuming - removing the logic board (the screen) from the frame.  Basically you need a suction cup and a blade.  As I said above, I didn't have a blade, so ended up using a box cutter that I had handy.  I really didn't find the suction cup to be too helpful, probably because my phone was cracked near the home button, and the suction cup really needs to stick firmly on the glass.  I spent so much time trying to pry out the board that I looked to other youtube videos for help.  All the videos made use of the suction cup.  Bummer.  So I kept trying.  The trick is, after removing the screws, to really wedge your way (VERY carefully and not too deeply so not to damage any components) between the frame and the logic board and create some space to shimmy out the board.  Once out, be careful not to pull too hard because there are ribbons/cables attaching the board to the rest of the phone.  So the first 10 minutes of the tutorial took me 45 minutes!   Time to pick my little guy up from school.

Upon our return, I was already too deep into this project (and pretty excited that I had finally gotten the logic board out) to stop.  So with the 2 kids within sight, I turned on the TV for them (the only true 30-minute distraction) and got back to work.  Of course, the TV didn't do much for them as they were more curious in what I was doing.  But oh well... such is life!  At some point however, with all the tiny screws on my table, I broke out the snacks to keep their cute little talkative mouths and curious hands occupied.  Concentration is key, and there were several parts of the tutorial I had to repeat multiple times to get myself familiar with the orientation and layout of the innards of my phone.

One other time consuming part for me was putting the bracket to the ear-speaker back on (the 28min45sec mark on the tutorial).  Thank goodness my husband had come back home from work and took care of dinner for the kids!  There is a little hinge that needs to hook on to a bezel, and if not done correctly, could affect the vibration mechanism of the phone itself.  I had no idea what the bezel was supposed to look like and although I'm a big fan of the thoroughness of the tutorial, I think it could have done a better job showing exactly where and how the hinge needed to be fixed onto this bezel.  I clumsily tried a few times until something clicked, and at that point, I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

Putting everything back together didn't take long, although collectively, my time was spent preparing bacon-wrapped dates for a holiday party that night (my amazing husband had pitted the dates after feeding the kids -- seriously, I need to start buying PITTED dates), signing docs with a visiting loan officer to whom he was tending, welcoming the babysitter for the night, allaying the kids as they wanted only their parents to stay and play with them, and getting ready for the party!  Truthfully, with 2 last screws, hooking up the home button/biometric scanner and a test procedure remaining, I left the remainder of the project to later that night!  BUT before I put it aside, I HAD to turn it on after connecting the battery back in...

MOMENT OF TRUTH.  I hit the power button.  The white screen with the black Apple logo popped on.  And stayed on.  For a long time.  Just as I was telling my husband I had screwed something up, UP came my screensaver!  Initial success!!  Time to party!

We returned at 10:30 and I spent the last few moments finishing up my phone and prettying her up so she looked as good as new!  Would I do this again?  It will certainly take me less time than the first, but it depends on my mood and motivation I guess!   
Oh - one last thing.  iCracked actually provides a shipping label to mail the damaged screen back to them so they can correctly dispose of it!  Isn't that cool?

Indian Bone Inlay Dresser - for Cheap!

This blogging thing is not easy!  Consistency is key.  Being consistent and frequent. I start with all the right intentions. When I begin working on a project, I tell myself that I will post progress reports on my blog. But with a (new) part time job, my rascals (the older one of which has become an inconsistent napper) and of course, being a mom, the list just keeps growing. Throw frequency out the window, aim for some semblance of consistency, and when life happens, throw consistency out the window too. Like I said, this blogging thing is not easy!  Case in point: it's11pm and I'm typing this highly belated blog post on my iPhone. 

But I digress. 

Many months ago, I purchased a plain-jane dresser from Target for my Indian-themed guest room.

The point was to try and decorate around the plain dresser (rug, drapes, artifacts, bedding, etc) but very soon I felt like the dresser was far too plain for the bedroom. Several Pinterest and Houzz sessions later, I fell in love with bone inlay dressers. Problem there was that I wasn't willing to spend several thousands of dollars to get myself one of those babies. 

Enter Kim Myles' Indian Inlay Stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. $35 (plus shipping) later I had myself a DIY challenge. "Challenge" because not only am I a DIY newbie and finding the time to spare with young kids is difficult, but also because this would be my first time ever stenciling!  Bring. It. On. 

I prepared myself by reading Kim's tips and other reviews on the stencils. First and foremost, the reviews said not to be intimidated by the number of smaller stencils included in this pack. Opened pack. 5 small stencils. Ok.  My next thought was how in the world I would get all the lines straight. Once I started, that didn't turn out to be much of an issue at all. I simply eyeballed the distance between the top of the border of the last stencil pattern and the next. Easy enough. 

A challenge I faced while stenciling was that the paint ran under the stencil and smudged the design (in some cases, a lot). I had read stenciling advice on not using too much paint to avoid stencil bleed. And I didn't think I was (I was literally squeezing as much out of the brush as possible, but I guess not as much as I should have been). Squeeze the brush almost dry, people. And what I found worked best for me was to pat and dab the paint onto the stencil, and not smear or streak the paintbrush like in most children's artwork.  Kim suggests using a spray adhesive on the backs of the stencils but admittedly as I did not have the product on hand, my impulsiveness to start the project got the better of me.

I used a flat tipped paintbrush as shown in the picture above.  I know stenciling is generally more easily done with a roller sponge but with the intricate designs on each stencil, Kim's own advice was to go with a brush over anything else. Given my pat and dab approach, I tried using a small sponge but didn't really like how the end result turned out, so I went back over it with my paintbrush.

Lastly, after putting the finishing touches on my baby and letting the paint dry, I sprayed her down with two layers of Miniwax polycrylic protective finish topcoat. 

End result?

Isn't she lovely?  Truth be told, the imperfections of my first-time stenciling efforts are largely hidden at a greater distance, but I am so in love with this piece. The way it perfectly fits with the decor of the room, the instant conversation it starts, the price tag... Did I mention the price tag?  I couldn't be happier!

Looking back, the hardest challenge for me with 2 toddlers in the house, was finding the time to dedicate to this project. From start to finish, it took me 4 approximately 2 to 4-hour increments over 3 months. For someone who has stenciled before and knows the nuances behind the art, this project would likely take far less time.  Kim herself did an entire table top in one afternoon!

Go on, get yours and get crafty!

My Little Lady Turns ONE - Ladybug-Themed First Birthday Party

I’ve been in hiding.  Not just for anything though.  The little lady just turned ONE and I have been busy preparing for her big day!  On a side note, I also opened up my Etsy store!  

Since our little lovebug was born around Valentine’s Day, and since she looks SO CUTE in red, picking a theme wasn’t too difficult.  The ever-helpful Internet is spilling with ideas for ladybug-themed parties!  The difficulty was parsing through the creativity and finding things that worked for me.  Even though my girl was turning 1, only three others in the kiddie crowd were around her age.  The rest were mainly 3-5yr old boys.  My goal was to find something that worked to keep the older kids occupied.

As we had done for my son’s Easter-bunny-themed first birthday party, we worked with Jill at Peas and Thank Yous to create a ladybug-themed invitation.  It read “Our little lady is turning ONE!  Fly on over for small bites and sweet treats to celebrate Eva’s First Birthday Party”.  I can’t say enough good things about Jill’s invites.  All my friends were wowed with the cuteness, the craftsmanship and the quality.  It definitely set the bar high to have an equally good party!

The focal point of the party was really the Dessert Table.  With all of the sweet ideas that the Internet offered, I couldn’t resist, and took the risk that my parent-friends would be okay managing the ensuing sugar highs!

• Birthday Cake: I spent hours looking for the perfect birthday cake and I finally found what I wanted!
• Dirt Shooters: alternating layers of crushed oroes and delicious vanilla marscapone cream
• Polka Pillows: Marshmallow beds decorated with chocolate icing.  As an afterthought, I might have preferred to name them “Marshy Beds”
• Cookies: the cookies I wanted looked something like this.  However, we had a little bit of a cookie disaster with the red and black icing running into each other, so we ended up serving just plain delicious flower-shaped sugar cookies, which were some of the yummiest I have ever had!  
• Bugberry Cakes: decadent mini chocolate cake bites topped with raspberries for wings
• Bug-llipops: the cutest ladybug cake pops from SoSweetPops on Etsy
• Bug Bites and some Creeper Vines: M&Ms and twizzlers
• Strawberry-flavored Squishers from Trader Joe’s
• And then finally... 
• A ladybug smash cake baked by yours truly!  Although I love baking, by no means do I even come close to a novice pastry chef, but with Wilton ready-to-use fondant, I had everyone fooled.  Just roll, cover, cut and tuck!  No mess, no fuss.  My dear husband even got involved in the fun, rolled out the black Wilton fondant, and cut circles for dots.  I didn’t have white fondant or icing, so we had a punch-drunk love bug with bloodshot eyes!  

The first three desserts after the piece-de-resistence (aka the main birthday cake) were made by my local friend Capucine, who doesn’t have a website yet, but whose desserts taste simply amazing.  Just the right balance of sweetness, without being too sweet, great textures, etc.  For anyone who wants to DIY the desserts, they are actually pretty simple, save for perhaps the cookie decorations, but everything can be modified to suit your needs.  

Here’s a pic of the dessert table in all of its glory:

Then, since the party was at lunch time, we needed to have enough lunch to satisfy the troops but also needed them to save room for desserts and cake.  Small Bites were the way to go!  This was a simple and efficient menu for kids and adults, which also included some vegetarian options.

• Smoked salmon on sliced baguettes topped with a cherry tomato for the ladybug, an olive for her head and sliced green onions for her antennae.  She sat on a bed of greens
• Mac and Cheese
• Mini Sliders (some with cheese and some without) with French Fries
• Veg Quesadillas
• Greek Salad

With all that sugar, I probably should have rented a trampoline, but these kid-related crafts and activities served their purpose and kept little hands busy:

Build-a-Bug Table

In addition to a label on the table, I made a 7-step instruction guide for kids to follow on how to craft a ladybug.  It was cute to watch my almost 3-year old follow them to a T!  

I cut out ovals from red cardstock paper and 2 sizes of black circles (a larger one for the body and a smaller one for the head) and placed them on the table.  I did this while watching the Winter Olympics - the distraction definitely helped!  I also cut out close to 100 little circle dots out of black felt (I used felt just to add some texture).  Other supplies included a few tubes of non-toxic glue, googly eyes, and black pipe cleaners for the antennae.  What a hit!  I might have gotten tubes of red and black glitter for the girls, but my crowd of crafters was made up of mostly little boys.  

Help the Ladybug Find Her Spots:

When all the kids were running around with giddiness (candy, balloons, birthday cake) this was a great game to calm them down to reset, and also give the parents a break.  This game would work really well for a group of 5+ year olds.  My bunch centered around 3-4 year olds who were equally excited, but didn’t have the patience to stick all 5 dots on the ladybug wearing a blindfold.  They were eager to see where they had stuck their first dot, and the others were impatient in waiting for their turn.  In any case, it was fun to gather the little group together.

I cut a large circle from red felt and cut out a pizza wedge from it.  Then I cut out a smaller black circle for the body and an even smaller black circle for the head.  I stuck on some pipe cleaners for the antennae and of course the googly eyes, and voila, a ladybug!  A friend volunteered to make the blindfold out of some leftover red felt and red ribbon for the tie.  She also added a few ladybug stickers that were lying around on the crafts tables.  So cute!

Coloring Table:

This was by far the easiest table to create.  I had my 3-year old help me pick ladybug-related coloring pages on the Internet, copied them into Word, enlarged each of them so they were one-page large and printed around 25 coloring pages in total (I made duplicates of all of them to avoid any sharing battles).  I scattered 24 crayons on the table and all that kept the kids happy.

Finally, no theme party is ever complete without important little details.

We had two kinds of party favors: one for little kids and one for older kids or parents without kids to thank them for coming.

• Ladybug crayon rolls for the little kids with a message saying “Thanks for making my day ONE-derful!  Love, Eva”
• Little glass jars filled with cherry M&Ms and red Hershey kisses saying “Bugs and Kisses!  Love, Eva”

Another nice touch was that the restaurant actually drew this in honor of the lucky birthday girl!  

For the Drinks Table, we brought our own drinks: red pomegranate limeade (aka "Bug Juice"), water bottles (aka "Dew Drops") and the regular slew of sodas.  We also had little polka dot straws to go with the theme.  I designed and printed my own water bottle labels at home.  I got the idea from when Peas and ThankYous used to design water bottle labels too.

I fell in love with this ladybug bib the minute I saw it.  I had to have it for the little lady’s smash cake.  She's wearing it in the first picture on this blog post.  These bibs are very well made, oh-so-cute and washer-dryer safe!  However, they are more for “decoration” and photos than actual utility.  I put the BabyBjorn Soft Bib on my voracious eater during lunch time.  The catch-all feature on the BabyBjorns always does its job.

Lastly, I designed and created birthday-related decorations and printed them out.   For the toppers for the Dirt Shooters, I printed circles stuck onto scalloped circles and attached them to a lollipop stick.  I followed a similar concept for the "Happy 1st Birthday Banner", where after sticking the larger printed circles on scalloped circles, I hole punched either end of the circle and ran a red ribbon through each of the letters.  I also added tulle bows in between each circle.  And finally, the toppers for the Polka Pillows were tiny little ladybug and "1" flags attached to toothpicks.

And there you have it, folks!  Our little lady is officially one!  She had a one-derful day and I had a ton of fun planning this party.  I hope you’re able to get some ideas and inspiration from this post .  If you have any questions, let me know, and feel free to leave a comment! 

Happy planning!

The Inspiration That Makes This Gal’s World Turn

This blog is my happy place in cyberspace largely inspired by two little rascals (aka my kids) that create the beautiful chaos in my life! Life is never dull! If I’m not chasing after my two rascals, being mommy-the-chauffeur, cleaning up crumbs, picking up toys, sifting through sky-high piles of laundry (how little beings this size have so much laundry is beyond me), I am always trying to find solultions to make life more simple, beautiful, and efficient. 

During a decade of 60-hour work weeks sitting behind a desk, I never really had made the time to share the things I wanted to share or explore the things I wanted to explore more - from mommy tips and tricks that have worked for me to the things big or small, that tickled my passion. So this lucky lady chose to leave the corporate world and focus instead on becoming a full time stay at home mommy. I truly do feel very lucky, thankful, and blessed to be able to focus on the parts of my life that inspire me the most: my sweet babies, my amazing partner in life, and my passions. 

So I hope that you will join me in my journey as I unfold perhaps even a tiny corner of my interests at a time, and hope even more that you will find a little inspiration along the way! Speaking of inspiration, this quote has been a favorite of mine for a long time.  I find new motivation from it each time, and I really think it applies to most, if not all things in life: 

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain*. 

And last but not least, thank you for visiting my blog! I’m new to the world of blogging, so I welcome any feedback. Drop me a line at sweetjollyrascals@gmail.com or leave a comment on the blog. 

*The origin of this quote is largely disputed.  It is said that MT did not actually publish this quote, but in most instances, it has been attributed to him.