The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

This weekend my baby girl turns 5 and in honor of the occasion I made her a super yummy cake.  She requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Hello Kitty on top.  Big surprise...so I found a super easy and delicious devil's food cake recipe on the Food Network's website, through together some melted chocolate with some cream and butter to make a fudge filling and crumbled up some Oreos to sprinkle between cake layers.   The complicated part came when I was making the marshmallow fondant for the top of the cake and for the Hello Kitty.  I found a recipe from Wilton for the fondant, which does taste loads better than traditional fondant.  Biggest hints here, use a stand mixer if you've got one and read the comments left on the recipe reviews.  That is a good tip for any recipe, but particularly for this one.  I ran into some issues getting the consistency right, and although it worked out, I think I pro...

Now that it is finally summer and the weather is beautiful here in Southwest Washington, that means it is time for camping and cookouts to begin.  The most important food item at these events of course, being s'mores.  Who needs the hot dogs, burgers and steaks...I'll take s'mores please!  : D For our family camping trip I decided to mix it up a bit and feature some new candy bars besides the Hershey's Milk Chocolate bars.  I hit the candy aisle at the grocery store and looked for every flat-ish candy bar available.  I ended up with a Hershey's Symphony bar, a Hershey's Cookies n' Cream bar, a Mr. Goodbar (my family's personal fav) and a Reese's Peanut Butter bar.  Time for the fun to begin!   We all had a blast trying the different bars and although they were all delicious, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law liked the Mr. Goodbar best, where as I LOVED the Reese's Peanut Butter bar.  I ate way too many after white water rafting...but I figure...