Emilie's Super Sweet Sixteen!!!

Nina and I knew we had to make a special cake for Emilie's 16th birthday so we got creative.

While Emilie thought we were ditching her, we were secretly plotting the best cake ever and I think we succeeded.

I present to you the Nutella Swirl Cake. It consists of Nutella marble cake with both vanilla and Nutella buttercream frostings!


To make, we used a box yellow cake and reserved about a cup of batter and mixed it with Nutella (enough to make it look like chocolate batter). We then poured it over the yellow batter in two round pans and swirled it through as with any other marble cake.

The Nutella buttercream recipe came from:

http://www.food.com/recipe/nutella-buttercream-frosting-313044

We also used a basic vanilla buttercream recipe using only butter, milk, vanilla and powdered sugar. Any other vanilla frosting could substitute.

After baking and cooling of the two cakes, we put the Nutella buttercream in the center and decorated the top using a star tip to make swirls. The result was the most delicious and sweet Nutella cake ever that also looked like a flower cake!

It was very sweet and delicious and Emilie was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully she forgave us. :)

Coming soon, Nutella cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Emilie!!!!!

Love,
Irma

Chocolate "Junkbox" bark!

When our (Emilie & Christina)'s mom makes brownies, sometimes she'll put a bunch of random things, like peanuts, m&ms, and marshmallows in them and call them "junkbox brownies." Today, Christina was making chocolate covered pretzels when Emilie suggested to just mix in a bunch of the pretzels and peanuts Christna had out and spread it into a bark. So, we did just that... and it came out really good tasting! Here's our original recipe:

12 oz of chocolate chips (use dark or semi-sweet)

Mini pretzels

Peanuts

1 tbsp milk

Melt the chocolate in a ban over a double boiler. Add the milk and mix until melted. Crumple about 2-3 handfuls of mini pretzels into the mixture. Add 1-2 handfuls of peanuts. Other nuts would probably taste good, too. If it seems like there's too much more chocolate than there it of anything else, then add more snacks to the chocolate mixture. Mix it all together and spread into a pan; refrigerate until cold and hardened. Break it up using your hands.

Add red & green sprinkles on the top to make it more festive (if you wish)!

Put it in a really pretty cellophane bag with a bow and give it as a Christmas present!!

These Cupcakes Are Worth $400

This past weekend, Emilie, Irma, and Christina held their 2nd-annual Thanksgiving Cupcake Bakeoff! It all started last year when Irma was asked by a priest at our church to help her make a dinner (our church does a Dinner Drive where members make Thanksgiving meals, and on Thanksgiving Day they're delivered to needy families). To defray the cost, she asked the sisters to help her make Classy Red Velvet Cupcakes to sell to our family and friends to raise money for it. It was a big success!! This year, even though she wasn't asked, we all thought it would be a good idea to do it again. We baked a lot of cupcakes (some were burnt, so we made even more) and in the end raised $400 to donate to the Food Pantry that runs it all. Everyone loved them and it was for a great cause!!