Home made Yellow Cake Mix

 Now cake mixes are cheap enough  but if you want to stack you cupboards with some yellow cake mix that does not come with preservatives here is a good recipe from Chickens in the Road
  

For each mix
place in a large bag or container
2 c flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 c dry milk powder- (this can be expensive so you may omit and substitute milk for the water when mixing)
Mix these and store until use. On the bag I  wrote the instructions...just in case I loose them, not that I loose things. pfft!

When mixing the cake
1 bag of mix
3/4 c water ( or milk if substituting)
1 tsp vanilla (see home made vanilla recipe here)
1/2 c room temp butter
3 eggs, room temp
Spray or line pans with parchment and bake according to pan size.

I used two mixes for the above cake, and had enough left over for 4 mini cakes. You can see a recipe for home made fondant HERE

Chocolate Mountain Cake

 Cake: This same cake recipe also used Here

Cake

1 c unsalted butter, softened

2 c sugar

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 c flour

3/4 c cocoa powder

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 c buttermilk

3/4 c sour cream

Preheat oven to 350, spray 2 - 9 inch pans and line bottom 

with parchment paper.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy, add eggs and vanilla. Mix well.

In another bowl, mix flour, b powder, b soda, salt and cocoa. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk and sour cream until smooth consistency.

Pour into pans and bake 35-40 min.

Cool in pan.

 When cool slice each layer in half so you will have a total of 4 layers

 For mountain rocks- I saw this in the arch 2012 issue of Food Network magazine, I have always loved working with chocolate but had never seen it placed on a sheet protector for drying!

 I used Wilton melts in orange, white chocolate chips and chocolate almond bark. I ALWAYS recommend almond bark if you have it, and only because I was out of it in white and needed very little did I mess with chocolate chips. If you can avoid using them for melt do so, they do not contain the necessary amount of cocoa butter for a good consistency to work with.
First melt the smaller amounts in a double boiler, then drizzle over sheet protectors, I made two sheets.

 Melt one entire block of chocolate almond bark and spread over the drizzles, allow to set up. Then break into chunks.  I also used the Wilton chocolate bowl mold to make some various size and color half circles.

 Make a chocolate fudge frosting

Icing

1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled

3/4 c unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 c cocoa powder

3-4 c powdered sugar, measured then sifted

1/2 c half and half or water

Blend chocolate, butter, vanilla, cocoa powder and half of powdered sugar. 

Add remaining powdered sugar and half and half whipping with mixer until desired consistency is reached.

Spread in between all layers and on top and sides, adhere broken chocolate to sides and place bowls on top, fill with assorted chocolate candies.

  

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Dessert Shooters

Quick and easy dessert shooters! Mix 3 oz softened cream cheese with 1/2 c cool whip, layer with caramel ice cream topping and crushed vanilla wafers. Option 2 layer pudding, cool whip and crushed oreos. How easy was that!

Tip: to place pudding etc in deep shot glasses, try putting filling in a pastry bag or in a ziplock bag and cut the tip off.


There are many more options for mini desserts that can be found Here and Here plus check out pinterest! And you can follow me on Pinterest HERE.