Olive Garden Lemon Cream Cake!

If you haven't had the Lemon Cream Cake at olive garden then you are missing out, that, along with their signature Pumpkin Pie in the Fall are two of my favorite things! I have copy cats for both. This one is a winner and SOOOOOO easy!

What you NEED:

One 2 layer white cake (I just use a Betty Crocker Box, you'll want it light and fluffy)
8 oz cream cheese
2 C powdered sugar
4 tsp lemon juice 1 C. heavy whipping cream
½ C flour
½ C powdered sugar
¼ C cold butter
½ tsp vanilla

Frosting:
Mix cream cheese and powdered sugar till smooth, mix in lemon juice. Whip cream until stiff peaks form. Combine with cream cheese mixture, stir until blended. Frost middle, top and sides of cake

Crumb Topping:
Combine flour and powdered sugar, add butter and dribble in the vanilla. Cut in butter with Pie cutter or 2 knives. Do not press together. Should be crumbly no bigger than a pea. Sprinkle over the top and press into sides. Chill for 3 hours.

Now, I like a THICK middle layer of frosting just like the olive garden so my trick is to spread it an inch thick, place the top layer of the cake on top, wrap it in WAX paper and stick it in the freezer for 30 min - 1 hour, THEN finish frosting the rest (olive garden doesn't frost the top but I like too) and sprinkle crumb topping over.
The cake I pictured here is actually just a 6 inch cake.

V-day card

So after making the footballs, I graduated on to the Cupcake Pops, I found these on Bakerella and thought they were so cute. C "helped" the whole time and it was fun to do together. HERE are the step by step instructions. I only had the large Wilton cookie cutter and they still turned out cute.

Mini Me Apron

I saw this Free Apron pattern over at Living with Punks and just had to make it! And throw in a couple of my daughter modeling it!

Superbowl

So usually we like to have big superbowl gathering with friends, but after moving this year we have done a lot less of that, so we are keeping it low key, like 4 people.... But this is still me, and I have to do a couple cute things. On the menu:

Large hogi sandwhiches with the works

Buffalo wing dip (instead of our usaul Hot fried wings)

MIX: 8 oz cream cheese (softened), 1/2 cup Blue cheese dressing, 1/2 cup Hot sause, 1/2 cup shredded mozarella, ADD: 1 lb shredded chicken, BAKE 350 for 20 min. Top with crumbled blue cheese.

The BEST Cheeseball (recipe below)These 4 ingredients(Cube of Marg, can chopped olives,1 Kraft Roka Blue spread, 8 oz cream cheese), room temp, mix together, refridgerate, roll in a ball, roll into nuts (Pecans or Walnuts). Serve with Wheat Thins (at least thats our way)

Chips and soda

Cheesecake squares ( recipe found HERE)

Football shaped cakeballs or oreo truffels, you pick.

Candy assortment

What did you eat?

Football Cakeballs

So I guess Its about time that I caught up with this cake ball thingy. I can honestly say, I've never tasted one let alone Make one! But I want to do it with my daughter for her valentines so I guess I better practice ahead! FOOTBALLS

Groundhog cupcake brownies

This is a great one to do with kids! I piped everything on and she placed it!

What you'll need
Cupcake or Brownie mix
Frosting
Coconut
Mounds, Almond Joy's, or Bounty Bar
food coloring
Mini M&M's
Brown Sprinkles

Cupcakes:
I just used a box of Brownie mix since my husband doesn't like cake. I also put chopped almonds and coconut in the bottom of each liner than poured the mix on top.
I just used a tub of cream cheese frosting to save time, died it green and added coconut to it.
Then sprinkled more 'green' coconut on the top for grass.

Goundhogs:
I stiffen my tub of frosting with more powdered sugar so its not too runny and will harden up.
I use the frosting as glue and pipe it on.
Eyes are frosting with a tiny brown sprinkle in the center
Nose is a red M&M cut in half
Cheeks, brown M&Ms
Ears, brown M&Ms cut in half.
Tooth, frosting

Groundhog Pancakes!

This groundhog pancakes are really simple and so cute!

What you need:
Pancake batter
Donut holes
butterscotch or peanut butter chips
Marshmallows
mini m&m's
Frosting, any kind
For the head, use frosting as glue.
One mini marshmallow cut in half and squished with brown m&m's, for eyes
Chips for ears,
Red m&m for nose!
Make large pancakes and two smaller pancakes to "lift the mound" (under the large pancake)
You can dye you pancakes green like grass too.
Cut a whole in the middle of your large pancake and stick you groundhog head in!