German Pancakes with Vanilla Syrup & Buzz Lightyear

These two recipes came from a good friend of mine. They are both very easy and very good. The vanilla syrup is delicious. I keep it in the fridge and put it on my belgian waffles. It's such a treat.

German Pancakes
2 Tbsp butter
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Melt butter in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish. In a bowl mix eggs, milk, flour & salt. Pour into buttered baking dish. Bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes until lightly brown.

Vanilla Syrup
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a medium pan. Cook on low until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Don't boil. Beat until desired consistency. (I didn't have whipping cream when I made it, but I used whole milk. It tasted just fine, just a little runny). You can also use almond extract. I ran out of vanilla and used a little almond and it added a little kick to it.

My little boy turned 2 last week. He loves Buzz Lightyear and wanted to have a Buzz cake. This is what I came up with. I think it turned out great! I will never forget the look on his face when he saw it. I used a boxed cake mix and baked it in a glass bowl. I made homemade marshmallow fondant that I colored orange to cover my planet. This was my first experience using fondant and it went pretty good. I found a great website that walked me through it. If any of you are have any questions about what I did, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Here are a few ideas for St. Patrick's day. For breakfast, I will be making green pancakes and green milk. In the afternoon we will make green playdough and make shamrock cookies. For dinner we'll be having lots of green and for dessert, mint chocolate chip ice cream. I will be hiding green shamrocks throughout the house and whoever finds the most, will recieve a lucky charm. I'm sure many of you have good ideas too! Feel free to share them in your comments.

Pizza Pockets & a Choo-choo Train Birthday Cake

We had a birthday party for my 3 year old over the weekend. It was a lot of fun. A few months ago I had planned to throw him a Dinosaur party, because he was loving dinosaurs at the time. That soon changed, and I was stumped as to what kind of party to have. Then it came to me. He had never had his own train set. He loves trains, and immediately plays with the trains whenever we go play at his friends'. So we threw him a Choo-choo train birthday party. He was in heaven when he saw his cake, but that didn't even compare to when he opened his birthday present from us of his Thomas & Friends Train set. He was so excited, and was done opening presents after that. It even took some time to get him to come blow out the candles on his birthday cake. My husband finely said "fire", and he came running! He played with his train set the rest of the night, and took them to bed with him. Funny little guy! We served a bunch of finger foods at his party. My sister, (the one that I share this blog with) came to the party. It was fun to be in the same kitchen together. I really can't take the credit for these awesome pizza pockets, because she ended up making them for me while I was building the cake. They were yummy, and easy. They would make a perfect fried appetizer for football watching.

Pizza Pockets

1 pkg Egg Roll Wrappers (these are found in the produce dept., by the authentic foods.)
Spaghetti Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Pepperoni's
Oil for frying

Lay out your Egg Roll Square so it looks like a diamond and assemble filling in the order listed above right across the center horizontally. Use about 1 Tbsp sauce, 1 handful of cheese, and 2 pepperoni's for each roll. Then fold up the roll just like an envelope bringing the bottom corner to the center first, then the 2 sides folded in, and close the roll bringing the top corner down to close envelope off. Fry at 350 degrees in oil for a total of about 2-3 minutes browning each side. Remove and drain on paper towels. Serve with warm marinara sauce.

Yes, I left out the "d" on Birthday! No one even noticed. I didn't even notice until after the party was over. This Choo-choo train birthday cake was super simple, and so kid friendly. All the kids were drooling over all the yummy sweets. I got the idea from howdini.com. Go here to watch a how-to video for this cake: http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-7074034.html .

I did do mine a little different. I used 4 mini loaf pans for my cars instead of one large loaf pan cut in 4's. This made it a lot easier for frosting, because you don't have to deal with the crumbs mixing with the frosting. I frosted mine with the packaged frostings to make it easier. I colored them to make them even more kid-friendly. I used 2 cake mixes. Milk Chocolate cake mix for the engine cake made in a large loaf pan and one of the minis, then a Rainbow cake mix for the other 3 cars. I actually got 4 minis out of the Rainbow cake, but didn't have room on my track for it. You can pretty much use whatever candy you can imagine. I used colored licorice to outline the cars, and for the front of the engine. Gummy LifeSavers and Tootsie Rolls for the wheels. Reese's PB cups for the smoke stack. Crushed Oreos for the coal on the engine. The cargo was M&M's, Whoppers, Jelly Beans, & Tootsie Rolls. Fun, fun birthday cake for all your Choo-choo train lovers out there!