Fruit and Cheese Sticks

This is such an easy appetizer for your kids to make for their own party. 

Fruit and Cheese Sticks

Ingredients:
cheese, cubed 
grapes 
toothpicks

Place a piece of cheese and a grape on a toothpick.

Kids Favorites Recipe Exchange

Our recipe exchange theme was "kids favorites" this month.

I made Casserole of Beef and Rice. Our kids love it as do most kids I've had try it. My husband says it tastes like stuffed green pepper. I already posted the recipe in an earlier post.

My kids wanted to know why I didn't take lattyja. It's their absolute favorite.

Fun In The Sun Cake Contest

This year's Cake Contest theme for the annual Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet was "Fun in the Sun". On the upper left, is the sand Dad concocted for the "Building a Sandcastle" cake. We used the mold from the Hogwart's Castle bundt cake and recipe posted earlier. The sand is made of: plain sugar, brown sugar, raw cane sugar, graham crackers and oreos blended together. The sand looked so real that one parent couldn't bring herself to actually eat it because it seemed too real and others didn't dare eat it because it felt real to the touch. The other themed cake we made was "The Cub Scout Team". We used the Krazy Cake recipe posted earlier and used buttercream frosting. We used M&Ms for the "C". We found the idea on www.familyfun.com and altered it slightly. The baseball has some of the sand on it to make it look played with.

Whew! That's over and tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Good thing the kids already made their Valentine's for FHE activity.

Bundt Cake, Sokeri Kakku (Sugar Cake)

It's fun when your kids start doing the baking and cooking. Here they successfully made a favorite cake of ours, one my Mother frequently made as a gift to give to a friend or neighbor for their birthday. In Finland they call it Sokeri Kakku or Sugar Cake.

I also have made hundreds of these. The kids did a great job decorating it, don't you think? Recipe below:Bundt Cake, Sokkeri Kakku (Sugar Cake)
1/2 lb. soft butter
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
Crumble together.
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Stir together.
3 beaten eggs
1 can evaporated milk
2 tsp. almond or lemon extract
Beat well. Grease and flour pan well. Bake 350 degrees for about an hour.
Variations:
Marbled -- Save out 1 cup of the batter and add cocoa to it. Stir it in as marbling.
Spiced -- Add 5 tsp. cinnamon, 3 tsp. cloves and NO extract.
Fruit -- Add gum drops, raisins, nuts, etc.
Decorations:
Powdered sugar with fruit as pictured above.
Powdered sugar only
Powdered sugar glaze, especially with lemon extract in both cake and glaze.
Try a cinnamon glaze with the spice cake.
Great without any glaze or decoration.