Mission Impossible

Cheater's Way Orange Cupcakes

You are not going to believe how I made these orange cupcakes. It is truly the cheater's way.

Cake Ingredients:

1 box of Duncan Hines yellow cake (I used the butter recipe)
1 can of orange soda
Splash of orange extract (optional)

That is it! Now just mix all ingredients above at
medium high for 4 minutes.
Divide evenly among 24 lined cupcakes. Follow
directions on box for baking time and oven temperature.

Icing Ingredients:
3 cups of powder sugar --- 1 stick of butter softened (1/2 cup) --- 3 TBS of orange juice--- 1 TBS of milk

On a mixer, blend sugar and butter, slow at
first, then increase speed to medium. Add orange juice, 1 TBS at time. Then the milk. Mix until fluffy.

Frost cupcakes when completely cool.

Dinner Mission Impossible

It is a wonder that took me this long to finally create a blog. After all I spend nearly half of my day in front of a computer. Maybe that is the very reason it took me so long.... sometimes I just need a break from the digital world.I am a mom, a wife and a professional. I love to bake, enjoy cooking and like to try new recipes. I have one child who loves food, one who does not like to eat at all and a picky husband. On most days I have about 30 to 45 minutes to get food on the table. And did I mention that I am a vegetarian? Cooking a healthy dinner that will appease everyone's taste in such a short amount of time feels like Mission Impossible. And I often find myself preparing 4 different meals. So I like to 'web recipe hunt' for simple, fast and tasty recipes that hopefully can feed my whole family. For the moms out there striving to accomplish the Mission Impossible, your suggestions are welcome.Here, I hope to share thoughts, pictures and recipes with family, friends and you, the reader on the other side of the screen.

How I did it:

There is no mystery for the decorating of these two cakes. I used rolled fondant. You can purchase it at any crafts store. For the Rolie Polie Olie cake, I used white and pre-colored fondant. For the Pooh cake, I used white fondant that I tinted with food coloring, to give it the different shades of "grass".

It is a good idea to frost cake first with butter cream to even out the surface before adding the rolled fondant. I took a short-cut and just used vanilla icing out of a can. I nuked it for a few seconds first to make it easier to spread.

Mission Impossible

Orange cupcakes

Cheater's Way Orange Cupcakes

Dinner Mission Impossible

Luke's first birthday cake

Winnie the Pooh

Kyle's First Birthday Cake

How I did it: