Boy Scouts

Two of my sons are in Boy Scouts.  As we all know they get to do so many fun things like, hiking, camping, fishing, etc...

Well let me tell you they also bake cookies out of cardboard ovens.  Yes I said cardboard ovens.
Since I drive them to their meetings I had the privilege of being there the day they did it and I am going to tell you how.

First you need a box with a top.  Like the ones you get from staples, you know the ones the paper reams come in.
Then you cover the inside of the box and top with aluminum foil, heavy duty aluminum foil.  If you don't have the heavy duty kind then just double up on the regular kind.  Oh and shinny side out.
Then you make slits in the top and the bottom to hold the wire rack.  You can make the rack with wire hangers ( a great way to reuse them don't you think).  You can also use wooden dowels covered in foil.  The wooden dowels are sturdier then the wire hangers.
After this you have to cut at least 3 holes at the bottom of the box, this is for ventilation purposes, to keep the fire burning.

Now we will use charcoal to bake the cookies.  For a big box we put in 9 briquettes, the small box only needs about 6.  There is actually a formula for how many briquettes to use, each briquette supplies approximately 40 degrees of heat.  So depending on your recipe you can figure out how many you will need. Formula = oven degrees divided by 40 will give you the number of briquettes you will need.  But remember if you use a smaller box to divided the number in half.

OK now for some pictures,  Because we they really did do this.

 Here they are covering the box with aluminum foil.



















Here's the top of the box being covered.  The top is actually the bottom.  Don't forget to put holes on the bottom to vent for the fire.














 Charcoal being prepared for the box.
You do not need to use a baking pan.  Since you will have aluminum on the bottom, you can place the charcoal on the aluminum.

Cookies being placed in the box.
Use parchment paper under your cookies. It helps with clean-up and to make the cookig go fater.













Cookies that were being placed in the second box.  This box was smaller in size.

 Box with the cover on.  As you can see in this picture the box is upside down.  The top of the box is where you place the charcoal  and the cookies.  The bottom of the box becomes the oven.  You can also do it the other way around.  We had one of each kind.














Here you see 2 boxes cooking.  We had a total of 4 boxes.  

 Our baked cookies.  They were really good. 

This is what happens when you place to many briquettes in a box.  This was the smaller box.  Some boys thought they could cook the cookies faster by adding more briquettes. Major FAIL.  The box caught on fire.

Here is the box, after the fact.   Remember  be careful with the amount of briquettes you use and DO THIS OUTDOORS

Apparently one boxes wire rack (wire coat hangers) fell.  So all the cookie dough mushed together to create on large lump cookie.














We had so much fun that day.  Please if you do try this let me know and take plenty of pictures.
You don't have to limit yourself to cookies either.  You can bake whatever you want.  You can do a search on the net to find out more information on cardboard ovens.

Linking to under 300 followers link party.

Ice Cream Cake how-to

I am going to show you how easy it is to make Ice-Cream cake.  Please be advised that this is so easy your kids can do it.  As a matter of fact have them help you....

First you will need a spring foam pan.  You can probably do it with a regular cake pan, but I have never tried it. I used a 10 inch spring foam pan and it fit two tubs of ice cream.
You will need to get you favorite type of Ice Cream.  For my dd's cake we used too different types  Reese's peanut butter ice cream with pieces in it and the other was cookies and cream(who doesn't love cookies and cream).
Leave your ice cream out until it is soft enough to mix around.  After it has softened spoon it into your pan.  If you are using only one type of ice cream then all you need to do is smooth out the top, cover with foil and put it in the freezer.  There you have it Ice Cream cake.  Its best to let it sit for 12-24 hours so that it can really be hard.
If you want to use 2 types of ice cream then you will need to add filling to the cake.  Somethin we forgot to do so all we tasted was peanut butter.  The ice cream just got all mixed together.
A good filling is always oreo's.  Use a blender or crush them with a rolling pin.  After they are finely crushed layer it on top of your ice cream (you should have one type of ice cream in your pan already)
after you have spread it(Oreo mix) on top of your first layer of ice cream add your other ice cream.  Then cover with foil and put it in your freezer.
For the topping you can just get heavy whipping cream and beat it with a mixer on high till it stiffens.  For best results put the whipping cream in a metal bowl and put it in your frig.  The colder the whipping cream the faster it will whip and you will get better results.  After your cake has frozen solid. Remove it from the pan and spread the whipped icing on it.

There you have it your own homemade Ice Cream cake.

We added crushed Oreo's on top.

Here are some more pictures of our cake.

                                                          Just taken out of the pan.

                                           Covered in the homemade whipped icing

                                                        Oreo cookie crumbs added

How it looked when we cut into it.  As you can see we forgot to add a layer of cookie crumb,  So the whole cake tasted like Reese's peanut butter cup

Decorating cakes

Earlier this year I took a cake decorating class.  It was really fun.  Besides the teacher there were 2 other ladies in the class, for a total of 3 students.
What I realized is that I like to decorate cakes but I do not like being sticky.  Let me tell you that your hands will be sticky.  It annoys me.  So whenever I decorate a cake I have to always have a wet rag by me to wipe my hands with.
Since I have found a new hobby, we will no longer buy store bought cake, not even Ice Cream cake (yes! I learned how to make these also, on my own though.  Not in the class)

Here are some of the cakes I've made this year.  There are not many but hopefully there will be lots more to come.

Theses pictures are of the first cake I ever decorated.  It was the final cake for the class.  Since it fell around my MIL birthday we decided to give it to her.  Of course my dh tells me to write Happy Birthday on it AFTER I placed all the roses on the cake.  What does he think that  I'm an expert.... It's my first cake.

 The class also teaches you how to fill and decorate cupcakes.  These were fun to make.

 This cake was for my dd who turned 3.  She loves Dora and asked for a Dora cake.  Her hair needed to be a dark brown.  Yes Dora has dark brown hair not black hair.  For some reason the brown would not darken on me.  Lesson learned, next time I will just buy the dark brown icing coloring.

 My son wanted to decorate his own cake.  So I let him

 This cake was for my dd who turned 5.  She wanted a Princess Castle cake.  The idea for this cake came from one of my cake decorating books.  I couldn't find the right cake pan size so I had to use a spring foam pan.  The problem with the spring foam pan was that the sides were not tall enough for this cake.  It was supposed to have windows on the side.  We used Easter M&M's to decorate around the cake.  I should have wrote her name with a toothpick first to help me out but noooo this time I thought I was the expert and tried to eyeball the placement of her name.  You live and learn

 Here is my Birthday cake.

 My dd Ice Cream Cake.  These are so easy to make.  I will be posting a tutorial on how to make your own Ice Cream cake.

 Father's Day cake.  My dh is a HUGE Yankees fan.  So for Father's Day I decided to make him a Yankees cake.  Why does it seem that when I plan something, something ALWAYS goes wrong.  Is it just me or does this happen to you too.  So, I end up running out of icing. Now you're probably thinking that that's not a big deal, OH but it is.  The icing used to decorate cake is not the same as the store bought ones ( Betty Crocker, Dunkin Hines etc..) These icings are too soft for decorating purposes.  If you just want to frost a cake and write Happy Birthday on it, then these will do, but to actually but a design on the cake they are to creamy.  I should have just made the icing but nooo, I thought I could do it with store bought icing not realizing that ITS TOO CREAMY. 
My son saved the cake.  He is very good at drawing free hand.  I showed him a yankee logo and he drew it on the cake with a toothpick, then I went over it with the icing.  Cake saved and dh loved it.
What I learned is to always have plenty of icing on hand.  So for now on I will be buying the big tubs of wilton icing.


                                                  I will never run out of icing again!