Father’s Day BBQ

Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there and especially to my Dad and Grandpa!

To celebrate the awesome Dad’s in my family we had a BBQ dinner followed by a BBQ cake.

Inside it was a butter almond cake with toasted coconut and vanilla buttercream icing. The Weber sign and the grill were made out of chocolate and the burning coals were M&M’s mixed with toasted coconut. I cut out the top part of the cake to make a spot for the grill to go. The hamburgers were mini chocolate rice cakes and the hot dogs were Starbursts dusted with cocoa. The hamburger buns were fun to make and even tasty! They were Vanilla wafers with a little bit of honey on top to attach sesame seeds.

Overall this cake was a hit! It wasn’t even too hard to make but a lot of fun to look at and enjoy! Best of all, my Dad and Grandpa loved it!

Monkey Bread Cupcakes

Finally back in the kitchen! After graduating from college and moving back home I’m so happy to be back in my kitchen baking.

The first thing on the baking to do list was to bake for those birthdays that I missed while I was still at school. Two birthdays occurred at work just a week before I got home and today was the day to celebrate them.

I present to you Monkey Bread cupcakes!!! Because who doesn’t love monkey bread?

I looked at a couple different recipes before baking and came up with this recipe which seemed to work out pretty well:

2 packages of jumbo buttermilk biscuits
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 sticks of butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two cupcake pans.

1. Slice the biscuits into 8 to 10 pieces each.
2. In one bowl melt the two sticks of butter and in another bowl mix the dry ingredients.
3. Place biscuit chunks into the bowl of melted butter a few at a time to coat them.
4. Transfer buttered chunks into the sugar mixture and toss until coated (this could also be done in a plastic bag)
5. Place about 6 biscuit chunks into each cupcake.
6. Sprinkle extra sugar mixture on top of each cupcake, because why not?
7. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Let the pans cool for a few minutes and then turn them over until the cupcakes fall out of the pan.
9. Keep the cupcakes upside down to cool so the caramel stays on each cupcake.
10. Turn over to add icing or place in cupcake tins for easy serving.

I added icing to the top of my cupcakes made of confectioners sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and milk. I wanted the icing to be not quite as sweet as it would be with just sugar and milk so I added the vanilla and cinnamon for more flavor. Make it to your own preferred taste.

After drizzling these cupcakes with icing they were perfect. So delicious and perfect for celebrating two birthdays.