Recipes from the birthday party!

First, Happy Birthday to my oldest daughter!  She is officially 10 years old today, and couldn't be happier to be in the "double digits".  I remember that.  I remember my 10th birthday!  I just can't believe how quickly my children are growing up.  And how quickly I am getting old.  Anyway, I better stop now before I start bawling all over my computer.  In yesterday's post, I gave a re-cap of her "baking" birthday party.  So today I thought I would share some recipes!  Y'all know that everything I make is fairly easy...I don't profess to be a chef or anything...even though now I have the hat ;)  Speaking of, some links for the paper chef hats and flowers from the party can be found here and here.  This is one of the reasons blogging is so great! One, a fellow blogger gave me some of the links, which gave me the ideas for the hats/flowers, and two - someone out in blog land has been there, done that, and has a great blog post about it :D  (That should be on a t-shirt "been there, done that, blogged about it".)

For the cake, I mentioned that is was the first time I've made homemade frosting.  I used this recipe from allrecipes.com

Creamy Chocolate Frosting **This is the original recipe - I doubled it to frost a 4 layer cake

2 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar

6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

6 tablespoons butter

5 tablespoons evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.In a medium bowl, sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa, and set aside.

2.In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with evaporated milk. Blend in vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk or sugar.
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And as I mentioned yesterday, I can't imagine going back to canned frosting!  The only thing about this frosting (I'm not sure about others since I haven't made it before) it seems to melt quicker than canned frosting.  I just kept it in the refrigerator until I was ready to cut it.  If you have any tried and true frosting recipes, I would love to hear about them.  I have another birthday coming up in a couple of weeks!  Mr. Terrible Two is turning THREE!!  What will I call him then?  Mr. Three?  hmmm, points to ponder.

This was my pizza that I finally got to make and eat several hours after the party!

The pizza dough recipe was also a new one that I tried.  I went with a Bread Machine Pizza Crust from the Hillbilly Housewife because I was trying to make it easier on myself.  This will be my 'go to' crust from now on!  It was super easy, the bread machine did all the work, and the dough itself tasted good, had a great consistency, and was super easy to work with.  I made 8 "personal" size pizza crusts from one dough recipe.  I formed the crust, pre-baked, then froze them earlier in the week.  The day before the party, I stuck them in the fridge, and we were ready to go at party time.  The kids just fixed their toppings, and I stuck them in the oven to heat through.  They turned out great.

•1-1/4 cups water (plus 1 or 2 more tablespoons if necessary)


•3 tablespoons olive or other vegetable oil

•1 teaspoon salt

•4 cups bread flour or all purpose flour *I used all bread flour in one batch and a mix of bread flour and wheat flour in another. Both are good.  The wheat flour makes a denser crust. (& is a little healthier!)

•2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Measure the ingredients into the bread pan in the order listed. Make a "well" in the flour and sprinkle the yeast into it. Set the machine to it’s Dough Cycle. After the dough has mixed a few minutes add a spoonful or two of water if the dough seems very dry (I didn't have to do this). On my machine the Dough Cycle lasts 1-1/2 hours. The dough will be risen and puffy in the bread pan when it is done kneading and rising. Punch it down (without hurting your fist on the paddle); and remove it from the pan. Knead it a few times to get it deflated properly. Divide the dough in half. Let the dough halves rest for about 10 minutes to relax the gluten, making it easier to roll out. Press the dough into 2 – 14″ or 16″ pizza pans. I oil the pans a little first, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. **I divided the dough into 8 pieces, and it made decent sized personal crusts - see pic above!

Top the dough with your favorite sauce and pizza toppings. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes.

For party decorations, I didn't go all out.  For one, the wind was blowing pretty good, so I couldn't do much outside.  We had a banner on the front porch, a Happy Birthday windsock, and

a cupcake cutout on the front and back doors.  I found them 2/1.00 at the Dollar Tree and hung them with ribbon.

I also had some kitchen utensils sitting around, tied with ribbon.  This was an oatmeal container that I wrapped in ribbon.  Added some spoons and cookie cutters.  Like I said, I didn't go all out on decorations!  We also had balloons, but they all had to be in the house.  I know, it's a little lame, but mama was tired!

Now, I'm going to get my butt out of the house and enjoy this 80 degree day we are supposed to have!!!

I'm going to link up with the great blogs found HERE! Check them out!  You can find some great recipes and craft ideas by checking out these linkys!