Baking with Roo

It's that time of year again. Time to make anything and everything I can out of pumpkin.  Yum!  And what better excuse to bake than the annual neighborhood Chili Cookoff!  Roo and I wanted to make pumpkin pie, however it is not a good "picnic" food as it needs forks and plates.  We decided to try something new.  I'm sure someone did this before, but we ran a search online and couldn't find anything close.  First, we decided to use the mini muffin pans to make bite size pumpkin pies.

HOWEVER!   These pans were occupied with little chocolate cupcakes we made the night before... waiting to be frosted and accept their token pumpkin candy on top.   We whipped up some frosting and I frosted, Roo pumpkined and then we were right on the pumpkin pies.






Now, I LOVE to cook and bake.  I'm just too exhausted and worn out to do much of it these days.  I also love to bake from scratch and use fresh ingredients as much as possible.  This time we went the easy route.  (ha ha as if making all of these treats was actually easy!)  We took these delicious pie crusts!

Taking a mini cup cake liner as a pattern, we cut smaller crusts out of the large crust.  

We were able to make 11 circles out of one regular size crust. 

As I cut the circles, Roo gently put them into the muffin pans. 

And then we made the filling.  Again, we went the easy route and used good 'ole Libby's.  

I had thought we would use the scraps from the little pie circles to roll out and make more.  Roo had another idea.  She took the scraps and made an owl!  An owl with a purse.  Ben came over to see what we were up to and asked why we made Squidworth (sp??) from Sponge Bob.  Ha ha.  

Pie crusts were filled and put into the oven.  I knew the temperature and cooking time would need to be altered, so I lowered the temperature to 350 and cooked them for 25 min.  

They came out just right!  Crust's cooked, filling cooked - all just right!  Well, not as beautiful as I had hoped, but still delicious! 

We topped them off with whipped cream (which made them look so much better!)

Super yum!  The best part about it was spending such a fun afternoon with Roo!  Second best was the left over pumpkin pies!  All of the mini's were eaten and enjoyed at the neighborhood picnic, but we made two regular size pies for us.  We gave one to a friend, and enjoyed the other!  

AAaaannnnndddddd... since the twins birthday was coming up and we had a party to plan, I got to work investigating how in the world we'd make a Minecraft themed cake.  After perusing Pinterest for ideas I came up with an idea that would work with the baking pans we already own.  I purchased the fondant (sp??) and made some regular frosting, and then baked the cakes.  Here's what I came up with... well, I ran out of green fondant so tomorrow there will be more green grass.  

That darn Steve wouldn't stay sitting up straight.  It looks better in person, but I do really love my little piggie.  :)  

It's not perfect, and I'm not ready to take on Cake Boss - but for my first time playing with fondant and making anything Minecraft I think it is pretty sweet.  The boys are THRILLED and were so kind telling me how great the cake looks any time they came to check on my progress.  Sweetest kids ever!