Carrot Garden Cake

I was working on planning a gardening activity for Relief Society and I googled ideas for garden themed treats. This one was so awesome I decided to do a test run to see if I could pull it off. It worked great, and looked soooo cool! Sadly, I actually didn't end up making it for the actual RS event, I just didn't have the time.

This is just a chocolate cake mix, baked in a 9x13 pan. I trimmed the top to make it level, then I cut it in half, and stacked the two pieces to make two layers. To fill and frost it I used this recipe for Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting. It may sound weird, but it's soooo yummy!

Once I had filled and stacked the two cakes, I frosted the top and sides with the chocolate frosting. To make the carrots, I just stuck a plain piping tip in a bag filled with regular (butter cream) frosting that I had dyed orange, and then pushed the tip down into the cake, squeezing frosting into the resulting hole as I pulled the tip out (I discovered that if you twisted the piping tip as you pulled it out then it didn't tear up the cake). Using more of the chocolate frosting I piped the little stars around the sides to make a bit of a lip to contain my "soil" I then crumbled up the bits of cake I had sliced off the top when I leveled it off and sprinkled those on top to look like dirt. I used green butter cream to make the leaves, and then tada! I had an awesome cake. As long as we were careful to slice right on the green tops you got to see the cool carrots in every slice.

Macaroni and Cheese

A little while ago I tested a recipe on Pinstrosity and in my comments on it I promsed to post a real, yummy mac and cheese recipe, so here it finally is. This is the recipe I grew up eating and I love it.

What you need:
2 cups macaroni (this time I used Rotini, but it doesn't matter)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp dry ground mustard
1/2 tsp onion powder
2 c. grated cheese (I think I actually used a little less than this, and it was still yummy)
crumbs (bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, whatever) optional

What to do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil. Start your pasta cooking according to the package directions. Meanwhile:
In a small-medium saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour. Add milk and seasonings (everything but the cheese and bread crumbs). Cook, stirring frequently to prevent the milk from burning, until it is creamy and thick. Remove from heat. I like to add a big handful of the shredded cheese at this point. If you stir it in with a figure 8 pattern than you won't get a clump of half melted cheese stuck to your spoon. Stir it until it's all melted and mixed in.
Put half your pasta in a casserole dish. Pour half the sauce over it and sprinkle half the cheese on top. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Sprinkle crumbs on top. (The crumbs give it a bit of nice texture. I've used saltine crackers, ritz crackers, Cheese It's, and plain old bread crumbs, it doesn't really matter what you use.)
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the sauce is bubbly and the cheese on top is melted and maybe even a little golden brown. Enjoy!