Cupcake Cake

My oldest daughter turned 10 this month!

It's amazing how quickly 10 years flew by.

We planned a birthday party with kids,

party favors, games, hot dogs, cake...

hold on there... not just any cake!

A cupcake cake.

Have you seen these at the grocery store?

They're really cute, but I just can't

bring myself to pay all that money

for cupcakes that are mediocre

with icing that is just as mediocre

(probably even more so).

It's not that I'm a snob

(at least I don't think I am),

but I just love yummy food

and those store-bought cupcakes

just aren't that yummy to me.

Besides, my daughter wanted carrot cake cupcakes...

I'm not sure the grocery store could pull that off.

So we went to work making carrot cake cupcakes

using an old recipe from a Russian cookbook

that my grandma gave my mom

(seriously, those ladies knew how to bake/cook).

It's an amazing recipe and along with cream cheese

frosting on top... well, it's just super amazing!

I arranged the cupcakes on a piece of foam board,

iced the cupcakes and decorated them.

Decorated the foam board.

I'll admit, I was in a little rush when I put this together

and it didn't come out the greatest,

but my daughter loved it and was very pleased

and that's what really matters, right?

So I'm glad we tried something new

and had some fun with it.

How about you?

Have you tried anything new lately?

50 States Unit Study + Recipe

You may remember THIS POST
where I was trying to decide

if I should take the plunge

and do a 50 States unit study

with my kids or not.

I decided to go for it

and we've been enjoying our study so far.

We are doing the states in alphabetical order,

trying to study one state per week.

We have to take a little longer

for a state a couple of times,

but we've been doing pretty good staying with it.

One of the activities that we do for each state

is choose a recipe that has something

to do with that state

(using an ingredient grown in the state or a traditional recipe from that state),

and we make it together.

I take pictures as we go through it step-by-step

and then I print up the pictures

and the kids write about how we made it.

This goes into their 50 states notebook,

along with a copy of the recipe.

We're a little behind making a recipe for Arkansas

(which we studied last week).

I was planning on making a rice dish of some kind

since rice is one of the major crops grown there,
but Kayla wanted to make

Tater Tot Casserole

(a recipe from the Duggar family),

because the Duggars are from Arkansas. LOL!

I thought that was pretty cute

and since we haven't yet tried Tater Tot Casserole,

I think I will oblige her. =)

Today I'm sharing what we made for Alabama...

Blackberry Swirl Cake

Ingredients:

1 box Yellow Cake Mix

12 oz. fresh blackberries

1/3 C. sugar

2 TBS. flour

1. Prepare cake mix according to box directions. Pour cake batter into a greased 13x9-inch baking dish.

2. Mash blackberries with sugar, leaving some larger pieces of berries. Mix in flour. Place spoonfuls of berry mixture in a varied pattern on top of cake batter. Run a knife back and forth, up and down to “swirl” in berry mixture with cake batter.

3. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.

Yummy fresh blackberries!

My two personal chefs. =)

Finished masterpiece!

What kinds of activities do you like to include
in your homeschooling to make learning fun?

I'd love to hear your ideas!