Rainbow Sprinkle-fetti Cookies

Soft & thick cake mix cookies are loaded up with rainbow sprinkles & then topped with a perfect buttercream frosting in these Rainbow Sprinkle-fetti Cookies...

As some of you all may recall, my daughter turned four last month. (Yes, hold me. I can't believe how quickly she is growing up!) 

Her birthday happened to fall on one of the days of the week that she attends preschool, so I asked her if she would like to bring in a special treat to share with her friends at school that day. Of course, she was absolutely ecstatic about it. 

And to be perfectly honest, I was pretty excited about baking up a fun sweet treat for her classmates as well. ;) 

You see, my son is an August baby. And his actual birthday is always towards the end of summer break, so I never really got to bake anything for him to take to school and share with his class.

When I asked Little Miss what she wanted me to make for her class for her birthday, she had just two requirements- she wanted cookies and she wanted pink frosting on them. Okay. That was something I could definitely handle. :) 

Cake mix cookies happen to be one of my favorite cookies to bake. They are soft & thick, taste like cake, and happen to be crazy easy to make. 

So, I took a basic cake mix cookie dough and loaded it up with LOTS of rainbow sprinkles (because you can never have too many rainbow sprinkles!). Then I topped each of these cookies with a perfect pink buttercream and even more rainbow sprinkles. 

Let's just say that these Rainbow Sprinkle-fetti Cookies were a HUGE hit with her preschool friends and teachers...

Happy Birthday Cake Batter Ice Cream

What goes better with a Rainbow Bundt Cake & Heart Shaped Smash Cake than Happy Birthday Cake Batter ice cream?  I knew I wanted to make at least one homemade ice cream for baby girl's rainbow birthday bash.  Folks, this is the reason why I only made 18 cupcakes instead of 24 with that extra box of vanilla cake mix- I was saving a little of the cake mix to make this ice cream. ;)

If you have an electric ice cream maker, this recipe will come together very easily and pretty quickly.  And it was completely gone before all the cake was served.  I will put it this way- I had this sprinkled cake batter ice cream & a carton of chocolate ice cream at the party. I still have some chocolate ice cream left in my freezer over a week later.  Just saying... ;)

What you will need:

2 cups of milk (I used 2%.)

2/3 cup heavy cream

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup of vanilla cake mix

1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles

Be sure to properly freeze your ice cream maker's container before starting.  

In a large bowl, whisk together everything but the rainbow sprinkles. Pour the cake batter ice cream base into your chilled container, & then follow your ice cream maker's specifications for churning your ice cream.

I let my ice cream whirl for about 25 minutes.

When your cake batter ice cream is done churning, spoon it out into a freezer safe container.  Now pour in the rainbow sprinkles & mix.

Freeze your ice cream for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

You do need to let the ice cream sit out at room temperature for 10-15 minutes before serving to allow it to soften a bit.  Homemade ice cream is always a little harder than the store bought varieties.  

Happy Birthday Cake Batter Ice Cream

by Frugal Foodie Mama

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 25-30 miuntes

6042328

Ingredients (Approx 1/2 gallon)

• 2 cups of milk (I used 2%.)
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cup of vanilla cake mix
• 1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles

Instructions

Be sure to properly freeze your ice cream maker's container before starting.

In a large bowl, whisk together everything but the rainbow sprinkles. Pour the cake batter ice cream base into your chilled container, & then follow your ice cream maker's specifications for churning your ice cream.

I let my ice cream whirl for about 25 minutes.

When your cake batter ice cream is done churning, spoon it out into a freezer safe container. Now pour in the rainbow sprinkles & mix.

Freeze your ice cream for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

You do need to let the ice cream sit out at room temperature for 10-15 minutes before serving to allow it to soften a bit. Homemade ice cream is always a little harder than the store bought varieties.

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There are a few more rainbow hued posts to come!  Are you excited yet?? :)

Chocolate Funfetti Sheet Cake

Chockfull of rainbow sprinkles, this dense and fudgy Chocolate Funfetti Sheet Cake is topped with the most airy & light chocolate whipped frosting. A little slice of happiness on a plate!

I have been contemplating the meaning of happiness lately- the complexities of it, the things that enhance our own personal happiness and the things that seem to hinder or take away from it, and the various ways that we sometimes seem to get in the way of our own happiness.

I mean, when do we know that we are truly happy? 

When we stop reaching for the next big thing? The better thing? When we allow ourselves to finally feel some contentment with how things are in the here and now?

But then you have to ask yourself- is that really true happiness? Or is that just settling?

Shouldn't we always be striving to better ourselves? To improve our lives? To love harder? To love ourselves more? To push that extra mile or two? To not give up on the things that we feel are important in our lives just because it may be hard at the moment?

Happy Birthday Cake Batter French Toast

Surprise the birthday guy or gal with this fuss-free & festive cake batter flavored baked french toast...

First, I have to start this post by wishing my very lucky husband a very Happy Birthday today! :) I won't tell you all just how old that he is, but I will say that he is now a tad bit closer to 40 than 35.

Just a tad. ;)

I love to give him a hard time because he is older than me.... even if it is by less than 6 months.

But he is still older than me. :P

I originally made this sprinkle-rific breakfast for my own birthday back in September (yep, I have been holding out on you all this long).  And today I am celebrating my husband's birthday on the blog by finally sharing this fun, rainbow sprinkle packed Happy Birthday Cake Batter French Toast with you all!  

Easy Chocolate Buttermilk Donuts

These moist & fluffy Easy Chocolate Buttermilk Donuts start with a "secret" ingredient- your favorite chocolate cake mix! 

This post may contain affiliate links. Purchasing through them helps support this website.

Anyone else experiencing a case of the winter blahs? The cold, wintry weather has set back in here this week, and I am just so ready for spring already. 

I mean, I do like spending an afternoon cuddled up on the couch under a cozy blanket with a warm cup of tea while I binge watch old episodes of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix. But I am starting to get a serious case of cabin fever, and I am itching for warmer weather & to get outside again.

While I certainly can't make spring arrive any quicker, I can try to brighten up these remaining days of winter with sprinkles.... lots & lots of rainbow sprinkles. And chocolate! 

I mean, who can be all blue & down when you have a moist chocolate glazed cake donut topped with rainbow sprinkles staring you in the face? ;)

Rainbow Bundt Cake & Rainbow Layered Smash Cake

My sweet baby girl turned one this month.  I still can hardly believe this first year with her has already come and gone.  

For her first birthday party, we decided to go all out rainbow.  My main inspiration for her first birthday party came from a term that is used with great hope and love in the infertility community... rainbow baby. 

A rainbow baby is the first baby you are able to give birth to, to hold after the loss of a previous pregnancy or little one.  

Baby girl is our rainbow baby after two previous consecutive miscarriages.  

The rainbow birthday party theme was just destined. :)

When I first started looking for inspiration for her party, I stumbled upon the blog Wine & Glue.  I have had a bloggy "love" affair with Lisa and her blog ever since. ;)  She was definitely the inspiration behind baby girl's smash cake with her Rainbow Heart Cakes, although I went a slightly different route with how I created mine.  (Plus, I think her's are so much more brightly colored and pretty than mine so you should click over & check out her post too. ;) )

For baby girl's party, I created a rainbow bundt cake, a heart shaped layered smash cake, and also baked extra rainbow swirled cupcakes when I realized my guest count was a *a little* higher than I had originally anticipated.  The bundt cake will serve about 12-15.  I made about 18 cupcakes as well. If you plan to make cupcakes, just pick up another box of cake mix & double the recipe. But if you are having a smaller party, the bundt cake should be sufficient. 

What you will need:

1 box of your favorite vanilla cake mix

3 eggs

1 1/4 cups water

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup sour cream

various food coloring (I would suggest gel food colorings if you have them.  The liquids can get kind of messy with a project of this undertaking.)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, eggs, water, oil, and sour cream.  Divide the batter into 6 different bowls- putting the most batter in the first one and then progressively putting less in each bowl as you divvy it out.  

Now color each of your bowls of batter with your food coloring.  I did yellow, orange, red, purple, green, and blue.  I added a few drops at a time until I had the color that I was going for.  

Be sure to grease and flour your bundt cake pan and your heart shaped pans.

Before you start the bundt cake, pour your batter into a heart shaped baking pan (similar to the one I have pictured below). I just did four layers for her smash cake. This is probably the perfect time to look for heart shaped pans since many of them will be included with the Valentine's Day clearance sales. ;) 

After you have your smash cake layers poured, start with the layering of your batter for the bundt cake.  I started with my red since it was the batter I had the most of and poured it into the bottom.  Then I layered all the other colors in.  I do suggest that you make sure you pour each of the colors of batter from the outside in so that the rainbow layers also show up on the outside of the cake.

I found a lot of helpful tips for layering the rainbow bundt cake batter from this post on Shane's Killer Cupcakes.

You will bake the bundt cake for about 35-40 minutes.  After 30 minutes or so, check the cake with a toothpick.  When the toothpick comes out clean, it is done.  The heart shaped cakes took about 20 minutes to bake.

Let the cakes cool for about 10 minutes in the pans, and then turn them out on wire racks to cool completely before frosting.  If the cakes won't come out very easily at first, just work a butter knife along the outer edges of the cakes & then try turning them out again.

I had an idea in my head that I wanted the frosting on the bundt cake to just run along the bottom so that it would look like clouds at the end of the "rainbow" when you cut into the cake.  I needed a buttercream that was fluffy, but that was stiff enough to not slide down.  I remembered seeing a recipe for a Marshmallow Buttercream on Shaken Together that she had used on Rocky Road cupcakes, and I knew it would be perfect!

What you will need:

2 sticks of butter, room temperature

One 17 oz jar of marshmallow fluff (I actually used two 7 oz jars because that is what I had on hand, & it worked perfectly.)

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Just cream the butter and sugar together.  Then hand stir in the marshmallow fluff and vanilla. 

I simply used a pastry bag & decorative frosting tip and piped the buttercream in 2 thick layers, one right on top of the other all along the bottom of the bundt cake.  I then carefully tossed on rainbow sprinkles all around on the "clouds".  

For the rainbow smash cake, I used the same frosting tip and simply piped heart shaped dollops of buttercream between each heart shaped cake layer, and then put a pretty dollop on top with a dash of rainbow sprinkles.

Voila!

If you opted to make cupcakes in addition to the bundt cake and smash cake, this frosting recipe is almost enough for all of them.  I actually had 3 cupcakes that were not frosted because I ran out of the buttercream.  But they were not actually needed for the party, so no biggie.

I couldn't wait to cut into the rainbow bundt cake to see how it looked on the inside!  It turned out beautifully even if they colors were not perfectly rainbow layered.

The smash cake was also a huge success.  Well, with everyone but baby girl. ;)  She really wasn't sure exactly what to do with it, I think...

Be looking for the next colorful party post on the blog soon.  Here is a little hint...

It just may go hand in hand with birthday cake.  ;)

Cookies & Cream Banana Birthday Shake

Celebrate that special day minus the guilt with this festive & fun Cookies & Cream Banana Birthday Shake...

Sponsored post by Mirum. All opinions are my own.

Soooooo.... today is my birthday, you all. But it just isn't any ole birthday for me. It just so happens to be my 40th birthday. Yep, the BIG 4-0. I have to admit that it is kind of weird to be saying goodbye to my thirties and officially entering a brand new decade of my life. But I am also excited for what the next 10 years will bring. :)

I have spent the last few months of my 39th year of life making some healthier lifestyle changes. I get to the gym at least 3-4 times a week now. I do yoga at home at least twice a week. I try to give myself mental health breaks more often when I start to feel like my work to life balance is getting a little off kilter. And I have been trying to make healthier choices as far as my diet goes. But when you happen to have a mean sweet tooth like I do, then that last part can be a little tricky at times.

My ultimate guilty pleasure happens to be ice cream. Like I could eat ice cream every single day. And now that I have discovered Breyers delights, I actually can enjoy my favorite frozen treat minus the guilt more often... ;)

Funfetti Cupcake Popcorn

Get the party started with this festive, cake batter flavored Funfetti Cupcake Popcorn...

This post may contain affiliate links. Purchasing through them helps support this website.

Can we have a quick chat about kids' birthday parties for a moment? Up until my daughter's most recent birthday, we had always had a themed family party at our house & allowed her to invite three of her friends from school. For her sixth birthday just last month, we finally caved & decided to let her have a separate party for her friends from school. 

Having limited parking at our house, I knew we would have to rent a space somewhere local to host her party for her friends. After a little crowd sourcing on Facebook, we found a cute little cupcake shop in the next town over that rented out their bakery for parties on the weekends.

I put down the deposit and then started brainstorming party game ideas & searching Amazon for cute cupcake themed party favors. Everything was coming together. 

The invitations had been handed out to her classroom a couple of weeks before the party date. My mom (who happens to be much craftier than I) created an amazing pin the candle on the cupcake game. I bought a cupcake bingo game from etsy & found free printable cupcake coloring pages online.

But a week out from her party I started to get this sinking feeling. Only 2 of the 14 kids she had invited had RSVP'ed that they were coming. Panic started to set in. What if it was only my daughter & these two friends at her party? Did I really just spend *that much* money to rent a cupcake shop only for there to be just 3 kids at the party?

Grands! Snowmen Cinnamon Rolls

Transform your favorite refrigerated cinnamon rolls into fun and easy to make edible snowmen with these Grands! Snowmen Cinnamon Rolls...

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by General Mills through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about Pillsbury™ Grands! Cinnamon Rolls, all opinions are my own.

For years, Pillsbury™ Grands! Cinnamon Rolls has been a go-to of ours for lazy weekend mornings, snow days from school, and holiday breakfasts. They are so simple to make (the kiddos often help), they get on the breakfast table quick, and my entire family loves them. They have become a family breakfast tradition, and often-times they are the quickest way to get my late riser of a son out of bed earlier on the weekend. ;)

Typically I don't mess too much with a good thing, but we do like to change things up just a little here & there. My youngest (who is now 4 years old) loves to "help" her mama in the kitchen. 

So on one Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, I thought why not turn our favorite Pillsbury™ Grands! Cinnamon Rolls into some fun Grands! Snowmen Cinnamon Rolls that Little Miss could help me decorate once they were done baking? 

The results were not only delicious, but they also totally left my daughter tickled pink! :) She was so proud to present our very well decorated snowmen shaped cinnamon rolls to her sleepy head daddy and brother...

Rock the Lunchbox! {& A Giveaway from Annie's Homegrown!}

#spon: I'm required to disclose a relationship between my blog and Annie's Homegrown. This could include Annie's providing me w/ content, product, access or other forms of payment.

School is back in session and is in full swing here at our house.  As a high school sophomore, my son has now fully taken on packing his own lunch for school each night.  And of course, I find myself peeking over his shoulder to make sure he is packing that lunchbox full with some good stuff and not just junk.

Did you know that 51% of parents surveyed in a national survey noted their struggle to come up with new ideas as their #1 challenge to packing school lunches? And that 53% of kids from this same survey reported that their lunches were pretty much the same day in and day out?

If you and your children are lacking lunch packing inspiration, Annie's Homegrown has a challenge for you all- Have your kids draw their dream lunch to take to school, and then you make it healthy! 

Are you all up for it?? ;)

My son and I took the RockTheLunchbox.com challenge, and here is what he drew as his dream lunch...

Invite the BOSS to a Cake Decorating Party

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Cake Boss. I received product samples and a promotional item to thank me for participating.

If any of you all happen to be a huge fan of the Cake Boss show on TLC, you are going to love today's post! Not only am I am going to be sharing some fun ideas for hosting a cake decorating party for friends and family, but I am also going to be sharing some of my favorite Cake Boss products available at Michael's.

I have to admit- I have only watched the Cake Boss show a handful of times.  But I was always blown away by the cakes that they create and in awe of how they get them from one place to another without the cake totally toppling over. Buddy and his family and their staff has some serious cake skills, folks. ;)

When I saw a huge array of the Cake Boss Fabulous Fondant in my shipment from Michael's, I knew I had to set up a little station for my party just for fondant rolling and cutting...

Unicorn Yogurt Pops

These magical Unicorn Yogurt Pops are the perfect frosty & healthy treat for back to school...

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon, Silk, & So Delicious. The opinions and text are all mine.

We are in full-on back to school mode over here. My son starts his senior year of high school in less than a week, and my youngest will start her first day of Pre-K the week after. To say I have my hands full over here getting them both ready for the new school year would be an understatement. ;) 

The biggest challenge for me right now is making sure that they both get a healthy start to the year. It is trying to find that balance between making sure they have healthier, more real food snacks on hand to enjoy after school while still making sure that those same snacks are also fun for the kiddos. I think I successfully accomplished both of those goals with these magical Unicorn Yogurt Pops.

These frosty pops are a creamy blend of bananas, protein-packed Greek yogurt, and our favorite almondmilk. But what makes them magical for the kids are the swirls of bright colors and the fun star-shaped sprinkles... ;)

12 Brunch-worthy French Toast Casseroles

These 12 Brunch-worthy French Toast Casseroles would make the perfect hassle free & tasty addition to that next big weekend brunch menu you may be planning...

I kind of have a thing for french toast casseroles.  It started with my Overnight Pumpkin Pie Chai French Toast back in November of 2012.  And then there was my Irish Coffee French Toast Casserole.  And I even created one chock full of rainbow sprinkles, perfect for celebrating a birthday- my Happy Birthday Cake Batter French Toast! :)

I am not really a big fan of traditional french toast.... the dipping and soaking and the mess. And then there is having to stand in front of the stove and watching the pan as you fry each batch.

There is just something so much more appealing to me about tossing the sliced bread into a casserole dish and pouring the eggs, and milk, and everything else over top & then popping it into the oven. 

Plus, a french toast casserole frees you up to be able to prepare another dish while it is baking... like frying bacon or making omelets, cutting fruit, brewing coffee.

They are the perfect, hassle free & tasty addition to a big brunch you may be planning... say for Easter or Mother's Day or just because. ;)