Chocolate PB Grahamwiches (Recipe Included)

My mom made these for us when we were younger, and I always loved them.  I thought about them recently and realized that my kids would love them too!  They are super easy and quite tasty!

So, anyone that knows me knows that when I want chocolate pudding, I make it from scratch.  It is not like me to buy a box of pudding mix.  However, I will use a pudding mix as a component in another recipe on occasion.  This is one of those occasions.  I love these tasty little frozen treats and so do my kids.  They are super easy to make too!  If you read my blog regularly, you know that I like to use natural peanut butter when I bake.  You end up with less sugar in the final product, and it tastes more peanut buttery to me.  This is no exception.  The pudding mix is so sweet, there is no need to add more sugar in the peanut butter.  I purchased the graham crackers to make these, but in the future, I plan to make my own graham crackers.  I will be sure to post about that when I do :)

Graham crackers came about in 1829 and were developed by a Presbyterian minister, Sylvester Graham.  They are made with graham flour which is a combination of finely ground white flour and coarse-ground wheat bran and germ.

Chocolate PB Grahamwiches
1 1/2 c milk
1/2 c peanut butter
1 small pkg instant chocolate pudding
1 box graham crackers

Mix the milk, peanut butter, and pudding mix until well blended.  Spread between two graham crackers.  Wrap individually with plastic wrap and freeze.

Swimming Pool Cake

I actually made this cake a while ago for a girl who was turning 12, I believe.  She loves to swim and even helps out at the local aqua club with teaching the younger students.  So, she chose to have a swimming pool cake for her party :)

We did a small 1/4 sheet cake which feeds about 16-20 people for the birthday girl's bowling party.  Her mom and her brought me a picture of a cake similar to the one that I did for me to duplicate.  Using fondant, I molded some people with swimming caps mid-stroke.  I used mini m&ms to divide the lanes in the pool.  I think it was super cute!

Just as an FYI, I never freeze any of my products.  Everything that I bake is fresh made to order.  I feel that freezing a baked good, thawing it, then selling it compromises the quality of the item itself.  So you can rest assured that anything that you order from me, be it cake, cookies, or pie, was made fresh for you the day before or the day of your order.

PIGDA Cakes

I recently made three cakes for an event for the Pittsburgh IGDA.  It was the annual Global Game Jam.  My husband and kids left for the day, and I got to baking!  

I made three different half sheet cakes.  One was white with vanilla flavoring, the second was white with almond, and the third was chocolate.  They all were topped with my French buttercream.  I decorated them with the theme from the Game Jam and the PIGDA logo using fondant.  It took me all day, but I was quite happy with the results as were my clients.

So, fondant is not super popular for its taste.  It just isn't very good no matter how you look at it.  So, instead of covering your cake in fondant, use the icing that you like to use and like the taste of.  Fondant is super great to make specific decorations though.  I find it to be difficult and time consuming to pipe each decoration, fill it in with icing, then smooth the icing.  It is much easier to just cut the design that you want out of fondant, then pipe on it if necessary.  It takes some practice, but I assure you, if you played with play doh as a child, you can do it!