Face Lifts and Falsies

Nice title, right? Let me explain. As you can see, we gave our little blog a slight overhaul...a face-lift if you will. We really hope you like it. It makes us feel all grown up to have a custom face and we really like the birdie.

Soon we're going to have our own buttons, a little ad space for you self-employed-crafty-types, and we're even going to have give-a-ways. So stay tuned! There are exciting things happening in The Idea Attic. We're even toying with a blogger challenge, were you guys challenge the three of us to think of ideas using a specific material, or for a special event. That should be fun...like our own little reality show. All this is coming once us moms can find a spare moment to collect our thoughts.

So I explained the Face Lift part...let me explain the falsies. Last night my husband turns to me and says, "Oh, I forgot, (our son) needs a cake for the cub scout cake auction tomorrow. Can you whip up something fun?" NICE...I set out trying to find something fun. So I quickly threw this together. What do you think?

I promise that this was a really easy cake to make. In fact here is the link to the instructions I found on the Family Fun website (click here for step-by-step instructions). I think it's pretty clear that they used a store-bought pound cake and if I was thinking clearly in the store, I might have done the same. But I only purchased the twinkies, the sour patch kids (for the relish) and some white frosting (I already had food coloring) and didn't want to run to the store again.

So for those of you who do not want to buy a pound cake, or got scared off by all the butter and eggs of pound cake recipe, here's the recipe I used and it was yummy. I call it a half-pound cake. I like this recipe because it perfectly fits in a loaf pan.

2/3 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. flavoring extract (I used vanilla...but lemon might be yummy, too)
2 eggs, beaten
1 2/3 c. enriched flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. milk
Cream butter, sugar, and flavoring together until light; beat the eggs and add to mixture. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together; add alternately with the milk. Beat 1/2 minute or about 30 strokes. Bake in an oiled and floured loaf-cake pan 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees.

The hardest part of this cake is getting the frosting to look like a hot dog, mustard and ketchup. So I tried to keep track of what I used with the frosting.  I divided one container of frosting in three sections. I actually didn't need that much "mustard" and "ketchup" but oh well.

For the hot dog color  - 6 drops of red, 3 drops of yellow and 1 drop of green.

For the mustard - Just a lot of yellow and one drop of red.

For the ketchup - I ended up using A LOT of red, then yellow and green. Basically, it was a darker version of the hot dog color. I kept adding red and then a small amount of green to make the red darker.

Another tip is I frosted the twinkies before I placed them in the "bun" and I lifted them off the cutting board with a long knife and placed it in the "bun" that way. To make it look even more real, I took a butter knife and carved the wrinkles in the end of the hot dog.

And lastly, I used coffee filters, left over from our coffee filter flowers, to place under the hot dog and french fries so it looked extra real.

Hopefully you did not notice that I burned the "fries" by accident...they don't need to broil very long.

There you have it...the falsie! It really was one of the easiest cakes ever. I think it was even easier than frosting a regular cake. Shhhhh...people will just think you're a genius.