A Monster Jam Birthday

The idea for this Monster Jam cake came to me while I was planning my hubby's 34th brirthday. For several years, we had talked about going to a Monster Jam truck show. They always come to town in January, right around his birthday, but every year we've always come up with an excuse not to go...money, time, etc. This year I didn't ask him if he wanted to go...I just bought the tickets and surprised him with them the night of the show. Although Monster Jam had been one of his top guesses, he was still surprised and we had a blast.

We brought our 20 month old daughter, and our good friend and neighbor "Unkie Scott" joined us as well. Tampa's own Medusa was awesome in her pink truck. Maximum Destruction won the freestyle. Grave Digger (the front runner) tipped over within the first couple of seconds in the freestyle, but they righted his truck and he was able to put on a great show for his fans.

Here are some pics from that night, followed by the cake inspired by the event...

I used a Paula Deen spice cake recipe (my hubby's all-time favorite kind of cake) and layered it with homemade cream cheese icing. I wanted to make the cake three layers, so I doubled the cake recipe and quadrupled the icing recipe. This amount of cake batter actually ended up making 4 layers (using a 10" round cake pan) which put the cake at daring heights. I didn't use the forth layer in the Monster Jam cake, so we munched on the extra layer the night before his party. There was a lot of icing left over too, so I could have just tripled the recipe.

Click here for the Paula Deen Spice Cake recipe.
If you follow my blog, you've probably noticed that I use Paula Deen recipes a lot. She is an amazing southern cook and I seriously wish I was related to her just so I could come to her parties and eat her food. No, seriously...I actually refer to her as "Aunt Paula".

Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe:

You've probably also noticed that I use cream cheese icing a lot. It's the best icing in the world, it tastes good on just about anything, and it's my fave.

Mix together...

• 4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Hello again...for now.

The life of a mother is very busy. The life of a pregnant mother is busy and exhausting. Take into account the nausea of the first trimester and a change in appetite (particularly a drop in my sweet tooth) and suddenly three months have gone by without a single new blog entry.

Well into the second trimester...my appetite is back and my sweet tooth is mostly back, so here we go again, blogging about the sweeter side of life. I've also started a shop on Etsy.com called Baby Bling by Jen, so the time that I used to blog (10pm when the baby finally goes to sleep) is now taken up with crafting, photography and writing product descriptions for my online store. But I do love to bake, eat and write...so hello again, for now.  :) :) :)

-Jen