As the previous post mentioned that this past weekend was Hubby’s Mama’s Birthday celebration, Monday was the actual day. There was still a celebration, but this time, it was just family… and I was not present. I was home sick.

Boo.
Boo-urns.

Nonetheless, there was another cake. Since we had so much work to do on the weekend, I opted to make the cake from the box instead of the homemade stuff. It’s easy and no one’s going to complain, so what’s the worry?

I believe, once in a while, cake mix is perfectly fine to use… Just follow the instructions.

So the first cake was a vanilla cake with homemade lemon curd and a vanilla meringue “icing” that got toasted with a torch. The kids got a kick watching the “blue hot hot”. This second cake was simple. I had an extra pan of cake and since it was going to be a smaller crowd, Jen and I kept it simple.

Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and we made chocolate chip flowers to decorate. At the Rent’s house, there’s not much for us to work with, in terms of decorating cakes…

There is no hand mixer, for small batches of buttercream, only a big KitchenAid mixer… but Jen said Dad had an old-school one that’s in the basement. I found it. It worked fine. I call it the “ghetto mixer”.

There’s no food colouring or gels.
No piping bags.
No sprinkles.

We had only a few things on hand, but damn, we made due and that’s how the Chocolate Chip Flowers were born…. or bloomed. Take your pick.

It’s easy.
Seriously easy.

Preheat your oven to your regular baking settings of 350°F.
Line a sheet pan with parchment and make sure it stays flat. If you need to use a little Pam to keep it down, do it.

Lay out 5 chocolate chips in to a 5-petal flower shape. Place them as close together as possible. You can place a 6th chip in the middle if you like, we did both originally thinking that we could use the “empty” ones and fill them with some berry gelato reduction to add a bit of colour.


Once you’ve got a good amount of chocolate flowers assembled, slowly put them into the pre-heated oven without jiggling the pan too much. Keep an eye on things and it’ll happen very quickly. Leave it in the oven for about 45 seconds. Take it out and set down.


Take a toothpick and dab the center of each chocolate chip into the middle of the flower. When all five chips have been dabbed, use the toothpick and swirl the melted chocolate.


Jen found some mini M&Ms and stuck them in the middle for a little bit of colour.

Aren’t they cute?!?!

This technique will work with any round melting chip. White, butterscotch, peanut butter, any coloured chips, too! If you have dipping wafers, those can make some huge ones! Have fun with it!