Pumpkins and Games and Googly Eyes – Oh My! (A Giveaway)

Yep, I'm still writing about Betty Crocker. I warned you I had a lot to share!

Again, I want to reiterate that spending those few days with a group of proactive, excited bloggers in the Betty Crocker Kitchens will definitely be one of the highlights of my life. Seriously.

I think maybe because all of us got to just relax and play. You know how it is in Mom World. We watch, we correct, we applaud, but for many of us, we just forget to play.

So this post is dedicated to playing.

Okay, so our little mini-group made this cake. A Jack-O-Lantern Cake. Yep, it was as cool as it sounds. And easy, too. (Tasty is important, but easy is always a bigger selling point for me when it involves cooking or baking, but that's not important right now.)

The cake itself is made in a round oven-proof (Pyrex is my particular brand of choice) bowl.

Our particular group had the added bonus of including Michelle, the food editor for Gourmet Mom on-the-Go who, like a baking-prepared Mary Poppins, carried cake sprinkles and googly eyes in her purse. She pulled them out when it was time for us to decorate our pumpkin cake, much to the delight of myself and our other blog-partner-in-frosting, Julie, of Joy's Hope.

We got to play. In the Betty Crocker Kitchens. For me it was like one of those make-a-wish-type moments.

So we mixed food coloring and added fruit-by-the-foot leaves and an ice cream cone stem/hat. And, of course, the googly eyes. Googly eyes started to show up on everything.

And even if I do say so myself, ours was the best pumpkin. I liked the googly eyes and all, they absolutely gave it personality, but I confess, I liked the finished product better as just a pumpkin cake. (I know. Shut up.)

Here's the recipe:

Jack-O-Lantern Cake

• 2 boxes Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® devil's food or white cake mix
• Water
• vegetable oil and eggs or egg whites called for on cake mix box
• 2 containers (1 lb each) Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy vanilla frosting
• Yellow and red food color
• 1 green flat-bottom ice-cream cone
• Betty Crocker® Fruit Roll-Ups® chewy fruit snack rolls (any flavor)

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour 2-quart round casserole or 2 1/2-quart ovenproof bowl. Make 1 box cake mix as directed on box, using water, oil and eggs or egg whites. Pour batter into casserole.

2. Bake devil's food cake 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, white cake about 1 hour 10 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes. Remove cake from casserole; place rounded side up on cooling rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour. (Got that? You're making two cakes, each in the casserole dish.)

3. Make and bake remaining cake mix using same casserole or bowl.

4. With sharp knife, carefully slice piece from top of each cake to make flat surface where cakes will be placed together to form pumpkin shape. (Cake scraps can be saved and added to another recipe such as pudding or trifle if desired.)

5. In medium bowl, place frosting; tint with 9 drops yellow and 6 drops red food color to make orange frosting. On plate, place 1 cake, rounded side down. Spread 2/3 cup of the orange frosting over cake almost to edge. Place second cake, rounded side up, on frosted cake to make round shape. Frost entire cake with remaining orange frosting.

6. Trim ice-cream cone to desired height for stem; place upside down on cake. Cut out eyes, nose, mouth, vines and leaves from fruit snack rolls. Place on frosted cake to form face. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

Or you can just watch us do this…. Enjoy.

We're having some fun now, right?

Which brings me to today's giveaway. (What? Another giveaway? That's madness, Marta!)

General Mills has a very cool company store and I shopped around for the items that I wanted to giveaway. (Thanks to GM for generously agreeing to make them available to MBFCF.) And because I'm a complete uber-nerd, this totally caught my eye:

It's a Yahtzee game! A General Mills Yahtzee Game, people!

(Okay, so I bought one for my daughter, Amy Kikita who is a rabid Yahtzee player and I asked General Mills if they could send me one to offer as a giveaway. (Being the generous folks they are, they agreed. I'm sure they scratched their heads a little on this one – "You want a WHAT??" – , but that's not important right now. =D)

So to enter the drawing for today's giveaway, let's talk games.

To be entered in the drawing for the General Mills Yahtzee Game (A Yahtzee game, people!) , just answer one or all of the following questions in the comment section of this post:

• Does your family play games?
• Do you have a family favorite?
  

I'll choose a winner on Wednesday, September 15th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.

Let's play!