A family friend’s son turned five last week. Knowing how hard it is to have a birthday so close to Christmas, I really try to be creative each year with his gift. Last year, we got him a nice chef hat, mixing utensils, an oven mitt and all the supplies needed to make cupcakes. The kid likes to cook. His Mom and Dad are foodies and spend time in the kitchen. Just after Christmas, my friend posted a picture of this, now five year old, using a hand-me-down Easy Bake Oven. He looked like he was having a blast. Then, it clicked for me…he needed some Easy Bake Oven Recipes for boys. After doing some research, I found this great post from Budget101.com with all kinds of Easy Bake Oven Recipes. When scrolling through all of the great recipes, I saw the short list of “Queasy Bake Oven” recipes, and there my idea was born! Why not take the same recipes and give them yucky, gross names? So here goes…
I took some snack size ziplock bags, added the ingredients and sealed it up. From there, I put them in brown paper bags. Then I made cute labels with bugs and changed the names of the recipes to peek the interest of any little boy. Then to finish the boy look, I tied each brown bag with twine.
Which recipes did I use from the Budget101.com recipes?
Yellow Cake Mix became Yucky Yellow Mix.
Snow Mound Mix became Snowball Fight Cookies
The Creepin’ Crud Chocolate Mix stayed the same, cuz let’s face it, it’s cool.
Then, to explore what other things they could make in their oven, I used Ken’s Deep Dish Pizza recipe. I changed the name to Dirty Dish Pizza (I do feel sorry about this one, Ken seems to really know his pizza, but it’s for the kid!)
I made two packages of each and also included a quick flip book of other recipes from EBOrecipes.com.
Cheesy Bake Hot Dogs became Tader Toes
English Muffin Pizzas became Brain Muffin Pizza
Lasagna became Lizard Lovin’ Lasagna
Quick Quesadillas became Quick Flying Saucers
I also included two of my family frosting recipes:
Fishy Frosting
Ingredients:
1 Large Egg
½ tsp cream of tartar
1 lb confectioners’ sugar
Directions: Beat the white of one large egg with ½ tsp cream of tartar until foamy. Slowly beat in 1lb confectioners’ sugar until stiff peaks form. Keep covered with a damp cloth.
Cruddy Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Cream Cheese Frosting by foodnetwork.com)
Ingredients:
4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions: In a large bowl, beat together the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. With the mixer on low speed, add the powdered sugar a cup at a time until smooth and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.
With all that packaged in a birthday bag, I think we did pretty good this year. Griffin loved them so much, he wants an Easy Bake Oven now! I better keep my eyes out at the thrift stores!
Happy Baking!
