Hey there — just checking in. I haven’t forgotten about you.
So what’s been happening here? Last week I tried to finish a couple of posts, but both recipes were disappointments. They should have been straightforward wins, but I was distracted prepping for a trip and making lists to remember everything for a cabin weekend. When you’re rushed or not fully focused, even small mistakes can throw things off. The results weren’t terrible, but they weren’t blog-worthy either. If it’s not great, I won’t post it.
That same morning I made pancakes and made a string of silly mistakes: grabbed the wrong measuring spoon for baking soda, tried to scoop out the excess without disturbing other ingredients, then accidentally added a dash of cumin instead of cinnamon. The pancakes started smelling like chili. I caught it quickly and fixed things, but by then my head wasn’t in the right place. I should have stopped and postponed the other recipes. Instead I pushed on and ran out of time, so there was nothing new to share.
We were off-grid on a mountain for a week — no dishwasher and limited time — so consider this a shared excuse. Now we’re back and I’m sharing a Flashback Friday instead. Flashback Fridays revisit moments from before the blog, usually with casual phone photos and no fancy edits. My first Flashback Friday posts covered the Pac-Man party.
Today we’re remembering Kimochis. The name comes from the Japanese word kimochi, meaning “feeling,” and they’re toys designed to teach social-emotional vocabulary. Years ago my kids spotted them in Whole Foods and they became a must-have — the one thing they really wanted for Christmas. Each Kimochi character has a little pocket for “feelings,” which are tiny pillows with a face on one side and the emotion written on the other. We started with a character and a few feelings, and then the kids wanted to collect every character and every feeling. I didn’t mind — they’re cute and useful for teaching emotions.
My son’s favorite was “Happy,” and he decided he wanted a Kimochi birthday cake. Thankfully he chose a simple, round feeling rather than a complex character — easier to recreate in cake form. I did secretly root for “Cloud,” a blue character whose head flips between sad and happy, but “Happy” it was.
The cake was a two-layer 12″ round made from an enriched yellow cake mixture — a boxed mix boosted with sour cream and a few extra ingredients to create a moist, reliable batter. For that version I swapped in six large eggs instead of eight egg whites. When I need lots of cake, I sometimes adapt a boxed mix for convenience, especially before I perfected scaling scratch recipes. These days I often make multiple batches from scratch; my current go-to yellow cake recipe produces excellent results.
To add a bit of surprise for the kids, I colored portions of the batter in rainbow hues and swirled them into the layers so the inside would be playful when sliced. I don’t have a photo of a sliced piece, so you’ll have to imagine the colorful cross-section.
For frosting I used my whipped cream–cream cheese frosting. I applied a plain crumb coat, then dyed another batch red for the outer finish. Why red? My son had been torn between the red “Excited” Kimochi and the orchid-colored “Happy” Kimochi, so I blended color and face elements from both to create a mashup he liked. I used undyed frosting with mini chocolate chips as a filling — it made a great contrast. Hands and feet were Twinkies cut in half and attached with wooden skewers. I colored some frosting black for the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth outline, and filled the mouth with crushed chocolate sandwich cookie crumbs.
And there you have it — one “Happy” Kimochi birthday cake. It might be a one-off, but in our house the birthday kid gets to choose whatever cake they dream up, and this one made my then-little boy very happy indeed.