Fancy Nancy cupcakes

My friend Jill, along with her amazingly talented mom, threw her 2 daughters a Fancy Nancy birthday party. When I walked in I couldn't get over how adorably cute and super fancy everything was. In fact I am fully aware that the cupcake stand and table the cupcakes are displayed on are far cuter than the simple cupcakes I helped to decorate. That's why there are so many pictures. I want to copy this one day for my girl. I love the colors, the prints and all the fancy stuff.

Here is the close up of the cupcakes. I used several different tips to do the swirls on top and then Jill worked her magic with the sprinkles. It was fun trying all the tips. I especially liked the "zebra" stripe. To get this look I piped a couple stripes of the black frosting onto the inside edge of another bag then added white frosting trying not to mix the colors to much. The pink and white swirl had two equal portions of the pink and white frosting in the bag again trying not to mix the colors as I put them in.


Isn't this table decorated so darling?

I love how they fancied up the cupcake tower.

Here is a picture of the table. I told you it was fancy. Her mom is a genius at the decorating thing. I will never get mine to look like this but it will be fun trying. I absolutely love the zebra stripe with the hot pink.

It's the small things that all add up. Look at the bedazzled plastic ware. Amazing! Thanks for letting me be a small part of this fancy party Jill!

It's a bugs life!

Rachel and I made these for Ezra's first birthday. We got the idea for the Hungry Caterpillar on the Coco cake website. We used mini cupcakes instead because we wanted to do all the other fun bug cupcakes too.

It was fun seeing this little guy come together. First I have to give props to Rachel's husband for making the leaf that we displayed him on. He cut it out of cardboard then wrapped it in green wrapping paper. Thanks Blake! For the body of the caterpillar we put two different shades of frosting in one bag (trying to keep them as separate as possible) then used the 1M tip. For the head we cut a 6" cake down to about 4" frosted red, cut a oval out of a yellow fruit slice for his eyes with green frosting pupils, piped on his nose with black, used black licorice or antennae and black frosting for his legs. We used chocolate sprinkles or jimmies for the hair on his back.

Close up of his hair.

Sorry for the crooked picture. Don't know how this happened.


The ants were one of my favorites. We used the raspberry candies and just piped on the legs and eyes.

Bee-piped #16 stars for yellow and black, M&M for eyes, dipped pretzels in white chocolate for wings.
Lady bug- Oreo face, M&M eye, black M&M's for dots, frosting mouth

Love this little guy! Cut licorice for legs, and M&M for eyes

This caterpillar was also a favorite. Love how simple this was. All M&M's.

Butterflies- fruit slices for wings, M&M for eyes, gummy worm for body. I love using candy to make a fun cupcake. You just have to add eyes and it automatically gives them a personality. It's also fun to snack on while we decorate. I don't think there were too many left overs this time. Thanks for the fun Rachel. Hopefully you will want to do another cake with me in the future. I promise not all cakes take this much time.

Macaroons

I made these for a baby shower. I got the recipe from my cute friend Liz. They are so simple and tasty.
4 egg whites
1 tsp. almond extract
14 oz. sweetened coconut
6 Tbsp. flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
Mix dry ingredients first with a fork. Then stir in the wet. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Place almond in center. Bake 350 for 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on the edges. Once cooled dip half of the cookie or just the bottom in melted chocolate. Place on wax paper to dry.

I just had to add the pink drizzle to make them a little more cutesy for a shower.

Fall brownie pops

I'm getting a head start on the fall treats. The moment the leaves start falling is when my mind can't stop thinking of all the possible fall goodies. I made these for the girls I visit teach after seeing some similar ones in a magazine.

These were so fun to do. The hardest part was waiting to bake them all in the brownie pop pan. It took 40 minutes x3. The funnest part was thinking of all the possible toppings:

I crushed up health bar (on the left,) Reeses pieces (right.) I first dipped them in melted chocolate and then rolled them in the treats. To get the stick to stay I dipped it in chocolate before putting it in the brownie. I cut the bottom of the brownie off once they cooled off completely so they would sit up without falling over.

I also crushed up Andes mint (left), pecans(right,) and used fall sprinkles for the rest. I loved doing these because again the possibilities are endless.

Baby Shower for Alicia

This was one of the funnest baby showers I got to be a part of. We did a "pop" theme. I got the idea from a friends shower in Vegas and of coarse I loved the excuse to bust out some more cake POPS. The invitations were so cute (thanks Jill.) They had a picture of a bag of popcorn and read "Jackson is about to "pop" into our lives. "Pop" into a shower for Alicia." The treats we served all had the word "pop" in them. POP corn (all different flavors including the caramel balls on sticks we used as the center piece,) cake POPS, and soda POP. The other decorations were simple we drizzled green, yellow and blue chocolate over popcorn and put it in different apothecary jars to display.

Soda POP

More cake POPS. We had to incorporate yellow so we could make the lemon head ones. The big poka-dots are from the big confetti sprinkles at Joanns' (I got this idea from my cute sister-in-law Cami-she also gave me the idea to tie the green stem around the stick. She is so creative.)

Of coarse we had to make the coconut ones too.

Drum roll please...introducing the new cake pop flavor that I have been wanting to try (along with a few of you.) THE PEANUT BUTTER AND CHOCOLATE CAKE POP WITH REESES. It was worth experimenting over. It is now one of my favorites. We added peanut butter to the chocolate cake (We just keep adding the PB until the 2 flavors both stood out.) We covered with chocolate melts and then added crushed Reeses pieces (we picked out the yellow ones for the shower.) A little piece of heaven. This is another reason why I love doing treats with friends. A few of us conjured up the PB chocolate idea the last time we made cake pops. Two heads(or several) are always better than one. This time we(mostly Jill) came up with the idea to try a Andes Mint and chocolate one next time. Oh the possibilities are endless with these fun little things.

These are the cute girls that I got to spend so much time with putting this thing together. They are amazing to put up with me and my craziness. Mindy is all the way to the left and Jill to the right. Alicia,in front, is the guest of honor(who is also amazing and so talented.)
Thanks for the memories girls!

My kind of cheeseburger!

I made these mini cheeseburger cookies for a BBQ with some friends. I wanted to bring something fun and different and remembered my friend Liz doing these once. I looked online for the exacts. They are so easy even my husband and son were willing to help assemble them.
Buns-Nilla Wafers (I used Karo syrup to get the sesame seeds to stick)
Hamburger-mint cookie (not everyone's favorite. Natalie told me her mom would bake a sheet of brownies and use a circle cookie cutter to get the same effect. I will do this next time.)
Cheese and catsup-tinted frosting
Lettuce-green died coconut