Reindeer and Snowman Cupcakes

I made these for Ethan's class party. They were super fun to do but a little stressful. I didn't start making them soon enough so I was running around crazy trying to finish. I wasn't able to get a picture of them before I had to leave and the snowmen didn't like traveling. They were all falling over so FYI these don't travel well. It also started pouring down rain on the drive over and I didn't have them covered very well so they got a little wet. Good thing the kids didn't care and that they were patient with me while I quickly took a couple pictures!

I got this idea on the Family Fun websit. Here is the link:

http://familyfun.go.com/how-to-videos/familyfun-frosty-the-cupcake-762325-v/

These were also on there and were so easy.

http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/rudolph-and-friends-953325/

The only thing I did different was I used the royal icing eyes I got from the Sweets.com website which made these even easier to do.

They were so easy that I made them again for my Primary class. I just omitted the ears and added a mouth.

Frosty sugar cookies

I did another round of sugar cookies for a cookie exchange with my neighbors. I had to take pictures of my new and improved snowman. Everything else I just did the same.

I added his buttons and a scarf made of a fruit roll-up. He now looks complete. These were fun to do and eat along the way. Ethan and I both like it when I mess up on a treat.

Christmas pretzels

Natalie and I made these for the ladies we visit teach and then it seemed we couldn't stop. 100+ pretzels later and I am feeling burnt out. I guess it doesn't help that I'm 3 weeks away from having a baby. I had a great time working with Natalie and I can't wait to do more with her once I have the baby. I vowed this would be my last week of treats until the baby comes.

*For the how to on these pretzels check out my previous posting under Christmas treats in 2009.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I made these cookies for our ward Christmas party. I used the same cream cheese frosting left over from the cupcake cookies.

I just realized that my snow man is missing his buttons, I knew he didn't look complete but I was in a hurry. I used tip 16 to pipe his body and a orange sprinkle for his nose. I just piped on his hat and face with black frosting. I also used tip 16 for the candy cane.
The gingerbread man I frosted with chocolate and used some little candies I found in with the sprinkles isle in a little bottle for his buttons, then piped on his face.
For the tree I used the leaf tip 352 to cover in green then I topped with icing decorations.
I used a star tip for the holly berries then added 3 red bubble gum balls for the berries.
Yea for Christmas treats!

Cupcakes and more cupcakes!

I made these as thank you's for the girls who helped with my fun shower last week (pics below.) I love cupcakes, everything about them. These were so fun to decorate.

I got these cookie cutters at Crate and Barrel forever ago and was so excited to bust them out.
I used this sugar cookie recipe:
2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup butter (creamed)

1 cup sour cream

Combine & beat until creamy. Add 61/2 cups flour and 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt. Mix well. Roll out on floured counter 1/2 inch thick. Cut out with cutter. Place on greased sheet and Bake for 10 min. @ 350.

I used my big star tips to decorate the frosting tops of the cupcake(some I piped on stars and the others I used small swirls to cover) and then topped with sprinkles. I used my lattice tip for the bottom of the cupcake. I used a red bubble gum ball for the cherry. Easy and super fun.
I used the chocolate recipe(see favorite frosting posting) for the bottom of the cupcake and my regular cream cheese frosting:I did a huge batch so I used 2 things of cream cheese and 1 cup butter, 2 or 3 tsp. vanilla, and 8 cups(maybe a little more depending on the consistency you want) powdered sugar.

I am doing my little girls room in cupcakes so they went with that theme for the shower and I loved how it turned out. They were so creative! I loved loved loved it! I love the cupcake banner Mindy did. I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of all the other decorations (cupcakes made from diapers, a huge cupcake that Jill made, and Mindy had so many other fun pink decorations everywhere.) You can see where my priorities are, on the food table!

How cute are these cupcake cake pops they made? I can't help but smile and get a little giddy whenever I see a cupcake. I can't wait to have a girl, this stuff is just way too fun!!

Here are all the girls who helped. Yikes I look huge here! I think I need to go eat another cupcake to feel better. Thanks girls for all your hard work!

These girls were the master minds behind it all. I love you girls and appreciate all you do for me. xoxo

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were so blessed and got to spend Thanksgiving with some dear friends in Lexington. The dinner was awesome thanks to Carly. It was a Thanksgiving I will never forget. I love this family and their goodness.

We had fun with the place settings. The kids and I decorated the turkey cookies.

We stuck candy corn in a double stuffed Oreo, wrote the names with frosting, then stuck this in a open faced Oreo. We used Whoppers for the head, cut orange Starbursts for the beak (used white chocolate to glue on head), and white chocolate for the eyes. We also used the white chocolate to help some of these little guys stay together if the backs of the Oreo came lose after stuffing with candy corn.

I want to remember this cute thankful tree idea. I loved it. Carly used a branch from outside and then cut out leaves from paper. All month they put things on the leaves they were thankful for (she even let us do some) and hung them on the tree. Then we read them over dinner. They were some really creative ones like I'm thankful for bugs and hats.

Thanks for the fun memories!

Pumpkin Roll

Liz this is for you. Sorry it isn't the prettiest looking roll but hey looks aren't everything. =)
Here's the recipe:
3 Eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt

Combine all dry ingredients, stir well then set aside.
Grease and flour 15x10 jelly roll pan (I love the Baking Joy spray that has it combined.)
Beat eggs for 3 minutes on high then gradually add sugar. Beat until fluffy. Stir in pumpkin. Fold in all dry ingredients. Pour in greased pan.
Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Let sit for couple minutes then run spatula along edges of pan and turn pan onto towel that is sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar. Roll lengthwise until cooled.
Unroll spread with icing:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar (little less)
4 Tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Reroll and cover in saran.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble Gobble!

Jill and I made these for Courtney's baby shower. They did a mini Thanksgiving feast. It was so cute. These were fun to do but they were a little fragile so be careful not to trace the chocolate on to thin.

Thanks Cassie for sending me the link to make these. Here it is for you if you want to do it. They are simple just take time.
http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/nutter-butter-turkey-cookie-pops/
I got my edible eyes from Sweets.com.

My little gobbler Ethan thought these were so cool. They would be cute to have on the table at Thanksgiving displayed like this or you could write names on them with the chocolate and use as place cards. I wouldn't suggest traveling too far with these little guys though because they are so fragile.


Happy Thanksgiving!!

Fall cookie cake

I made this for a Linger Longer activity after church today per Ethan's request. It was fun to do the fall theme. I will never get sick of these colors.

I found the acorn idea on line. They were super easy to make. Just take a Hershey's kiss with a little frosting on the flat end and put a mini Nilla Wafer on top of it. Then with chocolate frosting pipe a stem on the top. I put mine in the freezer for a few minutes to set up and then frosted it to the cake. To make the leaves I went outside and gathered some fallen leaves and then used that as a pattern to trace onto the cake.

Still need practice with my writing. I feel like the pictures make it look worse. Oh well I think I will be getting more practice with as much as I want to make these.
Happy Fall!

More Caramel Apples

I was happy to do more caramel apples only this time using fall colors. I love the sprinkles on these. I still haven't perfected the caramel here in this crazy humidity but I think I'm also there. Next time I am going to try cooking to 252 degrees.

My friend Natalie who helped with the apples came up with this new one-mini chocolate chips. They kind of melted on the warm caramel so next time I may wait to add these to the last of the batch. I love the mini Reeses pieces (I took the brown ones out for the apple shower.) They look cute and it's less chopping which is always a plus.

The final presentation. I took some to my doctor's office and the receptionist called saying they were fighting over the apple pie ale mode one. Even with all the new fun flavors its good to know that the favorite is still that one. I think it will always be me and Ethan's favorite as well. Too bad it is the hardest one to do (I hate working with white chocolate especially in the South.) Oh well some good things come at a price! Happy Fall!

Happy Birthday Drew!

I felt so privileged to make these cakes for Ethan's best friend in first grade. He is the sweetest little boy and we feel so blessed that him and Ethan have hit it off so well.
Drew wanted a cookie cake for his birthday party which I have never done so I was up for the challenge. I was so happy his mom trusted me to try it out. I was pleased with the outcome and will be making more of these. I got the sport design idea online. Jared helped make a pattern of a football and baseball (traced half of a bowl) out of paper then I placed the patterns around the edge of the cookie and traced them with frosting. I drew on the stitching of each ball then filled it in with stars. It was so fun to see it come together. The final touch was the wording which I need practice doing. It's funny that I feel more comfortable writing on the smallest of spaces but give me a bunch of room to write and I get all nervous.

Here is the recipe that I used for the cookie cake:
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour maybe less
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ½ cups chocolate chips (I like ½ white and rest milk)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Directions
1. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well.
2. Gradually add flour, salt, and baking soda, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Spread in greased 16 inch round pizza pan. Leave 1 ½ inch border to allow for spreading. Bake at 350 degrees maybe a little less for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool cookie in pan on a cooling rack. Decorate as desired.



This is the second cake I got to do for sweet little Drew. It was to take and share with the 1st grade class.

I used my 10 & 4 football pan and decorated it just like my last one. The baseball was baked in the Wilton 3D ball pan. I used an actual baseball to figure out the stitching and then filled in the rest with stars (tip 21.) I had a great plan to make the chocolate letters that say Happy BDay Drew to stand up in the frosting grass that I piped on. After spending forever piping on the grass (my hand hurt too bad to pipe around the back in case your wondering why it looks funny back there) I found out that the grass wasn't deep enough for the words to stay so they ended up laying down. Oh well I think he was pleased with the turn out. I know Ethan loved this theme and he is already planning out his birthday in April. He wants me to make a cookie cake for sure.

The ball looks a little furry. It probably would have looked better to use tip 16 but that would have taken me another 2 hours to do.

Happy Birthday Drew!!

Graveyard fun!

I got to make 2 cakes for 2 different cake walks this year. Ethan and I googled Halloween cakes and both wanted to try the graveyard scene since we've never done it. I thought I would simplify by making the same cake twice. I don't think simple is in my vocabulary when dealing with cakes unfortunately. I wanted to do more than tombstones and ghosts and decided adding a haunted house would be fun.

I saw this haunted house picture in one of my treat magazines and wanted to try a new technique called color flow. It is a type of icing that hardens to use as decorations. It requires color flow mix which includes egg whites. I picked mine up at Joann's. To make the house I put the picture of the house under wax paper and traced it with the thick color flow then filled it in with the thin color flow(just added water to the thick.) It had to dry for at least 2 days. I also tried to make a tree but it didn't turn out so well.

We cut a small piece out of the cake and added bones to the inside of his grave. Ethan loved this part.

I didn't get a close up of the Barry D'Alyve tombstone. I made a zombie hand that came out in front of his tombstone. I cut the hand out of a flattened gumdrop added black fingernailS and attached it to the top of a tootsie roll by cutting a slit in it. For the fence I just dipped pretzels in black chocolate.

This is the 2nd one I made. Due to the high humidity (it's been raining like crazy) I had to get up at 5 am to assemble this one to get it to school by 7:30. I couldn't let it sit over night. They were fun to assemble but not in the humidity. It's a miracle the fence and house stayed up while transfering them.
Happy Halloween!

Monster Mash!

This was a little Halloween luncheon we did for playgroup. I was so happy that I got to use the monster stuff I bought last year after Halloween. I love how it turned out so I had to take lots of pictures. I love how creative people got with there food! This is what I love about Halloween- all the fun food, cute decorations and kids all dressed up. The holiday doesn't get better than that.

Nutter Butter ghosts, donut eyeballs, pumpkin shaped pbj's

Ants on a log and mummy dogs (the only thing I can take credit for.) I just wrapped hot dogs with strips of crescent rolls, baked 375 for 20 minutes then added mustard for eyes.

Pumpkin sugar cookies, and spider Ritz crackers with cheese in the middle. How did I miss the picture of the guts. Someone made a big bowl of guts. It was different colors of jello with whip cream and a yummy sauce all stirred up together. Yum! Yum!

I just love this cute little monster. The kids loved reaching their hands in here to grab a treat.

I found these bottles last year after Halloween. My friend Cassie found a website last year to print off cute labels to glue on the jars to display as potion bottles. I couldn't find the website she used and ran out of time so I just used these. (not as cute.) I would like to add more to these next year. It was a fun centerpiece to do.


Happy Halloween to all the little monsters out there!