Whimsical Christmas trees

I made these for our church Christmas party. I got the idea from Bakerella.

For the trees I cut a waffle cone to be 3 inches tall, dipped it in white almond bark then added sprinkles. Once dried I broke the handle from a candy cane dipped the end in white chocolate and put it inside the dipped cone. I had to hold it until it dried but if you don't have to transport these then you can do this step with the cane in the cupcake. I didn't mean to have the trunks (canes) so long but they ended up looking whimsical which was fun.
Bakerella made really cute presents out of fondant to go under her trees but I didn't have time and you know how much I dislike fondant so I came up with this idea instead. Starbursts, perfectly square and yummy. I added the ribbon with white chocolate and a snowflake sprinkle in the center like Bakerella but you can't really see it.



I have made these Ho Ho Ho's before. I had to do something else easy because I didn't have time for more than 12 trees. Since I was already using the white chocolate I added some to a piping bag and piped out a bunch of H's and added sprinkles. The o's are obviously peppermints. Instead of coloring my frosting I used the stripe affect by painting the red and green gel color in a parchment bag. I used tip 1M.
Merry Christmas!!
*Thanks Shan for helping me take these pics!

All things Twilight

So I can't take credit for much of this spread but I had to blog about it because it was one of the funnest parties ever. I loved it!!! I have some very talented friends. When Alicia told me she does a pre-show Twilight party before every movie I got so excited and asked if I could help with the treats. Little did I know just how awesome she and Michelle would make this party.

This was my contribution-vampire cupcakes. I found the cupcake holders at Joann's during Halloween time.

I used this recipe for the cake:

White cake

• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks)unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 large egg whites (3/4 cup)
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Set a rack at the middle level of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter andsugar for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Combine egg whites, milk andvanilla extract. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to butter mixture then add half the milkmixture. Continue to alternate beginning and ending with flour mixture. Scrape bowl and beater often.

Bake cupcakes for approx.16 minutes.

*the flavor of these cupcakes remind me of a sugar cookie

I used this frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting:

6 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter softened

1 tsp. vanilla

4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cups powdered sugar

*Did you notice the vampire sparkles?

This was the surprise our Team Edward friends found when they took a bite. Blood? Close. Raspberry filling.

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

Alicia made these ginger"snap" dog bone cookies for our Team Jacob friends. Yum!

Alicia aka chef master made this Ravioli. When I say made I mean she made the Ravioli from scratch and it was delicious. She used porta "bella" mushrooms. I love it!!

*Have you noticed all the cute signs everywhere. They are quotes from the movie. One of my favs was I'm on a special diet.

*I love how they represented the images on the books:apples, chess board and the flower.

Love the ceiling decor and the fun candles.

This was probably my favorite thing they did. SO CUTE or I should say creepy. Michelle found the labels on line. The blood type drinks were Hawaiian Punch.

This was on the front door. Everyone got a little creeped out seeing Edwards scary eyes staring them down as they knocked on the door. We made these wreaths for Halloween so it was a perfect fit to add Edwards picture to the center.

How can you celebrate the wedding of the year without a dress? This is Alicia's and it was fabulous. I love the calendar shot of Bellla she added.

Happy 3rd Birthday John Taylor!

These were for John Taylor's 3rd birthday. Richann decided yesterday to make his party more simple (I am proud of her) which included changing the cupcakes too. I googled simple 3rd birthday cupcakes and loved this idea.

I traced number 3's with white chocolate and then glittered them with sprinkles. Once they set up I just placed them on the cupcakes. Simple!

I used this recipe for the cake:

White cake

• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks)unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 large egg whites (3/4 cup)
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Set a rack at the middle level of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter andsugar for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Combine egg whites, milk and vanilla extract. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to butter mixture then add half the milk mixture. Continue to alternate beginning and ending with flour mixture. Scrape bowl and beater often.

Bake cupcakes for approx.16 minutes.

*the flavor of these cupcakes remind me of a sugar cookie

I used this filling:

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

I used this frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting:

6 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter softened

1 tsp. vanilla

4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Happy Birthday buddy! Thanks for letting us be a part of your special day!

Happy Halloween!

Desiree and I made these. We didn't want to roll out the sugar cookies so we used a Halloween cookie pan that I got a couple years ago on clearance. I like how they turned out especially the size and I love that I didn't have to roll them out. My new favorite pan even though it took all morning to just cook the dough.

This is the cookie pan we used.

I used mini m&ms for the eyes, a lattice tip for the mummy, tip 10 for the cauldron bubbles, tip 3 for the accents.

Monster Cupcakes

Shan and I made these for the carnival cake walk at church. They were so fun! I got the idea from Annie's eats.

I used one cake mix to make 18 regular size cupcakes and 18 mini cupcakes. Once there cooled add a dollop of frosting to a big cupcake and place the mini cupcakes on top. Then frost your hair, let the frosting set up a bit then add the eyes.

To make the eyes you take a peach ring and wrap it around a dum dum sucker and then use chocolate to attach a m&m for pupil.

*I used tip 252 to make the blue monster.

*grass tip and 3 for the purple guy

*tip 21 for this green guy.

Note: Do not transport these guys with the eyeballs attached. I learned the hard way. Only half of my cupcakes made it to the party.

Popcorn cupcakes

I helped Jill make these for Haley's circus birthday party.

I found these containers at the Dollar Tree.

To make the popcorn you cut the top half of a marshmallow in fours. We used white marshmallows and then Jill painted yellow food coloring on them once they were on the cupcake. If you weren't going to make 50 like she did you could just buy the fruit flavored marshmallows and pick out the yellow ones.

Thanks Jill for letting me do the fun part of these cupcakes.

Missionary cupcakes

I made these for a missionary farewell. They took longer than I expected but it was worth it since this family is so amazing.

I didn't want to use fondant so I used chocolate melts instead to make the ties and badges. I printed a tie image from the computer and copied it onto wax paper using the chocolates. Once those dried I added the designs.

Baptism cupcakes

I made these for Ronda's daughters baptism. Sorry the pictures turned out so crappy but you get the idea. They didn't look this yellow.

Rice Crispy Football

I made this for a football party we had with some friends. I used my 10 & 4 football pan and doubled the original rice crispy recipe. I added brown gel color to the marshmallows to get the football color. You could use cocoa crisps but I think that would be way too sweet.

I can't believe how many times I have used this pan. I definitely recommend getting this one. You can also bake bread in it to make a fun sandwich.

Pie Cupcakes

My ward had a chili/pie cook off contest and since I'm not very good with pies I decided to make these. I got the idea from my cupcake book.

Cupcake Pies

1 box cake mix (I used butter pecan)
3 cups buttercream frosting tinted using brown and yellow coloring to look like pie crust
Pie filling of your choice (I used blueberry, peach, and cherry)
Jumbo muffin pan and liners
Tips: 47 & 103
Prepare cake as directed and fill cupcake liners 1/3 high with batter to create cakes that bake to 3/4 height. Bake and cool. Frost cupcakes smooth. While frosting try and cover the liner with the frosting to prevent the filling from making it soggy. Top cupcakes with filling trying to use just the fruit and not much filling. Using tip 47(smooth side) pipe the lattice. Pipe tip 103 ruffle on edge of cupcake.

Purple and brown

I made these for Melanie's grandma. She likes to give any extra cupcakes I have to her sweet grandma who will only eat treats these days. These were extras from the baby shower. I added a raspberry filling to give granny a little fruit. =)

*You can't tell from the pics that this is a purple. I debated whether to even post this but I wanted to give y'all an idea of how purple and brown look together. I like it!

Edible pacifiers

I made these for Colette's baby shower. We didn't have much time to throw this together so I needed something easy. I saw this idea a while ago and decided to give it a try.

They were super easy to do. I used white chocolate to "glue" two wintergreen mints together. Once they were dry I added a blue Mike and Ike to the center. They were easy and held together fabulously. I waited until after the transport to add them to the top.

You can kinda see in this picture the polka dotted table which was our theme. We used a blue table cloth and I cut out brown dots from the cricket. Easy! It was fun to add the dots to the cupcakes as well.

Thanks JJ for taking these pictures for me. You did a great job in fact I may have to "forget" my camera next time we do something at your house.