Happy Birthday Patti!

These were fun yet took a little time to do.  I do like how the 3 dimensional letters gave these simple cupcakes some personality.  I used Patti's chocolate frosting recipe with a triple chocolate fudge cake mix.  The girl does like chocolate after all!

To help with the chocolate letters I bought this pack of scrapbook stickers to trace so my letters would all be the same size.  I knew I couldn't do it by hand.  These are a great size letter to put on top of a cupcake.

The next step is to melt chocolate(they have several colors to choose from at Michael's or you can buy the oil based candy coloring to make your own colors) in a little squeezable tube like above.  I melt mine in the microwave.  Then I placed my sticker sheet under some wax paper and traced whatever letter or swirly I wanted.  Once they are dried completely you can peel them off very carefully and add to the newly frosted cupcakes.  The swirls were more fragile so I want to continue experimenting to see how to place them on better without breaking or falling.

I used my indulge sign above my cabinets for the platter (it was the only thing that would fit 8 cupcakes across.)  I covered it with scrapbook paper.

Cake Pops!

Danielle, Lisa, Patti, and I made these fun cake pops.  Cassie and I made some for the first time last week and loved how they turned out so I had to make more and try different flavors.  I love how the possibilities are endless with these things, I'm already planning my next ones.  I want to make some for a baby shower using pink and brown.  

We baked 3 different cakes, chocolate, white with about 3 teaspoons of coconut flavoring added to the batter (I just kept adding until it tasted good,) and lemon.  Once the cake was cooled we added 8 oz. of cream cheese to each one and mixed it well with our hands.  We then made balls (smoothing out any big cracks) and placed them on a cookie sheet.  We melted some chocolate and dipped the sticks into it and then pressed the sticks into the balls like above (don't press them all the way down).  We then froze the balls for 20 minutes.  

These are the chocolate cake balls dipped in milk chocolate (we used Wilton melts) and then dipped in crushed M&M's, Health Bar, or sprinkles (we wish we would have done Reese's.)  We then stuck them in styrofoam until they dried completely.

These are the coconut cake balls dipped in either white or milk chocolate and then covered in toasted coconut. 

Lemon cake covered with white chocolate dipped in crushed lemon heads.  These and the coconut ones tied for being my favorite.  Once they were all dry we put them in treat bags (3x5) and tied them shut with ribbon.  We then put them in cups to give away.

A is for Apple

Every teacher needs an apple on the first day of school, and this is my kind of apple. We made these for my son's kindergarten teacher for his first day of school. We baked chocolate cupcakes, frosted them with a red cream cheese frosting, used a pretzel for the stem and cut leaves out of fruit roll-ups. Don't you think the presentation of a gift is what makes it so cute?

Creepy Crawlers

Lisa, Betty and I made these for Easton's 3rd birthday. It took a lot of different candy and different colored frosting. We used the basic buttercream frosting. We discovered that using the no-taste red food coloring from Wiltons doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth since you have to use almost the full container to get that rich red color.  For the butterflies we used an M&M for the head,  pretzels for the wings, and piped on the rest.  The worms were black frosting covered with crushed oreos and gummy worms.  The lady bug's head is half of an oreo with M&M's as eyes and dots for the body.  The dragonfly is jordan almonds for wings and jelly beans for the body, and Whopper for head.  Spiders we cut black licorice for legs and M&M's for eyes.  The beetles were baked in Wilton brownie pop mold, frosted, and we used M&M's for legs, Whopper for head, and piped on dots.  Caterpillar was baked in mini muffin tins, frosted and we used M&M's for his eyes.  For the bumblebee we used a star tip and piped on stripes, M&M's for eyes, and white chocolate covered pretzels for wings.

Would you like some tea?

We made this for the other twin's 5th birthday party.  We baked a strawberry cake and used the cream cheese frosting.  Patti did a Fancy Nancy theme that was out of this world cute and super fancy fun.  

Mystery Cake

Patti and I made this for one of her twin's 5th Birthday parties.  We baked a 9x13 chocolate cake, flipped it over, cut out some pieces to add mystery prizes (money) for the kids to find, put the pieces back, carefully flipped it back over and frosted it with cream cheese frosting.  I loved the theme she chose for his party.  It was like a detective/mystery party.

4th of July Bliss!

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I am so grateful to live in this free country, we are so blessed. I love our flag and what it represents. Doesn't it make you want to put your hand over your heart whenever you see it flying in the breeze? It is a magnificent sight and should remind us of those who have fought and who continue to fight for our gift of freedom.

I got this yummy recipe from my sister-in-law and thought it would be fun to make it a little patriotic.

They are very easy but just take a little time. So you bake your favorite brownies in a small muffin/tart pan for 10-13 minutes. Once their cooled you take a melon baller and press a dent into each of them. Then in a large bowl melt a little over 1 cup of white chocolate melts in the microwave, then add 8 oz of softened cream cheese, 8 oz. thing of cool whip, and a jar of marshmellow cream and mix together. Place the mixture in a piping bag with Wilton Tip 1M and pipe a little on each brownie in whatever design (I used stars and swirls). Then top with a raspberry.