Ghost Cookies!

Yes, I attempted cookies again.  But hey, practice is supposed to make better right?  I think I'll need much more practice, but I do know that I'm getting a little better at it?  A little more patient, perhaps?

So, at work we have the perfect birthday schedule.  Annie's birthday is today, Jen's birthday is tomorrow, and my birthday is Saturday! Sooooo I decided to make some cookies for them.  I made a runner for Annie because she's crazy marathon lady, and a dancer for Jen because she's a ballerina. :)  I made pumpkins and ghosts out of the extra dough to bring to work also, plainly because it's October. The greatest month ever.










Now, I didn't get a picture of the people cookies, because 1. they suck and 2. I was rushing.  I was a little more proud of my outlining this time.  I tried to make the texture pattern with the pumpkins but my icing was too runny the first pumpkin around.  I tried adding some powdered sugar to make it a little thicker, and it SORT of worked. You can see it pretty well in the picture!  I don't think I chose the best ghost to take a picture of, as you can tell from the bottom... it is also a bit dark, but whatever.  Keeeeeeeeeeeeeep on practicing...

Caramel Apples

I'm absolutely in love with Fall, and I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to Fall festivities.  :)  First, I love the weather; although this Indian Summer's getting to be a bit much for me.  It's nice and all, but I want my low 60s sunny weather back please.  Thanks.  But anyhow, I love everything about fall, the weather, the food, the holidays. I cannot tell you how much I look forward to pumpkins, candy, turkey and all.  But the thing I look MOST forward to, is caramel apples.  I wait for the day the Walgreens by my house has them right in front of the register, that's when I know the best time of year is approaching. :)

Now, I tried making caramel apples one time, but with caramel candies that I just melted and dipped.  Also, I tried washing some peanuts (because I can't EVER find any that are not salted) and crushing them, then rolling the apples around in the peanuts, but I never really seemed successful.  Well.  Today, I had the boyfriend, Damien, look up a recipe on his iPhone for a good caramel sauce, while I was cleaning the kitchen.  Haha, yes he does help me.  He claims he hates it, but I secretly think he's intrigued beyond control. Anyhow.  I think I dipped the apples too soon, because they were sliding a bit in the beginning but then really started to adhere when I came around to the last few.   You can see for yourself in the pictures!  Regardless, they were delicious!

Toddlers and Tiaras

 My cousin asked for two dozen red velvet cupcakes with.... TIARAS.

 

Now, I originally wanted to make the tiaras all elaborate looking with chocolate, then piping them in the design that I wanted.  But I had no chocolate and I haven't really done that before.  I tried with royal icing, and I just suck at working with royal icing.  I made it pink and piped it, and then formed it around a wine glass, so that it could dry with the curve, but I didn't want them to look so.... handmade, for lack of a better description, and they looked to delicate to remove.  I put a lot of thought and research into it and finally concluded that I should just stick with what I know for now and make the tiaras, which are more crowns than anything, out of fondant.  I just used a star cutter to cut out points and then added pearls at the tips.  Then those looked pretty boring and lonesome.  

So I decided to add wands. :) I was most proud of this part.  I cut out 2 stars for each cupcake and dusted them with gold pearl dust.  Then, I used a piece of SPAGHETTI to attach the stars to. :) That may not be original, but I thought I was pretty smart for coming up with that without influence.

To go along with this little princess, tiara, wand looking-thing, theme, I found my prince charming frog cupcake liners.  They went perfect. :D

So I made the cupcakes with EXTRA filling, because I'm sick of my cupcakes sliding around in the boxes.  I need to start doing this all the time because it definitely makes my life easier and puts transportation at ease.  I let the crowns and wands dry for a day and made the cupcakes, frosted, and assembled, the day of pick up.

After I baked them, I realized I had to put the cupcakes in the box before I frosted.  I've learned that I am terrible at handling them and carefully putting them in the box after frosting, I always end up with frosting on my fingers, which isn't always a terrible thing, but messy.  I hate messy. :(

She asked for 24, so there you go!

Thanks and enjoy!

Featuring My New Stickers

Just some pool party cupcakes I did today featuring my new stickers.  My boxes come in Monday, so keep an eye out for a new post!

 

Using Vista Print, I got my business cards and stickers: (only sticker shown)

More Red Velvet Cupcakes

So, I swear this is the last time I'm going to used boxed Red Velvet.  I was in a hurry to make them today for my boyfriend's mom (her birthday's tomorrow).

SOOOOOO, I decided that in the case I own a shop, my red velvet cupcakes will come with the traditional cream cheese frosting, with chocolate sprinkles around the bottom rim of the frosting, and a fondant heart, or fondant whatever your little heart would desire.  With that being said:

So, they would look like these except the chocolate sprinkles would be around the rim of the bottom layer of frosting.  'Tis all. :)

Baby Shower & Birthday Cupcakes

This time, with a larger order, I was smart enough to plan my time accordingly.  I made 6 dozen cupcakes for this baby shower, 1 of those dozen as birthday cupcakes.  I thought they were cute. :) I used the same concepts and ideas from the previous baby shower that I did with a few minor modifications.  I also used the extra for cupcakes for our block party tomorrow! See for yourself!

My whole week dedicated to these:

Teddy bears on top of smore cupcakes, pacifiers on top of chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes, and blocks and happy birthday on top of red velvet cupcakes. :)

Red Carpet Cupcakes

 Sultan Ghahtani: www.photosultan.com

My friend's daughter's 9th birthday is today and she asked me if I could create cupcakes with a Red Carpet Theme.  Cute as a button. :)  They're red velvet and vanilla.  I tried to be creative with the sunglasses, stars and the red carpet, but I think I just had a ton of trouble getting the fondant red enough.  The sunglasses were pretty tough as well.  Always difficult to do 3D anything with fondant, but I tried.

My First Fondant Cake!

Now, don't get your hopes too high.  I have NO idea what I'm doing.  It's my brother's birthday today and I thought I would take this opportunity to make my first fondant cake considering I was asked to do a two tier cake in August. Oh dear.....

It's a funfetti cake, yes boxed.  I wasn't too interested in making one from scratch since my main focus was the fondant.  I hand cut the Air Jordan symbol and used cutters for the lettering.  I didn't realize how fast you have to roll it out and put it on the cake so it doesn't crack when you bend it.  Welp, now I know for next time!

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Um, these would have been amazing if I was really into cookie dough.  I guess I only really like cookie dough when it's raw, or in ice cream.  I know! I'm weird... Anyways, they were pretty good.  I found the recipe off of Bake at 350, linked on the right, who got it from I don't know who.  Haha, anyways, here they are!

They're a cookie dough cake, similar to a chocolate chip muffin, with a cookie dough center, NOT RAW, and a brown sugar buttercream frosting.  Enjoy!

Baby Shower Cupcakes

My cousin asked me to make cupcakes for a baby boy. I asked if it was a shower and she said kind of... well, this is what I came up with.

Now that left one is SUPPOSED to be a pacifier, caps, bears, and alphabet blocks spelling "BOY" with a star on the sides.  I used a template and printed it on scrap paper for the liners. :)  I think this is my best fondant work so far, with the exception of the pacifiers.. eep.  We'll work on those.

Mint Oreo Cupcakes

I just had the urge to try new things, so this is the first thing that I've really tried to create on my own.  Homemade cake and frosting. YUM. I brought these to work and everyone devoured them. 

And there were so many! This batch made like 36.  And they're so delicate looking.. I loved these.

My First Cupcake Gig: Graduation!

I got my call for my very first paid event.  It was magical.  I had to make 75 cupcakes for a graduation party for my boyfriend's cousin and it was sooooo much fun.  I decided to go with three different kinds so that I made 25 of each kind.  Worked a lot easier except for the fact that most batches go by the dozens... oh well.  Tons of extras to eat right?  So I went with...

Respectively, Red Velvet with a Cream Cheese Frosting.  Surprise, surprise, it was boxed.  I added chocolate sprinkles around the rim for some more color, and topped it off with a fondant diploma.  In the middle is again, boxed funfetti with store bought vanilla frosting.  Yeah not too hard... but those caps were! I adapted off this fellow blogspotter and genius.  Incredible.  Lastly is my FAVORITE cupcake of all time that I found on my personal favorite food blogging site, Annie's Eats, linked to the right of my page.  MAGNIFICENT. :)  Here's a better picture of all three that I made:

It was an awesome experience that definitely opened doors for future "gigs". :)

Happy Easter!

I went baking CRAZY Easter weekend this year.  As you can see...

Funfetti cupcakes with store bought fondant.  Cut out cookies with Royal Icing, again adapted from Annie's Eats.  The bunnies were the hardest to do particularly because of the shape of the cutter.  I didn't find my other bunny cookie cutter that was just of the face until after I baked these.  Womp.. womp..  Moving on,to the right are brownies decorated with vanilla frosting, molded using Wilton silicon baking ware.  Genius, I tell you.

Batman. Need I say more?

So my boyfriend is insanely obsessed with Batman.  I can't really talk much about it because I'm sure he'll see this and will deny everything.  Last summer I bought him Batman cufflinks... yes.. cufflinks.  He'll find any excuse to wear them.  It's adorable, really. :)  So for his 21st birthday this past year, along with several other gifts, I baked him cupcakes with.... well, I'll let the picture speak for itself.

I had to cut those babies out with a pearing knife, because believe it or not... I don't have a batman cookie cutter.  Tedious.. but well worth it.  And because I used a startip to apply the icing and covered the cupcakes so they stayed moist, they formed around the icing like so:

Christmas with Fondant

I've never really worked with fondant up until this past Christmas when I decided that I wanted to take on this new (well new to me at least) way of decorating.  It was stupendous.

I just used store bought funfetti cake mix and Wilton's boxed white fondant.  Easy as pie :)

A few months later, for a friend's birthday I tried different colors.  I actually didn't have purple gel coloring at the time so I used a TON of blue and little bit of red coloring.

I tried this a few weeks later using homemade marshmallow fondant adapted from a recipe off of Bake at 350, liked to the right.

I Love Random Baking Days

My boyfriend and one of my best friends came over one day and we just baked up a storm.  Karla pictured with our delectable peanut butter Hershey Kiss cookies, Oreo truffles with chocolate drizzle, and peach cobbler cupcakes. :) Just sooooo tasty.

It's actually pretty funny because now that I bake a lot more, I don't eat too many sweets.  These goodies were more for them to eat.. the baking was for me. :)

Peanut Butter Cookies

Yum.  That's all I can say.  Absolutely yum.

Butterfinger Cupcakes

Adapted from Annie's Eats (link on the right).

Pumpkin Cut Out Cookies

Recipe adapted from Annie's Eats (link on the right).

Thanksgiving Cut Out Cookies

Adapted from Annie's Eats (link on the right).

My Very First Experience with Cut Out Cookies and Royal Icing.

This was interesting without a doubt.  It was my first try with cutout cookies and decorating with royal icing.  Now, I didn't know or have meringue powder, so I tried with cream of tartar.... I still don't know the difference sometimes, I'll be honest.

They get better, I swear.