Buttercream Swirl

I love simple wedding cakes! I don't know how many times I've said it before.

This cake was made for a small family gathering celebrating a marriage of a seasoned husband and wife joining their two families together. It was a simple vanilla on vanilla cake. 

I frosted the cake with a crumb coat and let it set up in the fridge.  Once the outer layer was covering the cake I began using a small round tipped spatula starting at the base of the cake and lightly started swirling the lines slowly up the sides of the cake, constantly turning the cake stand. I then piped a bead layer around the base of each cake and placed the fondant/gumpaste mixed flower on the top. 

Pink & White Polkadot Cake

I met a wonderful lady through some unfortunate circumstances. I am so glad that we happened to run into each other. Her first granddaughter is almost here. She asked me to make a pink & white cake for her daughters baby shower. 

The cake is red velvet with cream cheese filling, covered in vanilla buttercream and decorated with vanilla fondant. The flower is silk.

Piggy Mud Bath

Bottoms up!

A friend of mine, who has moved to the west like me, had a good old Virginia BBQ birthday party for her dirty thirtieth. The invites had pigs, the tables had pigs and of course we ate some real BBQ pig sandwiches. The tables were covered in red checkered cloth with piggy banks and jars of Virginia peanuts. Good company, good food. The whole party was a blast!

The cake is traditional yellow cake with chocolate frosting ( a Ukrop's fav).

The pigs are made of sculpted pink vanilla fondant. The outer "fence" is Kit-Kat bars stuck on the frosting. The gingham ribbon keeps the "fence" from falling off the cake. 

Classy Black Tie Birthday Cake

This was a classy delicious marbled cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. 

They wanted traditional scroll piping on the sides. They had a red flower to put on the top to match their decorations.

Mint Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookies

 I made these with my son for St. Patrick's Day. 

They would also be perfect for Christmas and Halloween!

Mint Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookies

2 C sugar

1 C shortening

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

1 C sour cream

3 1/2 C flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 package Guittard milk chocolate chips

Cream sugar and shortening together. Add egg. Then sour cream. Mix in vanilla & peppermint. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Then add in chocolate chips. I use a 1 1/2" cookie scoop to place even amounts of dough on parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake @ 375* for about 7 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE! They will not look done when they are done. Take them out when they look dry. Golden around the edges means they are overdone. Let them cool completely. You will have chewy, moist, delicious cookies!

Mint Brownie Cookie Pizza

 Ingredients:

1 box brownie mix

3/4 C shortening

2 eggs

1 package mint chocolate chips 

1 package andes mint pieces (or just chop some bars up)

2 Tbls coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350*. Mix brownie mix, shortening and eggs until it forms a soft dough. It will be very dry at first, keep mixing! Now, I baked mine on a pizza stone because I wanted a crispy crust. A regular cookie sheet will do just fine. Roll dough into one big ball. Cover stone/cookie sheet with parchment. Shape dough into a flat round circle on parchment about 1/2-2/3 of the size you want it to be. It will spread while baking. Bake for about 15 minutes, give or take due to size of cookie. You want the top to look dry and barely begin to crack, then it's done!

While your brownie pizza is baking, melt your mint chips with the coconut oil over double boiler until melted, then set aside. When pizza is done and mostly cooled spread your melted chips all over like pizza sauce. Sprinkle with Andes bits. Let cool until set. Slice & Serve! This is a very easy, fun, rich dessert for St. Patricks Day or even Christmas.

Soft Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Valentine's day cookies!

 Chocolate covered chocolate sugar cookies you say?!?

 Pucker up baby!

Soft Batch Chocolate Sugar Cookies

2 C sugar

1 C shortening

2 eggs

1 C sour cream

2 tsp mexican vanilla 

4 C flour

1/2 C cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cream of tarter

1/2 tsp salt

Cream sugar, shortening and eggs. Then add sour cream and vanilla.
Add dry ingredients and mix well. I like to chill the dough for a few hours or overnight so I do not have to add as much flour when it's time to roll, cut and bake. You will need an additional 1/2 -3/4 cup flour for rolling out, about 1/4" thick.
Don't forget to lightly flour your cookie cutters before cutting! 

Bake @ 350* for 8-10 minutes. 

These will spread a little, to decrease spreading use 2 tsp baking powder and omit the baking soda.

Icing: I used chocolate!

I melted 1 bag Guittard Milk Chocolate Chips with 2 T coconut oil in a glass bowl over simmering water. The oil doesn't ruin the flavor of the chocolate but solidifies after its cooled and is still soft enough that it doesn't crack. Gently place the cookies face down in the melted chocolate mix until just the face of the cookie is covered. Let the extra chocolate drip off, because it is runny, then place on parchment covered cookie sheet to cool. 

Then decorate however you like...frosting, sprinkles, chocolate, etc.
 (I used royal icing on the chocolate)

Enjoy!

Cookie Monster cupcakes

My baby's first birthday :)

This kid loves watching Cookie Monster!!!!

My 9 year old made googley eyes, taped them on balloons

and drew a furry mouth on for our decorations. 

nom nom nom!!!

 Spread a thin layer of blue frosting on a cooled cupcake.

 Using this tip...pipe fur starting at the outer edges of cupcake and fill to the center.

 Add googley eyes.

 Then shove a cookie in his mouth. 

Mine were bigger than I thought (homemade-because my family loves them) so I cut them in half. 

Store bought soft batch Chips Ahoy cookies work great too!

These made for one happy little birthday boy!

Mickey's Christmas

My donation for the Festival of Trees. Obviously I chose a Mickey themed house. I made the pattern out of cardboard first. Baked the gingerbread (leave out the baking powder/soda so it keeps its shape). Made the windows out of isomalt sugar. Assembled the house and began to decorate. The black Mickey shapes are made of royal frosting. All of the white snow, piping, green tree are made with royal frosting. The tree base and chimney are made with rice krispies. All of the red and green decor on the house are M&M's of different sizes. No, I did not make the characters out front :) I purchased them as part of my donations from Toys'R'us.

Camera Cake

 Say cheese!

 Adjust your camera to the proper settings.

 Get your flash ready!

And, click! Picture perfect.

My sister-in-law is one talented photographer! So her hubs asked me to make a camera cake for her. She loves anything golden-yellow and anything vintage. AND she likes clean lines. 

Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, covered and decorated in fondant. The "lens" and "flash" are both painted with silver and pearl sheen for a glossy look.

Black & Gold

This is a December birthday cake. The top layer is lemon cake with vanilla frosting. The bottom layer is chocolate cake with hazelnut frosting. The whole cake is covered in fondant. The top layer has gold brush strokes (they really are gold, not yellow) with gold sanding sugar for texture. The bottom layer is wrapped in three different color/sized ribbons for depth and dimension. The dots are simply black frosting. Happy Birthday Shawna!

Princess Peach

I love when little girls go out of the "norm" and do something so fun! The little girls who got this cake wanted a Super Mario cake, but still wanted a princess party. Yay for Princess Peach!

This is a chocolate cake with chocolate filling, covered in fondant, airbrushed pink and decorated with fondant. I went online and found a coloring picture of P.P. and used that as my pattern for the top of the cake. 

Brown Paper Packages

I was able to help throw a party for the ladies at our church. We ended up having a "Favorite Things" party, which ended up being SO fun! Of course we had to have some 'brown paper packages tied up with string' at the party. So I went to the dollar store, naturally. I found a roll of brown paper, different sized snowflakes, multiple size bells, and some silk flower bouquets. I bought the white string and cinnamon scented pinecones at Micheals. I already had the tea light candles from a previous party (purchased at Hobby Lobby), the mason jars, and the epsom salt (snow in the jars) in my cupboards. This ended up being very inexpensive and classy decor.

For our theme we had each lady bring one of their favorite things to give away; socks, treats, candles,  dishes, gloves, scarves - anything under or around $5. When they arrived they wrote their name on a piece of paper and placed it in a bowl. After we finished our dinner we had one person start the game by sharing what they brought. When they finished they drew a name out of the bowl and that person received their gift. Everyone came with something and everyone left with something. Everyone had a wonderful time!

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

 Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla, ivory colored frosting, and mauve fondant hearts.

I was asked to make monogrammed cupcakes. I thought about making royal frosting hearts and piping the initials in it and having it look very "christmas cookie-ish". I even thought about making fondant hearts with royal frosting letters for a 3-D effect, but didn't have a lot of time that weekend for piping really good looking letters. So, I found some stamps that I had in my craft supplies. I cleaned them thoroughly!!! I cut out one heart then took a smaller heart and made the indented outline. Then I pressed the stamps (each letter individually) very carefully so they were even into the fondant and let harden. It really did not take very long and they turned out looking so clean and classy. Congrats Daniel & Jane!