It's a brownie, no it's a cookie, no wait...

it's a brookster! Don't worry, I haven't gone off the deep end (yet). This is a real thing created by William-Sonoma. They sell the mix and pan to create the yummy combo of brownie and chocolate chip cookie. I don't have a William-Sonoma store real close by, and didn't feel like paying shipping on something I could create with things I have at home, so I went looking for recipes online. To make a brookster you need a brownie recipe (can be from a box) and a chocolate chip cookie recipe (I used Nestlé's). You will also need a cupcake pan and a little time. First, make you cookie dough and refrigerate for at least a hour. Next, mix up you brownies and scoop them into a prepared cupcake pan. You'll want to fill the pans up only half way, leaving room for the cookie dough. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. While this is chilling, use a scoop to measure out the cookie dough. Roll into a ball, and then flatten into a disk. Place the disc on top of the brownie mix. Bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes. Let cool, and then enjoy.

Next time I make these, I might even try topping them with some ice cream and hot fudge sauce to make a sundae, and really blow the old diet!

I like big butts and I can not lie

What I meant is I like big bunny butt cupcakes. I just couldn't resist getting that song stuck in every one's head. Sorry lol. For Easter this year I was going to make a cake I have seen on Pinterest, which was the backside of the Easter bunny. While in the baking aisle of my food store, I decided I should make a cupcake version of the cake instead. So below is exactly how I did it. It was pretty simple, just took a butt load (excuse the pun) of time.

I made vanilla cupcakes and frosted them with some strawberry icing.

Then I covered the icing with shredded coconut to give the illusion of bunny fur.

I made the feet and tail out of marshmallow fondant and attached them to the cupcake with a little bit of icing.

And there you have it.  A bunch of bunny butts.  Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, I know we did.

Shake your bonbon

For Christmas, I received a small sphere silicon  pan. And in February, I finally got to play with it. My first creation were little cheesecake bonbons. Here's how that went.

First I painted the mold with some colored candy melts. You don't want to use too much of the candy melts, as you will then have a thick shell. But on the other hand you want to make sure you paint enough of a shell to hold the filling.

This time around I used a no bake cheesecake mix. I was short on time, and it was just the easiest thing at that moment. I used a 1 ounce scoop to fill my mold.

Then I topped off the bonbon with the graham cracker crust, trying to make a nice level bottom on each one.

Topped off with a little contrasting drizzle of chocolate, and these little guys were good to go. And oh how good they were!

Sweet Dreams

One of Samantha's classmates had a sleepover themed birthday party earlier this month. Her mom asked me to make a bed cake with seven little girls in it. She sent over a picture she found online to show me what she was thinking of. I based my cake from that photo and decorated it using the birthday girl's favorite colors of pink, red and teal.

Seven little happy faces all snug as a bug in a rug.

 

Her Mom said I didn't need to put all the little details that were on the other cake because she was worried they would be a lot of work. But the devil is in the details right. What's a party without cake and popcorn anyway.

And there has to be a teddy bear for sleeping.

The bunny slippers are my absolute favorite thing on this cake.  The bottle of nail polish and make-up I got straight off the invitation.

At least the cat is sleeping because we all know there is very little of that going on at a sleepover party.

The seven girls in the bed represent the birthday girl turning seven.  I know there were a lot more girls at the party, who I'm sure all slept well that night after the fun they had a the party (well, at least Samantha did).

Twice as Sweet

A little over a year ago, my friend Jess and her family got a surprise of a lifetime when they discovered their family of four was going to become a family of six. Now their twins, Easton and Giana, are one, and I had the fun task and honor of making their first birthday cake. Jess was a sweetheart, and let me have creative control over the cake. The only thing Jess asked for was for the cake to be split in decoration to represent each twin.   I decided to keep my design a secret and set to making a cake for all.

It was fun to create the very different sides, so the twins each had a unique cake.

I went with baby blue and apple red for Easton.  I love the color combo.

Miss Giana got her girly ruffles in pink and orange for her side.

Jess had mentioned that the twins love pizza, and while she was having a pizza party for their birthday, she didn't want a big pizza cake.  But she did think it would be cute if the smash cakes looked like pizzas.  I agreed and made these little personal pan pizza cakes for them.

A Sew Magical cake for Mackenzie

I know it's been a long, long time...ok, let's face it, it's been two months, since I posted here. Must admit, I had a little holiday baking burnout. That paired with my hubby upgrading our computer to Windows 8, and me being afraid to upload any pictures of stuff I have made in fear of losing a lot of family pictures, didn't help. So here I am, finally ready to due some blogging. Back in January, our middle child Mackenzie turned six. Her theme this year was Lalaloopsy. This was a fun cake to put together and it helped that I had a bunch of mini Lalaloopsy dolls to help decorate it with. To make this cake even more fun, I decided to make the cake itself, have polka dots.

 

To make the polka dots, I  made some colored cake balls just like I was making cake pops. I made a vanilla cake like normal, filling a cake pan with half the batter. Then I put the cake balls on top of the batter.

After that, I put the rest of the batter in the pan, covering up the cake balls.

Cutting into the cake revealed the dots inside. I think the kids liked it. I did discover one thing with this process.  You don't want to put too much frosting in the cake balls, which I managed to do.  I think this slightly effected the dots inside when we cut the cake, and they didn't look as clean as I would have liked them to.

The rest of the pictures speak for themselves.  I used fondant and icing to decorate. And of course the mini Lalaloopsy dolls with their pets.

Mackenzie was thrilled with her cake and a fun day was had by all.

Bling it on

This past weekend I had the honor of making the wedding cake for my husband's cousin Luke, and his beautiful new wife Leslie. When Leslie and I first started talking about their cake, she informed me she was not the usual bride. In this she meant the cake wouldn't be covered in flowers. Instead she told me she liked black lace, feathers and all things sparkle. Right away I knew this wasn't going to be like any other cake I have every done, and that sounded like so much fun. I did some research, found some sparkly ribbon, some flowers made of feathers, and some cakes with designs I hoped Luke and Leslie would like. With all this in hand, I was able to create the follow cake for them to help celebrate their big day.

The cake was chocolate with chocolate fudge and caramel buttercream filling, and lemon poppy seed with caramel and a cream cheese buttercream. It's hard to see in the picture, but the bottom layer has a quilted design on the black fondant.  The middle layer is covered in black fondant and rhinestone ribbon.  And the black lace design on the top layer was created with black fondant.  The lovely couple provided the cake topper, which went perfect with the cake.

Once the dance floor was cleared of tables, the candles and centerpieces were placed around the cake, which I thought added a great touch.  Congratulations Luke and Leslie!