May Flowers

My middle child Mackenzie recently graduated from preschool. So I needed a gift for her teachers.

This is what I had to work with. What to make, what to make...

Oh yeah, I had some cake pops too. Mackenzie's teachers fell in love with the cake pops last year when they had my oldest daughter Samantha. They were pretty happy to find out they had Mackenzie this school year so they would still have a chance to have cake pops. (they are also happy that they get next year too with my son) So, with some white chocolate covered cake pops that I sprinkled some pink sugar on, I decided to make the teachers little bouquets of flowers. I cut a slit into the circle to about the middle and then punched a hole. I wrapped the circle around the cake pops and tapped it together and on to the stick.

After that I made eight small triangle cuts to create the pedals. I then rounded the edges to make them look even more like flowers.

I did three fun bright colors (we have had a ton of rain as of late and need any color we can get around here).

I bundled them up and tied some pretty ribbon to finish it off. Mackenzie was happy with the outcome and so were her teachers.

So Much in Love

One of my husband's cousins is getting married this summer, and this past weekend was her bridal shower. I was asked if I could make favors that could double as place cards for the party. So I got to thinking what cookie cutter did I have that is approriate for a wedding and big enough to write a name on...

My answer was a wedding cake. After baking and icing the cookies, I piped a white border around the edge. Now I probably could have piped the border first and then do the flooding technique to cover the cookie, but I wanted to make sure that the border was raised higher than the icing. I really wanted it to stand out since it was the same color.

Next I colored some of the royal icing a pistachio green and piped some scroll work in the corner. I love scroll work, don't know why, just do.

Then I used a dab of royal icing to glue a royal icing flower to the cookie. I had all different color flowers to add more interest to the cookies.

Once I had the corners decorated, I wrote a name on each cookie and let the icing dry for 24 hours before I put them in bags and tied them up with pretty ribbons to finish the favors.

Congratulations Erica and Tim! May you have a wonderful life together!

The Blue Bird of Happiness

A month ago, I made some cakepops that looked like birds. I had seen some brownie pops dressed up as birds and wanted to do pretty much the same thing for my bunco buffet and for little favors for a playdate I was having for my oldest daughter and a bunch of her school friends.

I started by shaping the cake pop more like a strawberry then a ball. Then dipped it in blue candy melts (and a few got covered in yellow as you will see below). After they were all set, I mixed up a batch of handy dandy marshmallow fondant, coloring some a periwinkle blue and some orange.

I took little balls of the orange fondant and shaped them into little triangles. Then I used water to glue them onto the front. I used a food color marker to create the eyes of my sweet little birds.

I cut tear shaped pieces for the wings. To make them a bit more realistic, I curved the tips of the wings. I used water once again as glue, to put the wings on the side of the bird.

And there you have it, my blue (and yellow) birds of happiness.

I'm Baaaccckkkkkkk.

Sorry for the absence...it's been a crazy two weeks. First it started with me having gallbladder surgery. I knew I had to have the little bugger out, but thanks to an attack that started Sunday night, and really didn't end until they removed my gallbladder, it happened a lot faster than expected. Then last week, after dropping the kids at school and my Mom at the airport, I got back to our house without power (thanks to a storm and bad driver) in time for my hubby and I to find water in our basement. Yep, that's what you need to find, I'm sure you all agree, to make life calm and easy.


So anyway, now I am back and have recipes that I promised you all like three weeks ago. At my recent hosting of bunco, I made brownie whoopie pies, and that is the recipe I have for you all today. These are so simple to make and you really don't have to be a talented baker to make them. First, I started with some Duncan Hines Brownie Mix. Yep, you heard me right, brownie mix...something I have nothing against and find handy to have in house at all times. Instead of making the normal recipe, you simply take the mix and add 2 eggs and 1/3 cup oil. Stir until just blended and dry ingredients are moistened.


Use a cookie scoop (my preference) or drop by tablespoon on to your cookie tray and bake at 350 for 11-14 minutes, until cracked in appearance and just barely set at center when lightly touched.

Once cool, fill with you favorite frosting. I picked coconut pecan, and turned the whoopie pies into mini German Chocolate cakes. You can either buy the coconut pecan frosting or make your own. It's a pretty simple recipe.

Coconut Pecan Frosting

1 c. evaporated milk

1 c. sugar

3 egg yolks

1/2 c. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. flaked coconut

1 c. chopped pecans

Combine first 5 ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. Remove from heat and add coconut and pecan. Beat until cool and thick. Spread cooled frosting onto one of the brownie disc and then top with another brownie disc to make a sandwich.
So here is your finished product. All that's left to do is enjoy!

With a Roll of the Dice

It was that time of the year again, my turn to host bunco. What is bunco you might ask, well one website I found described it this way... "Bunco is a social event. It's a party. It's a blast!" And this is so so true. My friends and I have a total blast eating, drinking, chatting and just having a good old time. So since there is food involved, I try my best to make fun things to eat and some things I have never made before. I also like to pick a theme, and this time around I went with spring. Since I always have to have cake pops, here are my blue birds of happiness along with some flower apple pie pops.

The bottom plate is filled with brownie whoopie pies with a coconut pecan center. The top plate are little veggie sandwiches.

The trio here consist of chocolate raspberry truffles, orange sugar cookies and a cheese and cracker plate.

And what's a bunco night without drinks. I had ice water with lemon and cucumber slices, sweet tea and then assorted sodas and wines for the picking.

And since I didn't want the table to be all sweets, I also had apricot sweet and sour meatballs and some texas caviar (not real easy to see the bowl of this in the picture, but trust me, it was there).

I did remember to take pictures of things as I was making them and plan to share the how to's in future post. So check back in weeks to come. :)

When the Moon Hits Your Eyes Like a Big Pizza Pie

At about 6:00 last night, my oldest daughter decided she wanted to make cookie pies. I told her we would have to wait until the next day as it was pretty close to her bed time. So today after school and lunch she asked again about making the treat, although this time she changed it up to cookie pizzas. So into the oven four cookies went (and I'm not going to lie here, they were slice and bake, not from scratch) and the gathering of topping began. For our "pizza" sauce we took regular white frosting and added some strawberry sauce to it so it would look a little bit like real pizza sauce. We had shredded coconut for our cheese and coconut M&Ms, chocolate chips, Dots, candy corn and rainbow circle sprinkles for our toppings.

I thought I would show the kids how to make their cookie pizza first and then let them loose to have fun. Here's the begin of mine.

And here is my finished pizza. I didn't want to over top mine as I was afraid my stomach wouldn't be able to handle all that sweet stuff.

After taking turns saucing their pizza crust, the kids went to town decorating them.

Even my youngest wanted in on the act, and wasn't going to let anything stop him from reaching the toppings.

They had lots of fun and didn't fight over the toppings or anything. It was really fun to see their different styles emerge.

Here are the finished pizzas (my oldest couldn't wait to try her's).

What's White, Black and Hot Pink All Over?

Cake pops of course. Bet you thought this was some hard riddle...nope, just a quick post about some pops. Back in the begin of March, my friend Heidi contacted me to see if I could make some cake pops for her Goddaughter's 21st birthday. I thought, sure no problem. But there was a catch, Heidi needed them right away, like in a day or two, and she asked if they could be black and hot pink. I told her as long as she trusted me, I thought I could fill the order. Supplies to make the cake pops were no problem. I had an order coming up later in the week, and had the cake and sticks I needed. My dilemma was the colors and container to display the cake pops. Here is what I came up with on short notice...

To start, I took a cardboard box and glued hot pink cupcake liners to it and finished it off with a nice black ribbon. For the cake pops, I started with the zebra striped ones. I have never ever done any kind of animal print before. I was pretty happy with them and wouldn't mind trying them again. To achieve the black coating, I took regular chocolate and added black food coloring (and shortening to thin it out). I then brushed the pops with some pearl luster dust to give it some extra sass. And the hot pink cake pops have a spiral of hot pink sanding sugar to make the color stand out. Put them all together and you have a fun, sassy cake pop bouquet for a 21 year old.