I Scream, You Scream

Back in June, my oldest daughter invited all her girls friends from her kindergarten class over for a "Girls Party". Since it was pretty much the start of summer vacation and it was warm outside, I made a little treat for all the kids.

These are cake pops shaped like ice cream popsicles. The kids loved them, but that could have been more because they were cake pops, not so much for their shape, and I'm ok with that. :)

Birthdaypalooza

August 14th and 15th are two very special days in our household. They are my daughter's and my husband's birthdays. ( Yep, our first born was almost a exact birthday gift for my hubby)  This year we are having my daughter's party in September so she can have it a a local roller skating rink that isn't open in the summer. I always make a little cake for her, along with her party cake, unless of course her party is the same day of her actual birthday. This year she handed me a sketch of what she wanted her cake to look like. Her vision included several tiers of cake covered in blue fondant, with a cheetah sitting on top.

I scaled her drawing down a little and came up with this. 

I love this little cheetah, and even though she is edible, she was spared that fate and sits on our kitchen window sill.  Her pink spots are hand painted on with pink gel food coloring.

As for my husband's cake, I went with a candy theme for him. (He gave me no drawing for his cake.) The cake is chocolate with chocolate fudge frosting. I then decorated it with peanut butter M&M's, which are his favorite. And I have to say, they added a lot of yum to the cake. :)

Mini Mes

With summer vacation winding down and school supplies bought, I thought it would be a good idea to post some ice cream related goodies to savor the final days. I actually made these treats back in May for my daughter Samantha to take into celebrate her birthday. Being that she is a summer baby, she can either celebrate her birthday at school on her half birthday, or pick a day at the end of the school year. Well, her half birthday is Valentine's Day, so end of school it is. Samantha had asked for cake pops to share, and I ran with that, making them a little on the fun side by having them look like ice cream cones.

I found the mini wafer cones at my local food store.  I made the cake pops like I always do.  I dipped the tops of the cones in some melted chocolate and placed the cake ball on top to help secure it down.

Then after I knew the cake balls were set on the cones, I dipped them into my melted chocolate and topped that off with some sprinkles.

I made the cherries out of fondant to finish the cones off.  The kids all loved them and I had one very happy little girl. :)

When Recipes Attack

So I'm back now. I really didn't mean to take the last two weeks off, but the time got away from me. This post is dedicated to all my friends who think they can never make the perfect cookies like they believe I make. Making treats may come easier for me because I have been doing it for so long. Even before I worked in the profession, I baked cookies and created cakes. It's in my blood...my Mom bakes, my Grandmothers baked, and I baked with them. And there are those times when a recipe just doesn't turn out like I hoped or planned. Even though my friends may not believe me, it has happened more then once. Take the cookies below. One day I felt like baking pretty much just to create something. So I checked out what I had in my pantry and thought Rocky Road cookies would be fun ( and tasty) to make. My recipe was to take a chocolate cookie recipe I have featured on here and then add marshmallows, chocolate chips and cocoa dusted almonds. Sounds yummy right? And they were, but some of the cookies didn't not come out looking all that great. My evidence is below.

My cookies that came out looking nice and ready for the camera.

My cookies who were not ready for their close-up.

See, proof that even trained chefs can make mistakes. I hope this post helps shows that anyone can make mistakes and that anyone can create something delicious and ready to serve. And I hope it motivates anyone reading this to go out and try, experiment and just have fun, because even though the cookies didn't look great, it sure didn't stop my family from eating them all up. :)

A Tasting

Come this October, I will be making a wedding cake. I'm very excited for this cake, as I believe it is going to be quite beautiful, not to mention taste great. It's not that I'm tooting my own horn, it's just I really like what the bride, the groom and their family came up with for this cake. But before the cake can be made, a tasting was in order to narrow down exactly what I would be creating in October.

I wanted the bride and groom to have the royal treatment, as it is their special day, and they picked me to make their cake instead of going to a bakery.

I had four different flavors of buttercreams, one chocolate fudge filling and an incredible raspberry filling I love to use.

At the bride's request, I made a white cake and a chocolate cake, and then surprised them with spice cake.

The balls were marshmallow fondant and the squares were white modeling chocolate. Although the cake will not be covered in either, that decorations will be made from the fondant (bride's choice after much tasting done by the groom).  You will have to come back in October to see the end result of this tasting. :)

Old Glory

Happy Birthday America!!!!  May everyone have a happy and safe 4th of July!

School's Out for Summer

A few weeks ago, I made some cookies for my girls to give to their teachers as end of the school year gifts. My idea for these cookies came from a new "toy" I bought myself and from another "toy" I had gotten myself a bit ago.

The flower cookies were done with a new stamp I found.  The idea is you stamp a piece of fondant, sugar paste or edible paper, and then place it on you cookie or cake.  I decided I needed more play time with these stamps as they didn't quite come out like I would have liked.  I had to hand paint a lot of the detail back on the cookie as it didn't transfer in the stamping process.

For the other two cookies designs, I broke out my stencils. I  simply laid the stencil on the cookie.

Then, using a gel food coloring, I dab the stencil with the desired colors.

And there you have it.  Also I feel I need to work more with the stencils, as I wasn't happy with every cookie.

I added detail with some edible silver dust just to finish off the look.  The teachers loved them, even if I didn't.