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!

Snow, snow go away

Late tonight and into tomorrow, we are suppose to get snow. A lot of snow. I usually wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't for the chance that school will most likely be closed tomorrow. And that's bad because I would have one very disappointed little guy on my hands. Thursday is suppose to be his holiday party at school. He has been looking forward to this day, and even though he loves snow, he is not happy about what is coming this way. But just in case the weather forecasters are wrong (please, oh please let them be wrong) and the party (and school) are still ago, I made some cookies to take to along.

I made the Rudolph cookies last year too, and they were a big help. And I must give a shout out to my friend Cecilia for coming over today and helping with these guys. We try to get together twice a month, and I asked her to come over to my house since I had a bunch of possibly needless baking to do. The snowmen cookie is something I have wanted to do and was able to since I had some leftover sugar cookie dough. I will say if I were to make them again, I would make them a little bigger just for effect. I'm sure the kids in Riley's class won't mind. Riley was already asking which one was his and could he eat it now.

Cracked up (again)

Well, it's that time of the year again... Christmas Crack time!! I discovered this recipe last year, and it became a full on addiction for me. This year I thought it would be fun to try some different flavors and toppings.  So far I have made Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Cherry, Dark Chocolate Mint (oh so yummy) and crack topped with toffee and peppermint Andes Mints. If I gain 20 pounds this holiday season, it's all due to this one simple recipe.

If you need the recipe again, here it is...

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
40 saltines crackers

Preheat the oven to 350. Line your jelly roll pan with tin foil and spray with cooking spray. Lay a flat layer of crackers on your pan. Melt sugar and butter together until it reaches a boil. Reduce to a shimmer and cook for 5-6 minutes or until mixture is thickened and all the sugar is dissolved. Pour the mixture over the crackers and spread evenly. Bake for 5-8 minutes or until the toffee becomes bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the toffee. Let sit a few minutes and then spread melted chips over the toffee. To make the flavors I used 1 cup of the chocolate chips and 1 cup of the flavored chips. You can also use the chip mixes by Nestle.

I've got my eye on you

Super quick post this week. It kinds of finished off the crazy October I had, having a cake to make every weekend.

 Every year our friends in Milwaukee have a Halloween party, so I made these cake pops for the occasion. Having lots of leftover cake and buttercream in the house made it pretty easy to do so.

A little pumpkin treat

With the craving of our pumpkin this year, I decided to roast the seeds for a yummy snack. This is something I used to do all the time as a kid, but hadn't done for my family yet. And because I live with a bunch of picky eaters, I thought it might be fun to try some different flavors on our pumpkin seeds, in hopes they might try them.

The recipe itself is super easy. Separate the seeds from the membrane. The website I was following suggested soaking the inside of your pumpkin in cold water to help the seeds free themselves from the goop. Well, they didn't just unattach themselves magically, but it was pretty easy to separate the seeds once they had soaked. I placed my seeds on a paper towel and let them dry overnight. Now for the roasting part...preheat the oven to 350. Once the dried, toss the seeds in 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. Lay the seeds in a single layer on a sheet pan. Here is where you get to have fun. The three flavors I chose were cinnamon sugar, traditional salt and a caramel crunch mix from Pampered Chef. You could really do anything sweet or savory. Place in oven for 15 minutes and then you are done.

I think my favorite are the caramel crunch, although I have to say all are really tasty.  Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!