Patty Cakes Bakery

Bun in the Oven Baby Shower

2012-02-03T20:58:00.000-08:00

The girls and I headed up to Utah a couple of weeks ago to help throw a baby shower for my niece Megan. She is having a little girl in just a couple of weeks and we are all so excited (especially my sister Shelley--she's going to be a grandma! crazy!). I saw this idea for a "Bun in the Oven" baby shower and used it as our inspiration for Megan's shower.

First I designed these invitations to be sent out. We stuck with the red and aqua blue colors to have that retro feel, even though she is having a girl.

Shelley's friend Alese made the Bun in the Oven letters for us to use--a perfect backdrop to our present area.

We had a lot of fun putting together our dessert table. Shelley already had the red and white gingham fabric which we put over some boxes on a blue cloth to add some height and variety to the table.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a cake for Megan--a little aqua blue oven with some "buns" on top.

She is due on March 3rd, so the digital readout read 03:02. I covered my 8" square cake with a mixture of modeling chocolate and fondant since I had some of both in the blue color.

Shelley took my cake tops and made some cake balls that she dipped in blue and red candy melts.

The Pinwheel Pops were Sara Lee Pecan wheels that I stuck a sucker stick into. Cute to look at, but really not that tasty. Next time I'm trying this recipe.

We got raspberry sweet rolls and cinnamon sweet rolls from Shirley's bakery in Provo. Amazing. One of my favorite things growing up and still just as good. There was also a big bowl of strawberries and blueberries to try to stay with the red and blue motif.

We made some churro cupcakes that were iced with cream cheese icing and topped with some caramel ice cream topping to give it the look of sweet rolls. Mmmm, they were good. When I say "we" I mean me and . . .

this little cutie. She was so excited to make the cupcakes and help out with the shower. She did a great job with the cupcakes and helping Megan open her presents :)

I had this oven/stove set for my girls already, and it just happened to be the right colors for the shower, so we used it as the display for our churro cupcakes to go with the bun in the oven theme.

Some aqua and red tissue balls finished off the whole look. There is a very good tutorial here for the balls.

We had bread bowls and soup as well. My sister also got the bread bowls from Shirley's Bakery. Heavenly. Some great friends brought the soup, and each one was delicious!

Since the shower was an open house and people were coming and going, we passed on doing any sort of shower games, but I made this recipe box up for people to write advice on for Megan. It was just an unfinished wood box from Michaels I painted and added a little rolling pin on the top I found at the dollar store. I've also seen small rolling pins at Hobby Lobby that would work just great.

I designed these cards that read, "Recipe for raising a good bun" on top and "from the kitchen of" on the bottom. We loved reading all the advice Megan got. My favorite was one that simply said, "Call 1-800-GRANDMA."

We put together a little candy buffet with bags for people to fill up on their way out as a little thank you to them for coming,

All the signs (as well as the other ones on the dessert table) I designed in photoshop to go with the blue and red theme. We taped them to different size round glass jars with some red polkadot ribbon.

We had red twizzlers, cinnamon bears, cinnamon hearts, and swedish fish with aqua M&Ms, chocolate balls, raspberry taffy, and pinwheel lollipops..

I was really excited when I found these little guys in the wedding favor section of Joanns. They were perfect for the candy buffet and so cute.

There were so many friends, neighbors, and family that came. It was a great turnout and Megan got so many cute outfits and gifts for baby Reagan.
And I just have to take a moment and brag about my amazingly talented sister who is incredible at quilting and made Megan this beautiful baby blanket. Isn't is gorgeous?!

(Shelley, Megan, and Me). We are so excited for Megan and can't wait for baby Reagan to be born! We love little girls. Congratulations, Megan!

BYU vs. U of U Baby Shower

2012-02-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

The BYU vs. UofU rivalry is a big deal in the state of Utah and just happens to be the inspiration for this baby shower for my friend Jamie. She is an avid Ute fan while her hubby is a true blue fan. It seemed fitting to have a little football rivalry celebration to welcome their new baby boy Logan into the world.

I decided it would be fun to use baby blocks as the basis for the cake, spelling out the two teams in their colors. They share the U so I did a blue shadow to a red U.

Down the outside there was BOY and on the back side was BABY.

and I had to throw in a little fondant football. Isn't it cute?!

Going down the inside was the baby's name: LOGAN (isn't that the cutest name for a boy? I love it).
At the shower my friends Casie and Melanie went all out with the football rivalry theme.
Melanie made these darling chocolate football covered strawberries. Who can pass up a chocolate covered strawberry? They were heavenly.

There was so much yummy food--game day hoagie sandwiches, veggies, fruit, chips and dips, and more--the perfect set up for the big game.

Poor Jamie had been on bed rest with Logan for several weeks, so we had the shower after his arrival. A few weeks ago we all made guesses about what day he would arrive, how much he would weigh, etc, and Casie hung up this cute poster with our guesses (and she made those cute UofU and BYU baby clothes! Super cuteness). Unfortunately I was not the best of guessers and was off by a week on his birthdate, but I couldn't resist voting for Friday the 13th.

She also did this scoreboard sign with all of baby Logan's info. Love, love, love it.

The table was covered in green to represent the football field with goal posts on either end. (When my husband sees these pictures he'll be jealous he didn't get to go to the shower).

And here is my favorite part of the cake. 2 of the blocks were red velvet with cream cheese filling while the other two were blue velvet with cream cheese filling. It seemed fitting to have both so the guests could show off their team spirit with their dessert. The recipe for the blue velvet cake can be found here.

It was a fun evening with great company, yummy food, and fun presents for Jamie and Logan. Kirsten made this amazing diaper cake trimmed in BYU and UofU material.

We are so excited that Logan made it here safely and we could celebrate with Jamie--and even though she's wearing her UofU shirt, we are still friends.

But BYU is better.

Flowers and Butterflies Birthday Cake

2011-12-20T23:01:00.000-08:00

A flower and butterfly-themed birthday cake for my friend's little girl. You can't get much girlier than that. I got my inspiration here for this cake, and ran with it. I found the butterfly cookie cutters here on Amazon. They come with a variety of butterfly shapes in them.

Adding a couple fondant bows, edible sugar pearls for the flower centers, and fondant bead border upped the girly volume. Perfect for this little princess:

Make a wish!

Her mommy didn't want anything fruity, so we stuck with a butter cake with chocolate ganache filling, and a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling--a chocoholic's dream!

Happy Birthday, Grace! Welcome to the "terrific twos" (for your parent's sake lets hope that is what this year holds rather than the terrible twos :)

Sweet as Hunny Birthday Party

2011-11-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

October is a big month in our household--both of our girls had a birthday. And when your husband's name is Christopher and yours is Robyn, a Winnie the Pooh theme just seems perfect for celebrating these milestones.

The first step in the birthday planning was coming up with something for the invitation. My sister and I put our heads together and came up with this little rhyme:

Eliza and Abby, our birthday girls will Bee

Eliza turning one, and Abby turning three.

Come celebrate with us where it's nice and sunny,

For our birthday girls are Sweet as Hunny!

I chose purple, yellow, and orange for the color scheme, and got busy working on the treats (my favorite part!).

I just had to do 2 cakes--one for each of them. I was inspired by a cake I saw here for Abby's Hunny pot cake. I baked 2 6" rounds and 2 7" rounds that I stacked together with the 6" layers on the top and bottom. Then I trimmed around the edges to smooth the lines together and get the hunny pot shape.

I debated on covering it with fondant or modeling chocolate, and finally decided on modeling chocolate, which I think went on so much easier than fondant would have. Some fondant honey inside the pot and dripping out was painted with some gold luster dust to add shine, and the cake was finished off with some fondant bees that I painted black stripes on with some black food coloring (same thing I did with the word HUNNY on the cake). The bees' wings were white chocolate I melted and piped into wing shapes and glued onto the bees with a little chocolate.
For Eliza's cake I was excited to finally use this Winnie the Pooh cake pan I have had in my closet for years. My husband told me I couldn't cover her cake in fondant or modeling chocolate or frosting that would crust over--he wanted it soft and messy for a first birthday cake. I found a recipe for Marshmallow buttercream here and worked great--never crusted over and tasted great. The only thing I might try different next time is substituting part of the butter with shortening to make it a little more stable to heat (especially in the bag when I am piping).

For some other treats, I made Hunny Cake Pops, inspired by Bakerella's pops, chocolate beehives from a mold I found at Gygis in Salt Lake, and Caramel Pretzel Tigger Tails. The Tigger Tails are made just like I made these zebra ones here, except using orange and brown candy melts for the dipping and stripes.

Our lunch menu consisted of some other Pooh bear inspired treats:

Peanut Butter and Hunny sandwiches

Shredded Hunny-barbeque chicken sandwiches

Tigger Tails (Cheetos)

Rabbit's Garden (Veggie Platter)

Mixed fruit with Hunnydew

I saw these darling terracotta pot hunny pots here, and just had to make some for the party. I used them for some of the centerpieces--filled with purple, yellow, and orange taffy with balloons coming out of them. I also used 2 of them to hold the cake pops, and one to hold the crayons for the coloring table for the kids when they first arrived.

We did a couple of activities with the kids--the first was Pin the Tail on Eeyore, but we started it off a little differently. I sat down all the kids and asked them who had seen the new Winnie the Pooh movie and what all the characters were trying to find--Eeyore's tail. We had hidden all the tails in the playground and each child had to go find one before they could play Pin the Tail on Eeyore. I got the printable Eeyore and tails here.

Next we told the kids that Winnie the Pooh needed our help. He was out of hunny and needed us to find us more. Luckily we all spied a beehive pinata hanging in a tree nearby. I saw this idea here and made a paper mache pinata, that I glued yellow yarn around and some paper bees.

I saw this idea here and made a pinata using 3 layers of paper mache, then glued yellow yarn around it with some paper bees. We made the kids wear my husbands black fleece vest so they could be little black rain clouds as they tried to break open the hive. When it finally opened they found lots of candy, including a few Bit O' Honey's.

For favors, I made caramel apples that were dipped in purple candy melts then piped with yellow candy melts on top for the honey. I painted the word Hunny on each of them with black food coloring. Attached to each were different quotes from Winnie the Pooh on friendship.

Well, the kids had fun, and Eliza thoroughly enjoyed her first birthday cake. It was soft and messy, just like her daddy wanted for her. The end results . . .

Poor Pooh Bear. I think he's seen better days. She might have been helped out by her older sister with this cake destruction. If you couldn't find Abby here, next to Eliza eating her cake you could probably find her here--

chomping down on Tigger Tails. That explains the orange lips.

Happy birthday my little girls! "'Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.'" We love you!

Cute as a Button Baby Shower

2011-10-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you make hundreds of fondant buttons and a few fondant spools of thread?

The perfect components for a Cute as a Button baby shower cake.

My friend Alisha is pregnant with her 3rd little one, and since all of us friends love to get together, it seemed the perfect reason for a fun little shower. Rachele, Emily, and Paige did an amazing job with the whole shower--food, decor, etc. I'm glad I could help out a little bit by making this cake for it too.

The mommy-to-be loves lemon cake, so I made a lemon cake which I filled with a bosenberry mousse filling and iced with a lemon buttercream. I made the various sizes of buttons and spools several days in advance to make sure they were fully dry. For the banner I piped letters onto some of the leftover buttons which were then glued onto some twine, tied to 2 bamboo skewers, and inserted through the spools of thread into the cake. I had made holes previously in the spools using a straw.

Rachele, Emily, and Paige got a lot of their inspiration for the shower from this post.

They made the most delicious pretzel bites, fruit skewers, and marinated tortelinni skewers as well as panna cotta, button chocolate suckers, and button sugar cookies.

The drinks were lemonade in mason jars with those darling straws.

I loved all these little labels. So darling in the spools!
What a fun shower. Our guest of honor is the 3rd from the left on the back row. We are so excited for Alisha's little boy to make his arrival. I'm sure he will be cute as a button!

Fondant Ribbon Roses and Nutella

2011-09-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

I know some of you may have thought that I have gone AWOL with my baking, seeing that I haven't done anything for a couple months, but between going to a couple funerals out of town and being gone on another away rotation with my hubby for med school, baking kind of fell by the wayside. I am back, now, and am excited for some projects that I have coming up.

I finished this one for a special evening last night. It was the General Relief Society broadcast, and our stake (several church congregation groups together) had a dinner beforehand. The stake Relief Society presidency asked several ladies to bring in pedestal cakes for dessert, and I was so excited to make this one for it. It gave me a chance to try out a couple things I have been wanting to make: fondant ribbon roses and nutella-inspired recipes.

So I have made the very real looking fondant/gumpaste roses before--I really do love doing them, but they are kind of time consuming. This time I wanted to try these little beauties, and let me tell you, I am in love with them. Why? They are so EASY to make.

All you have to do is roll out gumpaste or fondant/gumtex mixture thinly (I used the 1/16th guide on my roller) and cut a 1" x 6" rectangle. Then simply start rolling it up at one end and make little pleats on the bottom as you roll. This causes the pretty ruffling at the top. After it is rolled up, cut off a little from the bottom so it is flat and can stand upright to dry. Voila! Beautiful roses in a fraction of the time.

As for my Nutella/hazelnut obsession? Well that stems from 2 trips I've taken--one to Paris where I ate Nutella and banana crepes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 2 days straight, and the other to Venice where I had this to-die-for chocolate hazelnut gelato (I would go back to Venice just to taste this gelato again, it was that good). I have been thinking about those trips recently and have had this gigantic craving for chocolate-hazelnut anything. That is why I tried this cake.

I first made Mel's Kitchen Cafe's Best Chocolate Cake recipe (and yes, it is one of the best I've made--moist and yummy), and filled it with a variation of a Nutella Mousse recipe I found online here. Wow. That mousse is something else. Just forget the cake and give me a spoon and a bowl full of that to eat and I'll be in heaven. My variation is posted at the end of this post (just adding in extra Nutella).

(and if you are wondering about what I iced the cake with--I made up that Amaretto Truffle Icing recipe I made earlier, but substituted 1/4 cup of the butter with about 1/3 cup of Nutella, the almond extract with vanilla, and added a few tablespoons of milk. All in all it was good--not the best, but definitely good; I just wish I could have tasted the hazelnut flavor more--has anyone seen hazelnut extract in the store? That would definitely help)

I was so happy with the final product, and the evening it was for was wonderful, both the dinner and dessert beforehand, and the broadcast we watched after. I am so looking forward to listening to General Conference this coming weekend. If you have never heard of it, I completely recommend listening in. This is held twice a year and is where the Prophet and Apostles of Jesus Christ, speak to us and give us council, advice, and support. I know you won't be disappointed.

Hazelnut Mousse Recipe

1 pkg cream cheese--softened

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2-3 T honey

1/2 cup sugar, divided

3/4 cup Nutella, melted

Beat the whipping cream and 1/4 cup of sugar in a stand mixture until the cream become fairly stiff. Transfer to another bowl.

Next beat the cream cheese and other 1/4 cup of sugar together until creamy. Add honey to your desired sweetness and mix. Microwave the Nutella for about 30 seconds, then add this to the cream cheese mixture and combine well.

Carefully fold in the whipping cream to the cream cheese mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until the mousse sets up.

Birthday Bash and Fried SD card

2011-07-08T15:45:00.000-07:00

I've been in Oregon for the past month--another medical school rotation for my hubby. The girls and I tagged along since I have 3 brothers up in Portland and places to stay and family to see.

My sister-in-law Ellen had a birthday while I was there, and I just couldn't pass up the chance to make her a birthday cake. It was a surprise. I kept it a secret from her for a couple days, doing all the decorating at my other brother's home. This was an idea I had seen on Wilton awhile back and have been wanting to do. It is their Make Some Noise cake idea. It was a super cute idea using 3 tiers of cake. I made my tiers using a 7 inch pan, although they used an 8 inch pan in theirs.

This is Ellen. Love her to death. She is one of the funnest people to be around. Happy Birthday!

Now for my sob story--I took some darling pictures of this cake--all set out nicely, lighting just right, neat angles, etc--and what happened? . . . my SD card got fried in my computer. Yep. All the pictures were gone. So all I have to show for this cake is what others took on their phones. So sad. Sorry the pictures aren't the best. I hope you understand :)

I filled the bottom of the cake platter with chewy sweet tarts. They didn't last long--all the kids kept swiping them from the platter . . . okay, adults did too. I guess we can't blame everything on the kids.

Just a couple notes on this cake idea from Wilton--it uses quite a bit of fondant, so come prepared--especially if you want the white "frosting" between each tier to look thick and fluffy. I didn't use Wilton's imprinting roller for the texture on the swags. Instead I tried the texture tiles from Duff's line at Michaels. They worked ok--not great, but did the job more or less. I have yet to buy and use one of Wilton's textured rollers, so I really can't compare it to that yet, but I'm sure they would work fine.

Have a great day baking, napping, or doing whatever it is you enjoy doing!

Look Whooo is Having a Baby

2011-05-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

As soon as we got back from being away for a month in Boston, I got started right away on a new cake project (it's so nice being home with all my cake supplies at my disposal--I've missed them!).

Hmmm . . . what could I possibly be doing with this owl cake . . .

and these owl cupcakes? Any ideas?

Well, take a look below:

A darling baby shower thrown for my dear friend Rachele who is due in about a week with her second little boy. The theme was "Look Whoooo is Having a Baby" with owls as the main decorating motif.

All I can take credit for was doing the cake and cupcakes. Erica was the one in charge of the event and finding all the ideas. Unfortunately, she went into labor early with her own baby and had to miss the shower, so our other amazing friends finished putting it all together, and we had a wonderful evening together.

I tried to keep the cake in blues, green, and browns to go with the color scheme that Erica gave me. The cake was a lemon cake with blueberry filling. It was truly scrumptious (but I really am very biased towards lemon cake, and you can't go too wrong with a blueberry filling).

I wish I could say my cupcakes were that good too, but I was very disappointed. They may look cute, but it was a new recipe (for a key lime pie cupcake) that I will not be doing again without some huge alterations to it. It turned out very dry and heavy. I'll have to work on that one.

All the decorations on the cake and cupcakes were from modeling chocolate I had made up. I just rolled out the chocolate and cut out my shapes using an exacto knife (except for the leaves and flowers--I had a cookie cutter for those).

Emily found the idea for these darling veggie shot glasses here

And she made these scruptious rolls. Their the "Magelby's rolls" for any of you up in Utah who knows what that is. You can find the recipe here.

These were probably my favorite part of the food table. The waffle cones with fruit is so eye catching and mouth watering. It just looks so fresh and yummy.

These darling punch stirrers were made by Paige (along with the delicious punch). The owls are from here and the idea from here.

And here is the cute guest of honor and mommy-to-be. Congrats, Rachele. We can't wait to meet your new little man.

What's New, Cupcake?

2011-05-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

This has been the month of cupcakes for us. The reason being? We've been out in Boston staying with my brother and his family for the entire month of April while my husband has been doing a medical school rotation here. Since we are away from home, and I am without all my cake decorating supplies, I've focused on cupcakes.

Well, I also got this book several months ago and have been dying to try some of the ideas:
It is the sequel to "Hello, Cupcake" that I've raved about before. Like it's sister, this book is packed full of incredibly creative ideas. Want to see a peak at some of the ideas? Well, here are 2 of them that I did this month:

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away"--what a cute gift to give someone feeling under the weather. They are also the best gift for a teacher, and that's what these were made for. My sister-in-law requested I make these for her to take to her kids' teachers. It is amazing what you can do with a cake mix, mini-doughnut, some frosting, and candy.

You could also give these to someone special with a note "you are the Apple of my eye."

The next one I tried out was this darling cupcake cake of a golf course. I threw it together last minute and was unable to find green cupcake liners like it called for, but se la vi (I probably just totally messed up that spelling).

It was for my brother's 37th birthday. My favorite part?--the white gumballs covered with white non pareils. They are the cutest little golf balls.

There are so many other ideas in this book--some darling, and some quite disgustingly funny (like the cockroaches and rats ideas). This book has made my favorites list, and will be well used in the future.

Sugar and Spice

2011-04-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

Last month I helped host a baby shower for my friend Melanie who is expecting a baby girl any day now. Since it is her first girl and she has been all boy and blue until now with her little 2 year old toddler, we wanted to inundate her with pink for this shower. We used a color scheme of 2 shades of pink, brown, and white--so girly and so perfect for the shower. The theme was "Sugar and Spice." We did a savory and dessert crepe for the meal with a cookie buffet for dessert. Mmmm...let's just say that I was in heaven eating the banana and nutella crepes that my friend Marci made. That sure takes me back to my quick trip to Paris while on study abroad. I was in charge of the cookie buffet. I had found some recipes I had been wanting to try, and of course, they had to involve some kind of pink. The first was a recipe I found here on Bakerella's site. I bought a few bags of the valentine's M&Ms in February so I could do these. Yes, they did come with red ones too. And darn-it-all, they just didn't match so I had to get rid of them...oh, don't worry, I didn't let them go to waste ;). I discovered the key to baking these cookies so they look good and colorful--when making up the cookie dough, save a handful of M&Ms out. When you roll the dough into balls and put them on your cookie sheet, stick a few more M&Ms around the top. Those will then stay on top of the cookies when they back, so you can actually see the pinks and whites.

The other 2 were a Meringue drop that I colored half of them pink and left the other white, and a Chocolate Crinkle cookie that I rolled in pink powdered sugar before baking. I had some difficulty getting the powdered sugar pink, but with some determination and a ziplock back full of powdered sugar and some pink food coloring paste, I finally got it pink.

What else goes better with cookies than some milk? I loved how this matched the whole color scheme.

We had such a fun time visiting together and seeing all the cute, girly baby clothes that Melanie received. With 2 girls of my own, it's safe to say we love pink around here.

Dinosaur Birthday Cake

2011-03-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

It was birthday time again. This time for my friend Melanie's little boy. It was a dinosaur themed party, using the colors red, lime green, and light blue. I wish I could claim this as an original design, but for this cake I went to google images for inspiration and fell in love with a cake from the Artisan Cake Company in Portland, OR, and I ended up making one similar to it.

As you can tell from my last few cake adventures, I have fallen in love with making and using modeling chocolate. This time I molded my dinosaurs and trees out of it. I feel like a kid playing with Play-doh sometimes. Everytime I work with the stuff my older daughter wants to "play Play-doh" too (although she wants to use mine because she's discovered that the stuff actually tastes good).

I have to admit that my triceratops was my favorite of all the little guys that I made. Too bad they're not still around. I'd want one as a pet :) The sand was made from crushed up graham crackers--pretty good sand, but two days after doing this I saw on Cake Boss that they use brown sugar for sand. Duh--that would have looked so great if I would have thought of that earlier. Next time, I guess.

I know, I know--my little sea creature/loch ness monster dude isn't really a dinosaur, but he was just too cute that I had to include him. You see him eyeing that little cake?! He brought his appetite with him.

I found the trick to the waves was to ice that part of the cake in blue, then put dollups of white icing next to the edge of the blue, and using a small angled cake spatula, pull the white down and into the blue.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Andersen! Here's to another great year.

Valentine's Chocolate Box Brownie

2011-02-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

This year I wanted to surprise my wonderful husband with something. I saw a similar idea to this a while back on Bakerella's site, and decided that with a few tweeks, this would be perfect for him. Here is how I did it:

I started off by making some red modeling chocolate out of a bag of red Wilton candy melts and corn syrup. It is super easy to make and great to work with. I decided to do this instead of using red fondant as directed in Bakerella's instructions because I can make it myself for cheap, and get a really rich red color. I also haven't found a good recipe yet to make homemade red fondant that is really red, and I hate spending so much on a little amount of fondant at the store. You can find the recipe at the end of the post.

I rolled out my red modeling chocolate about 1/8" in thickness and cut one heart the size of my heart cake pan, and one about 1/2" larger around. The easiest way to do this is roll it out on wax paper, then trace the heart on another piece of wax paper in both sizes needed, cut out the heart, lay it on the modeling chocolate, then use a knife to cut it out.

This can be done a few days in advance, and left on the wax paper until needed.

You then need to bake your cake in the heart pan--whatever flavor you want--or if your husband doesn't like cake you can do as I did and bake . . .

a yummy heart shaped brownie. Delicious. Level it off and place it on top of the larger modeling chocolate heart. Now if that doesn't look good enough, just wait . . .

Yes. Ganache. Everything tastes better with ganache. I made up a batch to act as my icing to glue things together. You can use frosting if you want, but nothing is much better than some rich ganache.

Carefully spread it over the top and sides of the brownie. The sides can be a wee bit tricky, so do those especially carefully. It doesn't require a lot of ganache, so if you are like me and make a full batch, you may have a lot left over. Put it to some good use. I recommend microwaved smores with a layer of it as your chocolate. Mmmmm.

Next place the smaller red heart on top. The ganche will help it stick to the brownie.

For the sides of the box, roll out the rest of the modeling chocolate into a long strip.

Cut a band long enough to wrap around the entire brownie, and wide enough so that it sits up about 1/2" higher than the box. Then starting at the top center of the heart wrap the piece around the entire box and cut off the excess. The seam smooths together quite well with the modeling chocolate.

And there you have a completely edible Valentine's box. Now what to fill it with? . . .

Well, I decided that if it was going to be for my husband, it would have to be one thing--chocolate covered strawberries. His favorite. These are quick to make. Just a bunch of washed and dried strawberries (really dried--we don't want any water ruining our chocolate), and some more candy melts--this time white and cocoa colored. Melt them according to the pkg. instructions and dip away. Once they've hardened you can decorate with the other color. I found that an easy way to do this is pour the chocolate into a ziploc bag, seal, and snip a TINY hole in one of the corners. Then all you do is squeeze while moving you hand back and forth.

Oops. That one in the center got a little too much . . . I might have done that on purpose. I mean really--I can't just let my messups go to waste.

Fill the box with the best ones. Do what you like with the rest. That shouldn't take too much imagination :)

A Valentine's treat sure to put a smile on his face.

Well, we had a great Valentine's Day. My 2 year old wanted to make something for daddy too, so we used up the rest of the brownie batter to make a small brownie heart that we covered in lots of ganache, and she went to town on decorating.

Isn't her creation beautiful? She had a blast decorating it, and her daddy LOVED it.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Modeling chocolate recipe:

1 140z pkg wilton candy melts

1/3 cup light corn syrup

Melt the candy melts according to pkg instructions. When all melted stir in corn syrup and stir until all incorporated. Turn out onto some wax paper and let set up for a couple hours, then wrap in saran wrap and store at room temp until needed. Usually works better if you make it up at least a day before hand.

When ready to use it start kneading it until it is smooth and can be rolled out. It may be pretty hard at first so you might need to knead a little at a time until it is pliable and easy to use. Sprinkling a little cornstarch on your surface will help prevent it from sticking. I like to roll it out on wax paper for that purpose too.

It can be stored for several weeks at room temp.

Tangled

2011-02-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

I got to do a Tangled/Rapunzel themed cake this week for a friend's daughter who was turning 4. I have to say, I had a lot of fun making this cake. I got to try a few new techniques that I have been wanting to do, and had fun learning as I went along.

What would a Rapunzel cake be without the tower? I molded this tower out of rice krispy treats, and covered it in modeling chocolate. I heard on Cake Boss one time that modeling chocolate is definitely something good to have in your "arsenal of cake decorating methods"--and now I see why. It is easy to smooth out seams when covering something, and is great for molding shapes and objects.

This was my favorite part of the cake--the quaint rock bridge--also made out of modeling chocolate. Can I have one in my backyard? Blue piping gel over a blue piece of fondant made a very real looking river.

The cascade of hair was fondant with gumtex. I put some wire in it to give it a little more structure. I tried texturing it a little with a razor blade to make it seem a little more like hair, then brushed it with some gold luster dust.

The trees were also a modeling chocolate experiment. It worked. I just wish I would have thought earlier to make a little "Wanted" poster for Flynn Rider to stick on one of them.

A few final touches with some candy rocks, piped grass, and fondant flowers made it a fairy tale ending.

Amaretto Truffle Icing and fondant flowers

2011-01-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

I LOVE chocolate. Seriously, whoever said diamonds were a woman's best friend obviously was a man, because being a woman, I beg to differ--I think it is chocolate. I honestly don't know how I went 5 WHOLE YEARS without eating chocolate because of a bet with a good friend. Those definitely were years of sacrifice for me (and would you know I just received a letter from my friend indicating that she is on year 11 of no chocolate--can you say WILLPOWER?!)

Well, the past couple months have been hard--I am again off chocolate, this time because of my darling baby girl, who gets very fussy when I do eat it. Let's just say the holidays were very difficult--there was chocolate everywhere--but I resisted . . . until I got this book from my dad:

OK--that is a title I want put on vinyl lettering and plastered on my kitchen wall. There are soooo many amazing looking recipes in here that I just had to start trying them.

In this project I tried 2 of them. The cake was the Sinful Chocolate Cupcakes recipe and the icing was the Amaretto Truffle Icing recipe. Both looked delicious. I was slightly disappointed with the cupcake recipe, but then again all I had on hand was fat free sour cream, and it called for the fat-full stuff, so I'm guessing that may have had something to do with it. Still, not bad (but I am bound and determined to one day find the most perfect chocolate cake recipe, and will try recipe after recipe until I do).

On the other hand the Amaretto Truffle icing was delicious--and rich. Very rich. I love almond flavoring, so this hit the mark for me. It's kind of a mix between chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream with a dash of almond. Definitely a keeper.

So I combined these two recipes into this birthday cake for a friend. Yes, I gave it away, and didn't eat it all (lucky for my baby I just tasted the cut off cake top with some icing for critique purposes :)

Then I whipped up a batch of marshmallow fondant to make my colorful flowers (recipe at end of post). I mixed in some gumtex with it to make it more of a gumpaste so my flowers would harden a little more).

These flowers were simple to make. I just used the medium flower cutter from my Wilton fondant rose cutters set (although another flower cutter would work just as well I presume). Just roll out your fondant/gumtex mixture, cut the flowers out (and use a knife to cut into them a little more so the petals will separate a bit more), and dry them in some tinfoil molded into a cup shape. I used my large lily nail to press my foil part way down to make the cup shape. Allow to dry (give a couple days at least--I only did one day and mine didn't harden as much as I wish they had--maybe I should have used more gumtex too). Rolled up balls of fondant can be glued in the center of the flowers with a little clear vanilla extract.

Just put the flowers where you like for a beautiful finished cake. Yum. Did I mention I love chocolate? Only 9 more months until I can really eat it again . . . but who's counting?

(I recommend checking out that book Chocolate Never Faileth. Unfortunately due to copywrite I can't reproduce the recipes here for you).

Marshmallow fondant

1 package (16 ounces) Kraft white mini marshmallows
2-5 Tbsp water
2 pounds (about 8 cups) sifted confectioners' sugar
1 tsp clear flavorings (vanilla, butter, almond) optional

Melt the marshmallows and 2T water in a greased microwavable bowl in 30 sec increments, stirring between until mixture is melted. At this point you can add in your flavoring if you want.

Place 1/2 of your powdered sugar in a pregreased Kitchenaid with greased dough hook attached. Pour marshmallow mixture over top (and scrap out all using a spatula). Knead fondant on medium speed. Continue adding powdered sugar in 1/2 cup increments until fondant is not sticky. By the end I usually have to knead a little bit more sugar in by hand on a well-greased surface. The amount of powdered sugar you need may vary depending on the humidity of where you live.

It should be done when it is pliable and non-sticky. I like to wrap mine in a couple of layers of saran wrap and let it rest for a couple of hours before using it. It can be stored for at least a month if coated with a thin layer of crisco, wrapped tight in plastic wrap, sealed in a ziploc bag, and stored in an airtight container.

Cupcake slippers

2010-12-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

Guess what we found in my daughter's stocking Christmas morning--yep, these darling slippers. I just had to show you. Cupcake slippers--perfect for her--a girl that spends a majority of her day pretending to bake cupcakes in her little kitchen. She must be my child--obsessed with cupcakes and cakes. I just wish they made them in my size too!

(These are from The Children's Place in case anyone out there falls as in love with them as much as I did when I saw them).

Deck the Hall with lots of Cupcakes, fa la la la la. . .

2010-12-19T17:41:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful time of the year. I can't help but smile just thinking of the Christmas season during the year, and when this season finally comes, I get so excited for all the many fun activities to do and treats to make. I have to admit, this year I haven't done as much with regards to making treats. I'm still trying to adjust to having 2 children from 1 (did I tell you yet?!--We were blessed with another adorable baby girl the end of October-6lbs and a head full of brown curly hair--we sure have a lot to be thankful for this season especially).

I did find some time to make these cute ornament cupcakes for a Relief Society activity. It was an idea I got from Hello, Cupcake. Pretty simple to make, and totally adorable.

I chose to use my jumbo cupcake pan instead of the normal cupcake size (well, I was kind of forced to do that--I realized the night I was making them that I only had jumbo cupcake liners in my stash, and I just didn't want to go to the store), but I really liked how the jumbo size worked well with this idea. Just frost, roll in some decorating sugar, and decorate with twizzler pull and peels, mini M&Ms, spice drops, fruit rollups, and whatever else you have on hand and voila--cupcakes fit for a tree (although I don't recommend decorating your tree with them.

One tip I learned (the hard way)--it is much easier cutting the fruit rollup into the shapes you need if you leave it on the plastic wrap it came on while cutting. Happy decorating and a very Merry Christmas to you!

Pie Night

2010-11-26T18:27:00.001-08:00

During this holiday season, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite family traditions--Pie Night. Yep--an evening dedicated completely to eating pie (you can't get much better than that!)

It all started many years ago when my mother got tired of spending so much time making so many wonderful pies for Thanksgiving, only to have them go uneaten because we all were too full after our Thanksgiving feast to eat any pie. She didn't want her hard work to go unnoticed (and uneaten), so we started having Pie Night. The night before Thanksgiving, all our immediate and extended family that was around would get together and eat Mom's pies. It expanded year after year from a few pies to a couple dozen, as all the sisters and aunts would make pies too to bring. It has become a true Pie Feast.

We have shared this tradition with our friends the past few years since we are away at medical school and have been unable to travel home for Thanksgiving. It has become a tradition that they too look forward to each year.

The fun part is to see (and taste) all the different varieties of pies that people bring. Every year I make a few different pies for the night, but each year there is one recipe that I always make--one that I was introduced to while on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints down in southern Texas. It is called Crunchy Carmel Apple Pie (recipe from the bhg.com website). I wanted to show you a simple, yet cute technique to dress your pies up using this recipe (minus the pecans--we aren't huge nut fans here).

This pie has a streusel-type top, so I couldn't do any decorating with a pie-crust top, but I decorated the rim of the pie by simply cutting out little leaf shapes from an extra 1/2 batch of pie crust that I made.

Just layer the leaves around the edge of the pie before baking.

Then wrap the edges with tinfoil for the first half of the baking time so they don't get overly browned.
You'll end up with an interesting and decorative edge to your pie. And for those of you with young kids, it is a great way to get them involved in the baking process. My daughter loves to help me cut out the shapes with our cookie cutters.
Don't forget the caramel sauce on top before serving! Maybe a few of you out there will try this tradition next year with your family. I offer one suggestion: cut small slices--then you will have room to try all the yummy kinds of pie.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving, full of family, friends, and an outpouring of gratitude for all the blessings we have been given. Have a safe Christmas holiday season, and never forget the true reason for the season--the birth of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Minnie Mouse Birthday Party

2010-10-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it--my little girl is 2 (well, as of this Sunday). Where does the time go? We threw her a Minnie Mouse birthday party last weekend to celebrate--a little before her birthday but I'm just getting a little too pregnant, and didn't want to risk having a baby when her party was scheduled for.

Ever since we went to Disneyland in April and her Grammy bought her a Minnie Mouse doll, she has been obsessed with Minnie Mouse. I saw this idea of combining a Minnie Mouse theme with zebra and LOVED it--especially because my little girl loves animal print too.

I was super excited to try making these different Minnie treats. Continue below for tips on making the Minnie Caramel Apples, Minnie Cake Pops, Minnie Mouse cake (with a zebra cake batter) and Zebra Pretzels.

Before you can have a party, you need invitations. I designed these in photoshop, and added a little bow on the head after printing them. If you want to use this design for your own personal use (no commercial use) feel free to use my file found here.

I also found a pattern for these darling Mickey/Minnie Zebra party hats online here. It just takes a little time printing them, cutting them, and sticking in the ears, but they are super cute.

Minnie/Zebra Birthday Cake:

I had seen this idea a while ago that I have been wanting to try--Zebra Cake batter. When you bake it and cut into the cake, it is supposed to have zebra-looking stripes. All you do is make a vanilla cake batter, divide it into two portions, and add cocoa powder to one of the portions making it brown. I also added pink to the other portion to have some pink to go along with the party, but I think it would have turned out a little better leaving it the cream color it is originally.

How you put it in the pan is the trick. After greasing and flouring a pan (and if you are me, putting parchment paper down too because you're extra paranoid your cake will stick), you start layering the cake batter. Start by putting 3 TBSP of one color down in the center of the pan and allow to start spreading on it's own. Then pour 3 TBSP of the next color on top. It will spread out on it's own, and cause the layer underneath to spread out too. Continue alternating colors pouring 3 TBSP back and forth.

After using up all the batter, you should end up with something like this in your pan.

Once you bake it, and cut into it, there should be a zebra-ish pattern. I wasn't too happy with how mine turned out. I was hoping for a little better design, but I had fun trying. To see a great version of the zebra cake as well as the recipe I used, go here.

Decorating the actual cake was my favorite part. I made the head out of rice krispy treats using a sports ball pan, and covered it in the black chocolate fondant I had left over from a previous cake. The ears and bow were just a fondant/gumtex mixture that I allowed to dry hard before sticking in the head. The rest of the fondant detailing is pretty self explanatory. I loved my little girl's reaction when she saw the cake for the first time. She kept yelling "Minnie Cake!" over and over.

Minnie Mouse Caramel Apples:

I saw a show about Mickey treats they make at the Disney Parks during the summer, and one of the items they make were Mickey and Minnie caramel apples. I just had to try them myself.

Before anything, you need to prepare your apples. Thanks to my friend Alisha, I found out what that actually meant. There is a layer of wax on the apples from the store. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and quickly dip the apples into the water, then wipe off the wax. This will allow the caramel to stick better. I used 6" dowel rods that I sharpened at one end as my apple sticks.

Next comes the dipping in caramel. Melt some caramel in a double boiler. I used some homemade caramel I had made earlier. That recipe can be found at the end of this post. Dip the apples, then put in the fridge to set while you prepare your chocolate.

Now here is where I varied from what I saw on the show. They stuck marshmallows on caramel for Minnie's ears. I tried that . . . and they kept falling off. So I tried using some leftover melted chocolate from my cake pops to glue them on . . . only about half worked. Finally I resorted to using toothpicks. I am so glad I did. It made the dipping in chocolate a lot easier--I didn't have to worry about ears falling off.

Melt a few bags of dark chocolate candy melts. I didn't have enough to actually dip the whole apple in, so I resorted to pouring the chocolate over each apple in a glass bowl using a liquid measuring cup, allowing excess to drip off, and then pouring the remaining chocolate back into my glass measuring cup to do all over again with the next apple.

To do the skirt you will need 3 things--white candy melts, melted, white candies (I used the York peppermint pieces--you'll have to figure out what to do with all the blue ones leftover . . . that shouldn't be too hard. . . yum!), and pink sanding sugar.

Dip the bottom of the apple in the white chocolate, place the candies in the chocolate, then pour the sugar over and allow the excess to fall off.

Add a little bow, and voila--Minnie Mouse Caramel Apples.

Minnie Cake Pops:

I found this idea on Bakerella's website. They are cake balls on a stick with candy melts as ears dipped into chocolate. Luckily I found some black candy melts at Michaels since it is Halloween time. (You can dye dark chocolate melts black, but beware--the Wilton black food coloring contains water and may make your chocolate seize up. I've run into that problem before.) These were a little more difficult than I expected--ears kept falling off and chocolate was kind of thick and hard to get the excess off--but I managed to get a few descent ones.

For full directions, see Bakerella's instructions here.

And last, but not least . . .

Zebra Caramel Pretzels:

My husband and I love to make these chocolate caramel pretzels for Christmas presents, we usually sprinkle crushed up butterfinger or skor bar on top, but I changed it up a little to get a zebra look.

First take some of the homemade caramel, roll it out into ropes, and wrap it around your pretzels (I like the Snyders of Hanover pretzels).

Next, dip in white chocolate and allow to dry. In the meantime, melt some black chocolate melts and put in a ziplock bag. Snip a tiny portion of the corner, and drizzle over your pretzels to make look like zebra stripes.

Super cute, and super yummy!

Add some containers with matching candy, and you are ready to go--a Minnie-Zebra dessert table.

Now, I can't end without showing you a couple pictures of my cute girl. Here she is with her cake saying she is "2."

And here are all the kids. Let's just say it was quite an adventure trying to get them all to wear their hats and sit down at the same time for a group shot. This was the best we could do. They sure are a fun group of kids, though.

Homemade Caramel Recipe:

This is a recipe adapted from the Licorice Caramel Recipe found in Candymaking by Kendrick and Atkinson

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 cups corn syrup

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

Butter a 9-inch square pan and set aside. In a large saucepan combine the sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup, butter, sugar, and salt. Plac over medium heat ad stir until well combined.

Clip on candy thermometer, and cook, stirring constantly to a firm ball stage (242F if at sea level, 232F in Salt Lake/Provo area, and 237F in Las Vegas area--if you live somewhere else you'll have to do the boiling water test to find out the difference between the boiling temperature at your location vs. sea level to adjust). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour into pan and allow to stand at room temp over night.

Watermelon Cookies

2010-09-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

After making the watermelon cupcakes, I really wanted to try some watermelon inspired cookies. I saw this idea on the Taste of Home website, and with a couple changes, came up with these cookies.

(See dough recipe at bottom of post)

After making up the cookie dough, take 1 cup out, and dye the rest red (I used the Wilton no taste red coloring). Roll the red dough into a cylinder shape, about 3 1/2 to 4 inches long. Wrap tight in saran wrap and refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours--or you can pop it in the freezer to speed things along).

Split the remaining cup of dough into 2 portions and dye one of them green, leaving the other half plain. Roll each into a ball, wrap in saran wrap, and refrigerate until firm (1-2 hrs).

After chilling dough, roll out the plain dough into a rectangle on waxed paper approx. 8 1/2-9 inches long and as wide as the red dough log. I used my fondant roller to get equal thickness of the dough. Carefully wrap the plain dough around the red dough. Wrap back up in saran wrap and refrigerate until firm again.

Do the same with the green dough, but this time roll it out approx. 10 1/2 inches long.

Wrap it around the other two colors, trimming excess. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight, so dough is very firm.

When dough is adequately firm, unwrap it and slice it with a sharp knife, making each slice approx. 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. You can either put them on a cookie sheet as a circle, or cut each in half to form half-circles.

Add mini-chocolate chips to the watermelon slices.

Bake at 375F for 6-8 minutes, until cookies are firm but not brown. If you baked them at whole circles, take the edge of a metal spatula, and cut them in half while warm. If you did the half-circle, you may want to take the spatula and cut off a little bit to have a very straight looking top.

Cool on a cookie rack and ENJOY! These are almost too cute to eat . . . but then again, they are cookies, so who can resist

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, cubed
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Red and green food coloring
mini chocolate chips

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Beat in extract. Combine the flour, salt and baking powder; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well; set aside.

Baby Under Construction

2010-09-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun making this cake for my friend Marci's baby shower. A few of our other friends threw the shower for her, using this theme: Baby Under Construction. When I heard what the theme was, the wheels in my head started turning, and this cake is pretty much exactly like my original sketch.

I had two tiers: a 12" square base and 6" square top. I cheated and only did rice crispy treats for the bottom tier (that would have been way too much cake for us to eat). I knew that I needed some brown and black fondant. I didn't have either on hand, nor did I want to run out to the cake supply store and spend a fortune on it, so I decided to make up some marshmallow fondant. I had found a recipe online for chocolate marshmallow fondant, that promised I could get very black fondant from it by only adding 1-2 tsp black food coloring. I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical--true black is usually so hard to get--but I was very pleasantly surprised. I'll post the recipe for it at the bottom of this post.

I put one recipe of the chocolate fondant to use by covering both tiers in it, them my second recipe (which I turned black) I used for my caution tape bow and band as well as the road. Who would have thought that caution tape would bring so many smiles to my face?!

Here is the fun part--adding all the detailing . . .

road closure signs made out of fondant + gum tex

and the cute little orange cones--can't have construction without those. And around here they seem to leave them up on our streets even when they aren't doing construction!

And of course some trucks doing all the work. (I know--I cheated and just bought these rather than trying to make them out of gumpaste. I can only get so much done now with a needy toddler and 30 weeks pregnant. )

this one is plowing the Famous Amos cookie crumb rocks off the road.

and the hazard signs. These were the most fun to make.

My husband and I kept coming up with other ones too:

Caution Wide Load

Road Closure 6 Weeks

Detour Ahead

Bumpy Road Ahead

Watch Shoulder

etc.

We laughed so hard thinking these up.

Well, the party was amazing. I have such incredibly talented friends, who put together an adorable baby under construction themed shower for Marci, complete with table runners, dump trucks, caution tape, matching candy, and so much more.

It was a wonderful shower with wonderful friends.

Congratulations, Marci!

Chocolate Marshmallow Fondant Recipe:

6 oz. of semi sweet chocolate chips (about 1/2 of a bag)

1 bag of mini marshmallows

3 T of clear Karo syrup

3 T water

1 1lb bag of powdered sugar

gel black food coloring (if wanting black fondant)

Crisco

1. Put your marshmallows in a microwave safe bowl, add the water, and microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir mixture, and microwave for another minute. Stir again (marshmallows will be very hot).

2. Immediately add your chocolate chips and stir until the chips are all melted.

3. Add Karo syrup and stir again, this time with a butter knife, making sure that all the syrup is incorporated.

4. If you want black fondant, this is the point when you would add your coloring. I used about 1 tsp and it was very black.

5. Place 1/2 of your powdered sugar in a pregreased Kitchenaid with greased dough hook attached. Pour marshmallow mixture over top (and scrap out all using a spatula). Knead fondant on medium speed. Continue adding powdered sugar in 1/2 cup increments until fondant is not sticky. By the end I usually have to knead a little bit more sugar in by hand on a well-greased surface. The amount of powdered sugar you need may vary depending on the humidity of where you live.

Watermelon Cupcakes

2010-08-29T22:16:00.001-07:00

This post goes out to my sweet sister-in-law Nicky, who called me up a few days ago for ideas for her daughter's 4th birthday. She wanted to do a watermelon theme, and was wondering if I had any ideas for something she could make that would be cute and easy. After brainstorming for a little while I came up with a few ideas, and decided to try a couple of them out. Here are the fruits of my labors (no pun intended):

I wanted to do something that would require no pastry bags, tips, and piping. All that I used besides the edible ingredients were these things:

A jumbo muffin pan, Wilton's mini-ball pan, and a mini-muffin pan, along with Wilton colors No-Taste Red, Juniper Green, and Leaf Green and a small paint brush (dedicated only to my pastry projects and not to any of my daughter's art projects!).

I made up a simple boxed white cake mix and added the red coloring until I got the pink that I wanted. Then I added about a cup of mini-chocolate chips--for the seeds. One cake mix was the perfect amount to make 6 jumbo cupcakes, 6 mini-ball halves, and 6 mini-cupcakes (I didn't use any cupcake liners--I wanted the pink cake color to be seen).

I made 2 mistakes during this process that I have learned from. 1--don't accidentally leave your bag of mini-chocolate chips on top of the stove when you are preheating your oven. I had a gooey mess on my hands and only salvaged about 1/3 of the bag. What a waste . . . but a yummy waste! 2--don't turn your back on a 22-month old that thinks she can help do everything. She proceeded to finger paint with the left-over egg yolks that I had separated from the egg white that I used. What a mess.

On the other hand, she did love helping, and a perfect job for her was to dye my sugar the different green colors. I just put some sugar in ziplock bags with a little food color, sealed it up, and let her shake and rub the bag for awhile. She thought that was a lot of fun. I was sad that all I had was regular sugar and no decorating sugar, but it was late Saturday, and I didn't want to run to the store, so we made do.

The bottom two plate were from the leaf green and juniper green colors, while the top was a mixture of the two colors together. Okay--cupcakes are cooled, sugar is made--it's time to start decorating.

I tinted some vanilla icing green with my two green colors, and iced the top of my 6 jumbo cupcakes. I love mixing these two colors when I do leaves and vines on cakes. They give just the right green when I do.

I tried 3 different techniques on the tops to see what I liked the best.

1. I rolled the frosted green top in the green sugar that was the combo of the two green colors. It gave a sort of speckled top. Not quite the watermelon look I wanted, so I moved on to my next idea.

2. I placed strips of waxed paper on top of the cupcake like below and rolled the top in the juniper green sugar. Then I removed the waxed paper and rolled the entire top in the leaf green sugar. This was a lot better than attempt #1, but I kept wishing it was the decorating sugar. It would have been much more sparkly I think.

3. Attempt #3 was my favorite. I took some of the leaf green food color paste, mixed it with a tiny bit of water, and painted lines directly on my green frosting. You can be the judge yourself. Which do you like best?

Next thing was what to do with the mini-ball halves. Why not frost them like the cupcakes, and then slice them into watermelon slices to put around the cupcakes? That's what I attempted. First I needed to level the bottoms of the half balls.

Then icing and painting or dipping in sugar (I only did #2 and #3 way). Definitely more difficult than the cupcakes. It was harder to hold on to the half balls when the entire top was iced, then cutting them in slices was also a challenge. I had to kind of smush the knife threw them, so they weren't as clean-looking as I had hoped, but still cute.

With that done it's plating time. First the sugar top ones (cute, but just wait, I love the next one so much more):

Yep, this is definitely my favorite. They just make me happy. And of course, I had to add a little tribute to Mickey.

I hope this helps, Nicky. And maybe someone else out there enjoyed my little experimentation with watermelon cupcakes. Next time maybe I'll try cookies . . . I already have a few ideas for some watermelon ones I want to try.

and if anyone is wondering what happened to the 6 mini-cupcakes that were baked . . . well, a decorater needs some nourishment while she works!

Birthday Ice Cream Brownie Cake

2010-08-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

My sweet husband had a birthday recently, and his one request was brownies. No cake. Just brownies. I asked him if I could fancy up the brownies a bit. He said I could put stuff on top of it, but as for the brownies, he just wanted the normal Betty Crocker brownies--nothing extra in it.

I held true to his request and began by baking 2 6" square brownies from the Betty Crocker mix. Then the fun began...

My inspiration was brownie sundaes and banana splits, so I began by layering sliced bananas on top of one of the brownies, then drizzling fudge and caramel over that. If you want a super easy way to drizzle those 2 things evenly, then all you need to do is put some in a ziplock baggie, snip the tip off, and squeeze. It even works with room temp fudge sauce.

I had also frozen a 6" square block of vanilla ice cream. Make sure you freeze it really well. My first attempt was kind of a disaster and I layered the ice cream on the brownie when it was still slightly soft. Even putting it directly back into the freezer for awhile, it was a soupy mess when I came back, so I had to start all over.

The ice cream needs caramel and fudge too! Time for more drizzling.

Then I just stuck the 2nd brownie layer on top. Now for some decorating, I decided to line the whole thing with kit kats--one of my husband's favorite candy bars. It made it look kind of like a basket. Simple but fun. You can use some fudge sauce as the glue to hold them on.

Then I just filled in the top with some reddi-whip and more fudge and caramel. Here you can fancy it up even more with nuts, sprinkles, cherries, etc. I just know my husband doesn't like any of that, so we kept it more simple (but can't you imagine how cute it would be if you used maraschino cherries as candle holders? Way cute).

Well, it was a success. As you can tell, my husband, as well as my daughter, liked it a lot. They dug right in before I could stop them.

In retrospect, I would change one thing, and leave out the bananas. I just wasn't too fond of them in there. I guess that brownies sundaes and banana splits don't totally go together for my palate, but maybe you would like it. Hmmm...maybe I would also use mint chocolate chip ice cream instead of vanilla...or cookies n' cream...okay I'd better stop--I'm starting to crave ice cream, and this pregnant woman probably doesn't need anymore ice cream.

Megan and Dusty's Wedding Cake

2010-07-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

It was wedding time again in our family--this time was my niece Megan's turn. Her colors were black and white with hot pink accents. She found a cake design she liked and all I had to do was copy it.

It was 4 tiers tall: 6", 10", 14", and 18" squares. The bottom tier was actually a styrofoam layer since they didn't need that much cake. I did the 6" and 14" layers in a butter-almond cake with layers of rasberry filling and vanilla buttercream. The 10" layer was a chocolate cake with layers of chocolate ganache and vanilla buttercream. I was very happy with how moist the cakes stayed even when I had to assemble them 2 days before the wedding.

This is a before-flowers shot after I had finished all the decorating. I did all the black detailing using chocolate royal icing that I dyed black--dyeing it black was more of a challenge than I anticipated, but after adding extra cocoa powder to my frosting and a full large tub of black food coloring paste, I finally got it black. Luckily it was only for the outside detailing, because it sure tasted aweful with all that food coloring in it.

Being from the same Disney-loving family that my last wedding cake went to, I had to keep tradition by hiding a hidden mickey on the cake. It was pretty obvious, but I stuck it in the back to make it a little more inconspicuous.

Megan's fiance Dusty didn't want to be left out from the special additions, so he requested a hidden Y on the cake, since he is an avid BYU sports fan. This is the best I could do while still keeping with the scroll design.

And here's the cute couple cutting the cake. We are very excited to have Dusty join our family.(Don't mind my nephew's head sticking out from behind the cake.)

It was another wonderful wedding. We really enjoyed the day full of celebration and are very happy for Megan and Dusty to begin their life together as an eternal family.

4th of July Pavlova

2010-07-06T13:25:00.001-07:00

I know you may not believe it, but I do like to make things sometimes other than cake. This 4th of July I decided to take a basic pavlova recipe and turn it into an American flag. This is super easy to do, and very yummy (if you like meringue, which I LOVE!).

First make a basic meringue shell. I doubled the recipe I had since I had 6 egg whites on hand instead of 3 that it calls for. To make this size cake you probably want more than one recipe, but a full double is a little too much, unless you like your meringue shell really thick (which I do, so no harm done there). Here is the recipe for the shell (modified from a recipe found in Good Housekeeping Best Recipes 1998):

3 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c sugar

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 275 F. Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on high until whites begin to mound. Continue beating on high speed while adding the vanilla and gradually adding in the sugar, 2 T at a time, beating well after each addition, until all the sugar is completely dissolved, and the meringue forms stiff, glossy peaks when beaters are lifted.

Spoon meringue onto the parchment lined cookie sheet, and spread it out into a rectangle (however big you want your flag). I like to make the edges a little higher than the rest of the shell.

Bake meringue for 1 hour 15 min. Then turn off oven, but leave the meringue inside the warm oven for an additional hour to dry out. Then remove from oven and transfer meringue and parchment paper to cooling rack to cool completely.

At this point you can store the shell in an airtight container for a few days, or fill and serve that day, but once filled you should eat it fairly soon.

Now here is where you can go the easy route or a little more difficult route--the filling. There are many different variations out there for a pavlova filling--recipes using sw/cond milk, yogurt, heavy cream, etc. I choose this time to simply fill it with a tub of cool whip, although I have a lime pavlova recipe that is super yummy that I usually use. Simply spread the filling in your shell.

Then the fun decorating part takes place. Using sliced strawberries and blueberries, turn your pavlova into a patriotic American Flag, perfect for the 4th of July, flag day, veteran's day, President's day, or any other day you feel like. You could also shape the meringue into a heart for Valentines day, or and egg for Easter...so many fun possibilities.

The March of the Penguins

2010-06-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

There is a bake sale tomorrow--the proceeds going towards helping a girl in our community battling lymphoma. I wanted to make something for it that would be cute and special.

I wish that I could say this idea was an original of mine, but unfortunately I can't. I got the idea from one of my all-time favorite cake books--Hello, Cupcake! Seriously--if you only went out and bought one cupcake book ever, I would strongly suggest this one.

Because of copywrite laws, I probably can't explain to you how to make these. You'll just need to go out and pick up a copy of the book yourself, but here are a couple pictures showing my progress...

When I got to this point I started thinking of all kinds of things I could make with this basic shape--dip them in warmed white icing, add eyes, and voila--ghosts for Halloween. Or if you are big into badmitton (hey, there's got to be a few of you out there), dip it white, then dip the tip in a different color and you have a badmitton birdie. Let your imagination run wild.

Hmmm...what to call my goup of penguins. According to WikiAnswers: A group of penguins on land is a waddle. The nesting group is a rookery. A group of babies is a creche. A group on water is a raft. And a group of penguins in general is known as a Parcel. I learn something new everyday.

So there will be a dozen of these cute little guys at the bake sale. Please go and buy them and everything else you see. Spend LOTS of money. Skip the dieting for this weekend. Here is the information on the bake sale:

"Come join us at a bake sale to benefit the treatment of Krystol Simpson in
her fight back against Lyphoma.

"Saturday, June 26th from 9am to 4pm at 2304 Thayer Avenue, Henderson, NV
89074"

Hamburger Cake Balls

2010-06-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch of leftover cake from my last project ("It's a Baby Girl"), so I decided to make some cake balls with it. I had seen a post recently on Bakerella that showed these cute little hamburger cake balls. Since Father's Day was a couple days away, I thought these would be perfect (my husband loves hamburgers).

They are pretty simple to do. It just requires dipping the cake balls in different colors of candy melts to get the hamburger, lettuce, tomato, and buns. I probably could have taken a little more time to make them a little nicer, but it was already 10pm the night before Father's Day when I finally started dipping, so I kind of rushed things. I also wish that I had some white nonpareils to sprinkle on top for the sesame seeds, but all I had was a bottle of multi-colored ones, and I really didn't want to hand pick out all the little white ones (some things just aren't worth it!). For detailed instructions and to see ones with the nonpareils on top, check out Bakerella's post here.

It's a . . .

2010-06-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

We got some exciting news today at the doctors for my ultrasound. I wanted to share it with all of you . . .

Due November 13th. Abby is excited to get a baby sister, and we are excited to have another little girl join our family.

Aren't these mini-cupcakes darling? I couldn't help myself today, and had to make something to celebrate. I got inspired by an idea I saw here, and changed it up a little.

Beckham's Soccer Cake

2010-05-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm back. I know it's been way too long since I made anything and posted anything on my blog. I have a really good excuse, though. It's called morning sickness. It hit a couple of weeks after my last post and is still going, but is slowly going I way...I think...I hope...fingers crossed.

I did get to do a fun cake last weekend for one of the cutest little boys in the world--Beckham. I have the wonderful privilege of babysitting him about once a week while his mom works (and she does the same for me with my little girl about once a week when I work--it works out perfectly--thank you Rachele!). His name being Beckham, of course it was a soccer theme for his first birthday.

So I went back and forth as to how to do the soccer ball part of the cake. I used Wilton's sports ball pan, but I couldn't decide if I should cover it in buttercream or fondant. It being a first birthday and the tradition of the birthday child digging in with their fingers, I wanted buttercream, but I really like working in fondant, and I knew it would look more how I envisioned it, so I decided to do the ball in fondant, but put it on a 9 inch round cake which I would cover in lemon buttercream to resemble grass. Problem solved!

I took some black icing to fill in the lines--still not sure if I would have liked white lines better or not. The black shows all the little mistakes and is hard to get off the fondant to clean up a bit. Maybe next time I'll try white lines. Still, all in all it wasn't too bad.

Do you like my little birthday Beckham guy on the cake. You tell me, does he look like the real thing...
What a cute little kid. He sure had fun digging in to the cake (which was a lemon cake with rasberry filling and lemon buttercream icing-yum!)

You should have seen the cute table that Rachele put together. Super cute. This is only the center part of it. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the whole table for you to see. She went all out.

Now I can't leave without showing you my two favorite people--my husband and little girl. They had a blast at the party, especially on the water pad at the park--can't you tell?!

and here are all the cute kiddos. What a fun group of kids! They sure had fun.

Dr. Seuss Cupcakes

2010-02-27T21:47:00.001-08:00

It's Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 2nd. I heard that Lakeshore Learning was doing a Dr. Seuss birthday party with crafts and storytime for the kids, and I got into the Dr. Seuss spirit and wanted to try to make some cupcakes inspired by this great author and have some friends over before heading down to Lakeshore Learning for the crafts.

I knew I wanted some of them to be with green eggs and ham. That was my favorite Dr. Seuss book growing up. I couldn't think how to make the ham. Then it came to me--cake balls. I actually have never made them before, but have wanted to try them out. Super easy. Just bake a cake in a 9x13 pan, let it cool, then crumble it up, and mix a tub of icing in with it. Now comes the fun (and somewhat messy part)--roll the mixture into balls, or whatever shape you need (mine are cute little hams). Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and refrigerate for several hours.

Then take candy melts in whatever color you choose (I of course picked green). Melt them in a microwave on 20 second intervals, stirring inbetween. Then have fun dipping. A spoon with a toothpick to help push the balls off the spoon worked just great for me. Once it is dry you can take a knife and trim the excess chocolate off the cake balls. That is your basic cake ball.

Now here is where I started to have some creative fun--a dot of white candy melts in the center for the bone.

and some painted lines to give it the Seussified ham effect. (I used some brown food coloring paste mixed with a little clear vanilla--the Food Writers that Wilton puts out didn't seem to write at all on the chocolate candy melts)

Just frost some cupcakes in chocolate and add a couple of eggs made from blobs of melted white and green candy melts, and voila--Green Eggs and Ham

The Cat in the Hat cupcakes were super easy. I found this idea on line. First you need some kind of red, round candy. Red lifesavers work great, but I opted for the red cinnamon discs from Walmart. They were perfect for the hat.

I just layered them with blobs of vanilla icing to get these cute little hats.

I definitely would eat these in a box, and I would eat them with a fox. I would eat them here or there. I would eat them everywhere! How about you?

Why stop there? I needed an excuse to purchase a bag of my favorite candy--swedish fish. (I have been craving them for a couple of weeks and needed a definite sugar fix). Why not include them in my set up--you know, incorporate the "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" theme. No blue fish to be found, but I'm fine with just red.

And I just had to throw in a hidden Mickey on one of the cupcakes. Call it my signature statement (that I'm kind of just starting, so maybe I can't call it a "signature statement" quite yet). Hopefully Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss liked each other, or they may not have been too happy with my incorporation of their two worlds.

Thank you for having a birthday, Dr. Seuss. It gave me a good excuse to be creative this weekend. It is such a destresser for me.

Valentine's Cupcakes

2010-02-17T22:14:00.000-08:00

I'm on a cupcake kick. I blame the book 101 Cupcakes for this. There are just too many scrumptious sounding recipes in it. I feel the need to try them all. I tried 2 new ones for these cupcakes: Black Forest Chocolate and Chocolate Mayonnaise.

I took one chocolate cake mix, divided it into 2 separate bowls, and made a half-recipe of each flavor. So easy. This book is great . . . well, almost. I struggled with her Chocolate Mayonnaise recipe. I followed it exactly, but all it called for was the cake mix, mayonaise, and a little bit of water. When I mixed it all together it was a solid glob--nothing like a normal cake batter consistency. Strange. I don't know--maybe this is how it is supposed to be--but I was skeptical, so I turned to google, and found other Chocolate Mayonnaise recipes. They all had a little more water and some eggs, so I added in the eggs and water, and it turned out perfect.

I did follow 101 Cupcakes suggestion to use a cream cheese frosting with the Chocolate Mayonnaise cupcake. She was right--those 2 flavors tasted fabulous together.

I piped some hearts with white candy melts dyed pink. Just the right touch, don't you think?

Black forest has always been one of my favorite flavors, so I was way excited for this recipe (did you know that Blue Bunny used to put out a Black Forest yogurt--I ate it every morning for over a year--scrumptious!--then they discontinued production of that flavor--Catastrophe!--that was a sad day at my house when I found that out).

I made a whipped chocolate ganache for the icing that I piped on with a large star tip, making a cup in the center that I filled in with extra cherry pie filling. Can you just say Heavenly?! Totally my favorite--although everyone else I talked to like the chocolate mayonaise better--go figure. I didn't tell most people that it was Chocolate Mayonaise until after they tried it because I didn't want them to be biased before hand (I mean really--who would have thought Mayonaise in cake would taste good, but it totally does--trust me).

Well, with a few minor adjustments to at least one of the recipes, these cupcakes turned out great, and I will definitely mark these recipes as keepers.

Valentine's Surprise

2010-02-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

I got him good! I totally surprised my husband for Valentine's Day with this cake. He had no idea I had made it (I totally lucked out Saturday night too--he said he'd probably get done studying around 9:30 at night then come home--I frantically decorated the cake--I finally finished at 11:15pm, hid the cake, and hurried and cleaned up, and he walked in the door at 11:25pm--studying took longer than he thought...well, come to find out he was making me a cute Valentine card at school which took him longer than he planned, and totally surprised me too with that and a voucher to go to a nice Italian restaurant--yes, I'm obsessed with anything Italian).

I saw this idea online, and just had to make it. It was too cute to pass up. I made a double fudge chocolate cake in my heart pan, filled it with chocolate ganache, covered it in a thin coating of vanilla icing, then white fondant, and then with different colored fondant hearts, cutting them out so they would fit snuggly together and look like overlapping conversation hearts.

Then I took an edible food writer marker and wrote the messages on the hearts, and finished it off by putting real conversation hearts around the bottom. A cake almost too cute to eat...but don't worry, we cut right into it after dinner and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Sidenote: Conversation hearts through the years:

"Call Me" (1980s), "Email Me" (1990s), "Text me" (2000s), "Tweet Me" (2010s). What will be next? We'll just have to wait and see. (Chris thinks "Beam me up Hottie" is a definite possibility)

101 Gourmet Cupcakes

2010-01-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've just discovered this book...well, actually my sweet sister gave it to me for Christmas, but I finally decided to try it out this week. LOVE IT! Seriously, this book is awesome.

Wendy Paul has come up with so many scrumptious cupcake recipes. After looking through this book I started dreaming about cupcakes--chocolate rasberry trifle, chocolate caramel surprise, banana struesel, peach cobbler--wow, my mouth is watering again just mentioning them.

Besides the fact that these recipes all sound downright delicious, this book is great because she takes regular cake mixes and just adds additional ingredients to create these masterpieces of desserts. Also, you don't have to do one whole batch of one flavor. Instead, pick 2 or 3 recipes that use the same cake mix as the base and just half or third the recipe, thereby being able to make 2-3 different flavors simultaneously. Amazing.

Here is my first trial of a couple of her recipes--the Lemon Blueberry and the Lemon Cream, both with a Lemon Whipped Cream icing on top. The Lemon Blueberry was my favorite--such a yummy combination of flavors. The Lemon Cream was good too, although I think it would have been much better if I had used regular cream cheese and regular sour cream instead of the fat free stuff I had on hand (but I guess I'm more apt to eat them if I know they are slightly healthier for me :)

Adam and Rachel Larsen's Wedding Cake

2010-01-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Success! I made a wedding cake for my nephew Adam and his cute fiance (now wife) Rachel during the Christmas holiday. I was worried with how it would actually turn out, but once I finished I was very happy with the final product.

It was a 3 tier cake (6", 10" and 14" round layers), with each tier being a little less than 6" high. The bottom and top tier were chocolate with a chocolate ganache filling, with the middle tier being a marble cake with chocolate ganache filling.

Rachel had told me that she wanted a cake with fondant bows/draping that looked like piece of fabric and been pulled loosely around that cake and tied in a bow instead of the look of a piece of ribbon pulled around and tied. It was rather difficult to maneuver a piece of fondant long enough to wrap around the 14" bottom and sculpt it right, but with the help of my wonderful husband and his 2 hands and mine, we were able to get it just right before the fondant ripped and cracked. After it had all dried I painted it with white luster dust mixed with clear vanilla to give it a satin sheen.

She also wanted me to duplicate the lace motif that was on her dress onto the cake. I piped the lace design with royal icing, painted the middle with white luster dust+vanilla mixture, and added edible 4mm pearls. (Here is a picture of pieces of her lace)

To finish it off Chris dry luster dusted the entire cake (while I was painting the inside of the lace design) and we added an 8mm edible pearl border to the middle tier. Because my nephew is such a huge Disney fan, I added a "hidden Mickey" in the pearl border. It was a hit. Everyone at the reception was looking all over the cake trying to find the hidden mickey. I may put a hidden mickey in all my cakes now. It makes the cakes more interactive!

Cherry Pie Cupcakes

2009-11-23T20:55:00.000-08:00

My husband's school was having a fundraiser for a charity event and asked me to make something for it. I decided to make a dozen of these cute cupcakes for them to sell. They are super easy and super cute--all you need is the jumbo muffin pan and liners that Wilton puts out (I got mine at Michaels). Fill them 1/3 full of cake batter so they bake up about 3/4 of the way. Thinly ice them, then fill with cherry pie filling (I cut the cherries in half so they weren't too tall), and then pipe the bands and ruffle to finish them off (tips 47 and 103). Voila--you have cute cherry pie cupcakes.

First Birthday Fun

2009-10-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

My little girl just turned one, so being that I love to do cakes, I was so excited to do a cake for her birthday. I had seen a giraffe birthday cake in a Wilton Yearbook, and since she loves giraffes (...okay, maybe it's me that loves giraffes, but I'm slowly brainwashing her to have giraffes be her favorite animal :)

My husband gave me one rule when it came to her birthday cake--no fondant. He wanted it to taste good for her when she dug into it and took that famous first bite that parents so look forward to, with camera in hand.

The giraffe's body was made from a football pan, the head from half of a sports ball pan, the muzzle from a mini ball pan, and the neck, ears, and legs from sugar cookies. It took a lot of time, and a lot of stars, but I finally got the cake covered.

I think that he turned out pretty cute. And I only used fondant on the hat and sign! That's pretty good considering that I love working in fondant.

The next decision to be made was what to feed our party guests. I found this idea at bakerella.com, and when my husband saw it, he thought it was the coolest idea, so that is how we ended up with these cute little "hamburgers" made from cupcakes (buns), brownies (meat), frosting (mustard, ketchup, lettuce), and sugar cookies (fries). That's my kind of hamburger!

I had a dilemma, though. I needed some way to tie the giraffe/animal theme in with the hamburgers and fries. That's where these little boxes came into play that I found at orientaltradingcompany.com. Too cute and too perfect to make little happy meals with the hamburgers and fries for all of the kids.

And as everybody knows, a happy meal must come with a toy or prize. Aren't these little bubbles adorable and totally perfect to help tie everything together?!

Everything turned out perfect for her party. The weather was great and the company was even better.

And here is our little angel, enjoying a bite of the giraffe's ear. I guess that she's more of a cookie girl than a cake girl. We'll see if we can change that :)

Baby Gracie's Cake

2009-10-11T19:54:00.001-07:00

We had a baby shower for my friend Jamie who is due in December with a little girl (Grace). My friend Tosha and I worked on this cake together. We stuck to using pink, green, and brown to coordinate with the colors Jamie is doing for her nursery. We had a fun afternoon working on it together and were pleased with how it turned out.

The bottom is an 8 inch triple chocolate cake with vanilla icing as filling, covered in fondant. Tosha had a cute mini-bear pan that she used to bake up the bear. We covered him in tip 18 stars, and used fondant to decorate the rest of the cake with a bow and flowers.

Eagle Scout Cake

2009-10-07T20:58:00.001-07:00

I just finished a cake for an Eagle Scout Court of Honor for my friend Lisa's son. I molded the medal out of fondant with the lettering on it in royal icing, and painted the "metal" parts with silver dusting powder mixed with clear vanilla to get it to resemble real metal.

The cake itself was a 12x12 butter cake filled with a strawberry cream and iced in lemon buttercream.

Brownies on a Stick

2009-09-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

I saw something similar to this in Wilton's Brownie Fun book, so I decided to give them a try for our Stake Relief Society dinner that we had before watching the General RS Broadcast. I thought they turned out pretty cute.

I used the Wilton Brownie Pops mold, although it was pretty tricky to get them to come out of the mold without breaking (more difficult than their directions let on to be). I dipped them in melted chocolate candy melts and rolled half in toffee bits and the other in some cookies n cream crunch decorative sprinkles put out by Wilton. Next time I think that I'll try dipping them in caramel instead. Sounds more yummy to me.

Michael and Tasha's Wedding Cake

2009-08-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

I had the privelege of making the wedding cake for my brother-in-law and his cute new wife this past week. It was quite an undertaking, but everything came together and I loved the way it turned out. Even better is that the bride loved it. That's all that really matters.

I did 6, 9, 12, and 15 inch tiers. 2 were a chocolate fudge cake with vanilla buttercream filling and the other 2 were a butter cake with a chocolate ganache filling. I covered it in fondant instead of icing it in buttercream because it was an outdoor reception in August, and I just didn't want to run the chance of it melting. The stringwork and roses were done with royal icing and some of the other little borders were done with buttercream. My mother-in-law did an amazing job with the flowers for the cake as well as everywhere else (she is an amazing florist and is fabulous at doing flowers for weddings). They cut it about 2/3rds of the way through their reception and it all got eaten (except the top tier of course--that's for their 1st anniversary). I'm glad that it tasted good too.

Baby Shower Daisy Cake

2009-08-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

My friend just adopted a cute little girl that they named Daisy. To celebrate I made a Daisy cake for her baby shower. I did a butter cake with homemade strawberry jam for the filling, iced with a lemon buttercream. I was very happy with how it turned out, and just a little sad that I actually couldn't be there for the shower. (I had to leave for San Diego for my brother-in-law's wedding and to make the wedding cake.)

Father's Day Scrabble Cake

2009-06-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

For my husband this year, I surprised him with a "Scrabble Cake." I actually just made rice crispy treats, since he is not a huge fan of cake, iced it in a thin layer of vanilla frosting, then covered it in fondant. I used chicklets for the scrabble tiles and Reeses PB whoppers for part of the border along the lower edge. It was really fun to plan out and decorate. It was fun on Father's day morning to see the shocked look on his face when he walked into the kitchen. Since I love scrabble, I sure had a good time making this surprise for him.

Graduation Chocolates

2009-06-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

My brother Doug is finishing up his residency in ENT at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and while I was out there visiting them and watching their kids for a few days while he and Nicky went to a conference in Arizona, I decided to try a little treat craft with my niece and nephew that they could give to their dad when he got home. They are little graduation chocolates that I saw on Bakerella's blog. She used Reese's Peanut Butter cups, Godiva chocolates, and Air Head Xtremes, using a little melted chocolate candy coating to glue everything together.

We actually got the carmel filled cups (I think that it is the Sam's choice brand) that Walmart carries in the candy aisle due to my nieces peanut butter allergy, and 2 kinds of the Ghiradelli chocolates (the ones with little krispies in it didn't work as well because they have a bumpy tecture--oops). We had a fun time making them, and the kids were SO excited to give them to their dad. Congratulations on finishing your residency, Doug!

Birthday Brownies

2009-05-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

I thought that I'd try something a little bit different for my friend Tosha's birthday. Instead of cake, I made little brownie birthday cakes. They were a lot of fun to do, although I have found that working with brownies is a little more difficult than cake because they tear so much. Next time I think that I'll try making a more cake-like brownie by adding in that extra egg the recipe says to do for that particular consistency. It might be easier to work with. We'll see.

Flan Cake for Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-06T18:53:00.001-07:00

Here is a fun cake that I made for Cinco de Mayo. It is a recipe that I got while serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Laredo, Texas from Lupita Santoyo. Lupita would make this for us all the time. Thank you Lupita for the wonderful memories and the yummy cake. Here is the recipe:

Flan

1 can sweetened and condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

3 eggs

Cake

1 box cake mix with the ingredients the box calls for (pick whatever flavor you like; my favorite is strawberry, but the one in the picture is lemon)

Combine all the ingredients for the flan. Put this in a well-greased bundt pan first.
Prepare the cake by mixing all the ingredients together and pour this carefully in to the bundt pan over the flan mixture.
Bake for 45 minutes at 350F
Clean out your ev. mild and sw. and cond. milk cans and fill 3/4 of the way with water. Place these on either side of your cake while it is cooking (keeps the cake very moist).
Place pan on a cooling rack to cool.
Carefully flip cake onto a serving place after at least 10 minutes of cooling.

The flan ends up on the top of your cake. It tastes really good with Cajeta sauce drizzled over it (look in the Mexican food section of your grocery store). If you can't find that then a carmel or chocolate sauce will work, depending on the flavor of your cake and what sounds good to you.

Rice Crispy Present Cake

2009-04-20T22:31:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I had to demonstrate how to cover a cake with fondant for one of my classes. I actually just made up some rice crispy treats and pressed them into one of my cake pans instead of making a cake, because my husband is sick of cake and wanted something different. (This works great when you are doing a multi-teir wedding cake, and the wedding party doesn't really need that much cake--just do rice crispy treats for the bottom layer--the kids will love it). After my class I came home and decided to continue decorating it. Maybe I'm obsessive compulsive, but I just can't let someone eat a half-decorated cake. Well, it didn't last long after I decorated it. My husband bit into it within a few minutes of me finishing it up and taking pictures. I agree with him--a rice crispy treat cake really is so much better than a regular cake. Yumm.

April Fool's

2009-04-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

My April Fool's Day was pretty busy. I started teaching another round of Wilton classes for the month of April (Courses 1 and 3). Here is a cake that I made during my Course 1 class to demo a few things. I finished it up in my Course 3 class showing them how to do string work on a cake. It was a fun cake to quickly put together for my classes. When I told my friend Erica a few days ago that I was going to have another cake this week with nothing to do with it, she said she would gladly take it, so I gave it to her for a month belated birthday cake (I know--it's not too birthdayish, but that's okay, right?)

The day before April Fool's I was asked to teach the Achievement Day girls some cake decorating for their activity. We did some April Fool's cupcakes. They decorated them to look like spaghetti and meatballs with a side of peas and carrots. It was an idea I got out of the Hello, Cupcake book (I keep telling you, I love this book). The girls did a great job and had a lot of fun making their "well balanced dinners." I'll ask them on Sunday if any of them fooled their parents with their dinners they made :)

Sarah's Birthday Cake

2009-03-25T14:07:00.001-07:00

My visiting teachee had a birthday last week, so I whipped up a quick cake for her. I saw one similar to this one in one of the Wilton course books that I teach from. It looked fun, so I gave it a try.

My one learning experience from this came as I tried to make the filling. I searched several stores to find something called Danish Dessert. It's a box mix used to make strawberry or rasberry glaze/sauce/filling. I used it all the time when I lived in Utah. Well, I came to find out that stores in Las Vegas do not carry this item. I found a recipe online that stated it tasted just like the boxed Danish Dessert. Well, I tried making it, but iIt didn't set up like they stated it would, so I had to go back and thicken it with cornstarch. Unfortunately I think I got a little bit cornstarch crazy and put too much in. It thickened it more than I wanted and had a cornstarchy taste. Oops. I know now to stock up on Danish Dessert next time I go up to Utah.

Tip of the Day--Quick Rising

2009-03-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick baking tip for today. Normally when you are baking bread products (loaves of bread, dinner rolls, sweet rolls, etc.) you must let the dough rise until it has doubled in size before shaping your bread. This usually takes an hour or more unless you use a little trick to make the bread rise quicker. After kneading the dough, place it in a microwave-safe bowl sprayed with non-stick spray. Place the bowl in the microwave and microwave on high power 5 seconds for every cup of flour in the dough (ex. if you used 6 cups to make the dough, you would set the timer to 30 seconds). Next, turn the dough over and microwave again, but half the amount of time (ex. now it would only need 15 seconds). Now just pull it out of the microwave and cover with a cloth until doubled in size. This will usually cut the rising time in half. It is a great timesaver. Happy baking.

The Beginning

2009-03-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

Welcome friends, family, and complete strangers whom I have never met and probably never will. This is my new site dedicated to my passion--and sometimes obsession--of cake decorating (and anything else having to do with baking and candy making). In some of my posts I will share projects that I have done and/or tips, techniques, and tricks for creating edible masterpieces. I hope you enjoy this site and come back often.