Crafty

I had time today to try out a project I've been wanting to try for a while...using stencils! I found some small stencils with adhesive on them that made them perfect for decorating glasses. This was super easy and super fast! I can't wait to try this technique out on tons of other things!

Another idea that I'd been wanting to do for a while. I let Connor use water colors to paint. Then I put it in a cheap IKEA frame and wah-lah...art for his room! It's cheap and changeable...my 2 requirements for decorating the kids' rooms!

Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

I made basic cupcakes for Evan's 2nd birthday (even used store icing...which I probably won't use again because it was too runny). I bought the Mickey Mouse cupcake set at Make It Sweet Bake Shop. I love the Mickey head sprinkles! They were a hit!

Halloween Countdown Calendar

So I may hijack this blog for awhile while I try and catch up on the crafty stuff around the house. Although I do need to make some Mickey Mouse cupcakes for Evan's 2nd birthday this weekend!

I saw a really cute/easy Halloween countdown calendar online so I thought I'd try it. I went to the Dollar Store and got a cheap cookie sheet. Then we went to Michael's and got some Halloween cut-outs and paper. I printed out a "calendar" and put magnetic tape on the back of everything! All I have left to do is convince my husband to drill some holes in it so I can put some ribbon on and hang it up...but we have a few more days for that.

I love this idea! I may make one for each month...or that may be a pipe dream and this is it! You just never know around here.

Route 66

A friend asked me to do a cake and some cupcakes for her dad's 66th birthday. They wanted to do a "Route 66" theme. She made a map of his travels and we had an edible image made for the cake. This was my first attempt at an edible image and I'm convinced it's the way to go now! So easy! The icing took me quite a while, but I just popped the image right on!

I think the cupcakes turned out way better than the cake! They are soooo cute! I'm definitely more of a cupcake baker than a cake baker!

Cookies for a Friend

I made these cookies for my friend Nora for her b-day...hope she doesn't check my blog before tomorrow! I tried to apply everything I learned in my cookie class last week. I think I did a fairly good job. My icing consistency needed a little help, but it tastes awesome! The cookie dough had too much flour for my taste so I may adjust that next time, but all in all it was my best effort yet!

Cookie Class

Some friends and I found a great deal on Living Social for a class at the All In One Bake Shop. We went this week and it was awesome! For $22 someone else made the cookies and icing and cleaned up after us! Quite the deal! We learned some new techniques and also found out that they rotate their cookie themes so we can take this class every couple of months...if we can find the deal!

My bikini didn't turn out so well.

I loved the palm tree. It looked really cute and Connor had no trouble devouring the entire thing.

I can't wait to practice on my own soon!

Edible Markers

I finally took a few minutes today to do the project that I've been thinking about for a few weeks! It was really very easy and literally only took a few minutes total.

I found these flat marshmallows for s'mores and thought they'd be perfect for drawing on. So I got out my edible markers and some stencils and in a matter of 5 minutes I had a cute little snack that inspired my kids to eat their dinner so they could have some marshmallows! Success all the way around! Maybe I'll start getting creative with marshmallows!

July 4th Brownies!

This wasn't quite as creative as I'd hoped it would be but here it is! Triple chocolate brownies with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and blueberries and raspberries for decoration. Unfortunately the baby didn't nap and that stole my creative time! But Happy 4th! Next week is a cookie class! Looking forward to that!

Last Class

This week was my last Wilton class! I've had so much fun over the last 3 months learning all about cakes! Now I need to work on photography so my cake doesn't look crooked!

More Cookies

I've been practicing using royal icing on cookies. It's fun and cookie cutters take up less space than cake pans!

Tonight is my 3rd of 4 classes in the 3rd Wilton class. I've got my final cake all designed...in my head. Last night I made the bow for the top...we'll see how it turns out!

An Apple for the Teacher

This week was Teacher Appreciation Week so I made this basket of "apples" for Connor's teacher. They were pretty easy and looked sooo cute!

My cake class partner, Jen, has been into making cookies and decorating with royal icing..so I thought I'd give it a try. They were pretty yummy!

I made some more lego cupcakes, but this time they had sour lego shaped candies on top!

Wilton Class 2 Final Cake

This was my final cake for the 2nd Wilton Cake class..Flowers and Cake Design. It was also an experiment with a different taste...butterscotch cake with butterscotch filling! It was pretty good! I did learn though that too much butter flavoring in the icing isn't a good thing! Hopefully there will be enough people signed up for the 3rd class for it to start this week.

Baking Fool

I made a gluten-free lego cake for a graduation party last night. This was a lot of work but I think it turned out pretty cute!

Three layers of chocolate candy all the way around. I need to find out what they thought of it!

They also asked for 100 cupcakes for the party too. These they wanted in the Earth Day theme so they are sprayed green and blue with chocolate globe candy on top.

In the book Hello, Cupcake I found some cute cupcakes so I mixed them together for this...Oreo sunflowers with a bunny bottom! I figure it'll make a cute centerpiece for our Buffalo food dinner tomorrow.

Cupcakes

My Flowers & Cake Design class is going well. I have the 3rd class tonight. I made these fondant bumblebees for my final cake for next week! You'll have to come back next week to see the final project.

I made these skateboarder cupcakes for a friend's little boy who is turning 7.

Sticks of gum with M&M's for wheels

I made these for Connor's school Easter party tomorrow...can't wait until they see them!

First Paying Job

We went to a neighbor's son's birthday party last night and she paid me to make the cake. It turned out really well AND it tasted good! I'm getting closer to being a reliable baker!

I started making some daisies for my final project in my Flowers & Cake Design class. I need some more daisies and some smaller ones. I think I'll frost the cake in yellow buttercream....of, course I may change my mind in 3 weeks too!

Flowers & Cake Design Class 1

So the 2nd class in the Wilton line of cake classes started this week. It's called Flowers and Cake design and one of the other moms from P-ville is taking with me! We made the fondant and gum paste button flowers last night. We also made some pansies, but they were ugly so I threw them away! (I'll post when I figure those out.) I need to practice all the flowers that we learned last night. We also learned how to make Royal Icing in order to make more flowers next week! I need to figure out what my final cake is going to look like! That may be the hardest part of the whole class!

I have my first "customer" this weekend! Another Mickey Mouse cake! She told me I should charge more...since I'm only charging her what it will cost me to make it in supplies, but what she doesn't realize is that I might flub it up and I don't want to charge her for a good cake if it's gonna be gross! Keep your fingers crossed!

Projects

I made some gluten-free cupcakes for a friend or her 40th birthday. They turned out pretty and tasty!

This weekend's project was a Mickey Mouse cake. Someone asked me to make one in a few weeks for their son's 3rd birthday...so I thought I'd better practice first! I had a bit of trouble with the coloring. (In this picture it looks perfect, but in real life it looks like Mickey spent too much time in the tanning bed.) Not bad for my very first attempt at a shape cake. The recipe is a new one too...I'm trying to wait patiently for the boys to get up from their naps so I can try it. It's based on a Georgetown Cupcakes recipe. (It's the bakery from the TLC show DC Cupcakes.) It's chocolate cake with almond buttercream icing!

Wilton Class #3

We worked on flowers this week in class. Next week is the last of Level 1...then off to Level 2!

A friend asked me to make 60 cupcakes to donate to her son's school!

WOW!

So apparently people have heard that I like to bake and am willing to do it for other people! This cupcake is a practice cupcake for the cousin of friend whose son is graduating from HS. She wants 100 cupcakes and a 1/4 sheet cake that is gluten-free. The theme is Earth since it'll be Earth Day so we're going to make these cupcakes and put chocolate balls on top that are wrapped in globe foil. Then for the cake she wants legos. My friend "borrowed" the lego brick candy mold from the mom that wants the cake so I could make the candy legos to go around the outside of the cake. I hope it all turns out like it is in my head!

Another friend wants me to make a lego cake for her son's birthday next month. This was my attempt at a large lego brick...didn't turn out so well. So we're doing brightly colored cupcakes with lego candy on top. I am also currently making 60 cupcakes to donate to her son's school for this Friday!

I'm a little nervous about starting to bake for other people. I want to know that it's going to turn out well each time and I'm just not to that point. I'm still experimenting with recipes and types of icing (which I have down pretty well). Eventually I'd like to do mostly organic, but that's too expensive while I'm still in the experimental stage and giving away (or throwing away) 2/3 of my projects!

Hopefully this will be something that I continue to find fun and can also do for other people!

Color Mist

I found something called Color Mist that sprays color onto your cupcakes! Isn't it pretty??? I also used it to color some raw sugar red and sprinkled that on too!

Carrot Spice Muffins

The zucchini spice muffins disappeared so fast that I thought I'd try a different kind today. So I made the same basic recipe but added shredded carrots instead of shredded zucchini. 3 are already gone! Evan ate 2 large muffins and asked for more so I guess these are a hit too!

Wilton Class 2

I decorated this cake in class this week. It's a chocolate cake with Andies candies in it and the green icing is flavored with mint extract. I used a coloring page to trace the shamrock. The teacher also talked me into doing a zig zag border along the bottom. The cake was a little lopsided on top because I forgot to Pam the pan so it stuck, but the decoration kind of masked that problem. I think it was my best one/easiest one yet. I still like doing cupcakes better though, but maybe just because I like to eat cupcakes more than cake...same thing, I know but less messy!

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

My last experiment was to attemt to make some cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day. These were made from a milk chocolate cake mix with Andies candies mixed in. Then topped with a mint buttercream icing that I added a little green food coloring to and then sprinkled some more Andies on top. They definitely hit the St. Patrick's Day theme although I felt they were a bit too minty for me. People said they liked them but I'm not sure if they're just being nice or they really liked them.

Last night's book cake was hit and with the icing in the middle it looked like a "real" cake! Back to class tomorrow night so we'll see what I can make tomorrow!

2nd Cake

So I wanted to practice icing more so I saved the other half of the last cake and made a cake for Book Club tonight. I did better with the top...not getting as many crumbs in, but I'm still having some trouble. The spatula keeps sticking and picking up the icing and cake on the edges. Maybe next time I'll try dipping the spatula in water to see if that helps. I printed out an outline of a book and traced that onto the cake. Writing the words was difficult. The #1 tip was soooo small that itmade it hard to know if the icing was even coming out...so I went over it in a bigger tip and that worked better.

The boys have eaten most of the zucchini spice muffins....guess those were a hit!

Zucchini Spice Muffins

The boys like to eat muffins for breakfast..and lunch! So after they polished off the pumpkin chocolate chip ones this morning I decided I had better get to baking. Connor thought so too. He sat at the table most of the time I was baking asking for his muffin. Anyway, these were a hit. Evan ate 10 of these little ones and I finally just had to tell him no more. I had some left over vanilla frosting so I topped them with that and sprinkled cinnamon on top. This made 24 regular plus 24 minis...I only fill about 1/2 way instead of 2/3...then I froze a dozen so we'd have some next week too!

Zucchini Spice Muffins

1 box spice cake mix
1 cup water
1/2 cup applesauce
3 eggs
2 shredded zucchinis
1/2 cup raisins ( I left these out because I don't like raisins!)

1. In a large bowl, combine cake mix , water, oil and eggs; beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 min. Stir in zucchini and raisins. Fill 1/2 - 2/3 way.

2. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-22 min or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 min before removing cupcakes to wire racks to cool completely.

Servings: 24

Wilton Class 1

Wednesday night I started my first Wilton cake decorating class at Hobby Lobby. So today I thought I'd try the project I'm supposed to be able to do in class by next week. The cake came out rounded on top so I had to level it...pretty easy. Then I had to make the icing...not bad. Then I had to ice the cake...I kept getting crumbs in it. I definitely need to practice this a lot more. Then I had to wait for it to dry so I could smooth it...one spot wouldn't dry and kept sticking and caused lots of trouble. Then I had to make the cupcake on top..which is ok...needs a little work, but not bad for the first try. I ended up running out of icing so I used canned icing for the beading around the bottom...which I really struggled with. So all in all it was an ok job. I did manage to give it to a neighbor so I can work on the other one I made and still need to decorate for book club on Monday night!

Heath & Chocolate

So today I tried something new. I made chocolate cupcakes...kind of cheated with a box mix. Then I made homemade frosting..which was difficult to get the consistency right. Then I couldn't decide what looked best. 1) Sprinkle the heath bits on top 2) Dip the entire top in the heath bits or 3) Edge the cupcake in the heath I'm taking them to an event tonight so we'll see how they go over.

The chocolate peanut butter cupcakes were a hit though! I never got to make the ones that look like they have french fries on top. I'm still looking for the right vegetable knife that will make the pound cake look wavy like a fry.

AND...my cake decorating class starts tomorrow night so we'll see if I can improve on all this experimenting!

Chocolate Peanut Butter

Today my experiment was Reece's Peanut Butter Cupcakes! YUM! The big ones have actual reece's cups inside. The smaller ones have peanut butter chips in them. It's just plain vanilla frosting, but I added some raw sugar on top to give it a little extra flair! It also gives it a little crunch and extra sweetness that's kind of good too. Dave said they were "ok" and tried to qualify that with "I don't really like cake." So we'll see how the other moms like them in the morning. I have 2 back to back events tomorrow so they are my guinea pigs! I'll let ya know!

Starting Out

I decided that making and decorating cupcakes could be a good thing to learn to do and if I worked at it maybe even something I could eventually do for other people too...we'll see about that. Eventually I'd like to get into making more organic ones, but for now, while I'm testing out recipes and trying to learn to do cute designs...we're sticking to the regular kind.

This kind of started when I was thinking about making something cute for the boys to try and get them to eat something healthy. I made this chocolate chip/pumpkin muffin with apple sauce and put cream cheese frosting on top. It was awesome!

So I thought I'd try to make something for Connor's class for Valentine's Day....

It didn't work out so well. I tried red velvet with cheesecake, twice, and both times it looked like this. I ended up with a non-exploding recipe but they didn't taste too good!

So I thought I'd try again, but just focus on the decorating this time. I got these from What's New, Cupcake? They are supposed to look like cherry and blueberry pies. I need something to help me transport the cupcakes though because I ended up dumping 5 of my 23 cupcakes and ruining them.

The next one I'm going to try is to make them look like french fries using pound cake.