Flower/Butterfly Cake

Birthday cake made for a lady that loves gardening and flowers. The butterfly is made out of gumpaste and then hand painted. I don't think it really "goes" because the flowers are a little cartoony and the butterfly is more life like, but the birthday girl liked it and that's all that matters right?

Cake Balls

I apologise for it being so incredibly long since my last post. I have been in some kind of a funk that I can't shake, but hopefully now I'm starting to get back to my old self again. Anyway, I finally tried out making cake balls and man oh man do I have a long way to go. They tasted great but they could be a lot cuter. For some REALLY cute cake balls check out Bakerella.

Making the balls is really easy. First you bake a cake the way you normally would. Any flavor is fine, but I baked a chocolate cake.

Once the cake has cooled, crumble it up. Then I combined 3 ounces of soft cream cheese and 1/2 a tub of icing. Pour the icing mixture over the cake crumbs and mix until all combined.

Next you need to roll the cake into balls. I used a cookie scoop for this. Once they are in balls, freeze them for about 15 minutes. After they are rally cold, melt some almond bark in the microwave and dip the balls until they're coated. Use any decoration you want to make them cute.

I made these for the 4th so I used a lot of red, white and blue. Try different flavors like lemon cake and vanilla icing or red velvet cake and cream cheese.

Even more cookies!

More random cookie designs....

More Cookies

Playing around with more cookie ideas.

Fabric inspired cookies

Had leftover sugar cookie dough so I was just playing around with some designs.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women in my life who are mothers! I love you all.

Red Velvet Cake

15 1/2 ounces all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/4 teaspoons coco powder

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

13 ounces sugar

1 1/4 buttermilk

3 eggs

2 tablespoons red food coloring

1 1/4 teaspoons white vinegar

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla

1/8 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder into a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of a mixer-mix oil, sugar and buttermilk until combined. Add eggs, food coloring, vinegar, vanilla and water and mix well. Add the dry ingredients a little at a time on low, scraping the sides occasionally until combined.

Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted int the middle comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting (this recipe makes A LOT)

1 1/2 pounds cream cheese-room temp

1 pound butter-room temp

2 pounds powdered sugar-sifted

1 tablespoon vanilla

Whip the butter and cream cheese together in a mixer until creamed. Gradually add powdered sugar to the mixture and scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and mix until combined.

Christmas Cookies

I was really happy with how the snowman's hat turned out. After using all types of different sprinkles and glitter and sugars to decorate the cookies, I had a big pile of all the leftovers that I was going to throw away. I decided to try and use it so I dipped the snowman's hat in it and it turned out so cute. So don't throw away your "trash". Use it for something else.

It's

really hard for me to decide what designs to use on Christmas cookies. I have about 100 ideas floating in my brain. I thought that some of these came out cuter than others but all and all I'm happy with them.

Perky Peppermint Penguins by Sandra Entrican

This cute little guy was entered into the Dallas Morning News Cookie Contest in the decorated category. Of course he won! The lady who made him enters this contest every year and~surprise she wins every year. Here is the recipe if you would like to make a fun bunch of penguins for yourself.

Perky Peppermint Penguins

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder and salt. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and flavorings. Gradually add flour mixture and mix until thoroughly combined. Wrap and chill dough until firm, at least one hour. Roll out dough on floured board and place on parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 12-16 minutes. Cool. Frost with glaze.

Glaze

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Enough water to make a spreading consistency.

Decorate as desired. (She made a recipe of white chocolate "plastic" or as some people call it-modeling chocolate and cut the pieces from that to decorate the penguin)

White Chocolate Plastic

9 ounces Wilton candy melts

4 ounces glucose or corn syrup

Melt chocolate and add slightly warm glucose. Mix until combined and wrap in plastic. Let set overnight. Knead dough and roll. Cut into desired shapes.

Decisions~Decisions

Which set of "Shabby Chic" cookies should I enter for the Decorated division? The cookies on the right are actually green, blue and pink in the middle.