Confections of a Bakeaholic

Shower for a baby girl!

2010-10-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've only done two baby shower cakes before this one, but they've both been boys, so I'm excited to get the opportunity to make a girly cake :)

Baby shower II

2010-10-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I got to make another baby shower cake for a wonderful lady from my church, who is expecting a baby boy! (and I may be making another for Wednesday for a baby girl!) Anyhow, they've already picked out the name, and the theme was elephants, so I designed this :)

Cinnamon Rolls

2010-09-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I tried my hand at the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls! I'm not going to lie, I was intimidated, but I'm so glad that I made them anyway, because they're really easy! The most time consuming part, is just waiting for the dough to rise. If you want the recipe, I encourage you to go to Her fabulous blog and just search for cinnamon rolls. The only change I made was to use a mix of 1c white sugar and 1c brown sugar for the filling, and really liked the flavor. The entire recipe made 5 8" pans of rolls, so either cut the recipe down or make sure you've got some friends to feed!

cookies and cream cheesecakes

2010-08-04T13:54:00.001-07:00

So, I recently bought a book by Martha Stewart filled with cupcake recipes. I kind of want to do a Julie/Julia project type thing with this, not even kidding! There are so many wonderful sounding ideas, and thankfully, I've started going to a women's Bible study, so I have some people to eat my creations! So, for the first test, I decided to try the cheesecake cupcakes. I've never made cheesecake before, but I've been wanting to. They ended up delicious and very easy to make!

All you need is ;

42 Oreo cookies (30 for the bottom of the cupcake and 12 to crush and put in the batter)
2lbs cream cheese at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 eggs at room temperature lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
1tsp vanilla
cupcake liners
you probably want 2 12 cupcake pans, because you need to chill the cakes in the pans while they set

Now then, set the oven to 275 degrees and line your cupcake tins with the paper. Place one full cookie in the bottom of each cupcake liner. This will be the “crust”.

In a mixer, cream the cream cheese, then add sugar and vanilla. Next, drizzle in the eggs until just mixed in. Lastly, beat in the sour cream. Once you’ve got that mixed, stir in the crumbled cookie bits by hand. (well…with a spoon, but you know what I mean)

fill each cupcake liner until almost full. Place cupcake tins in the oven and bake for about 11 minutes. Rotate pans, then bake for another 11 or 12 minutes until set*. Remove from the oven, and let cool on racks. Once cool, place pans in the refrigerator for 4 hours or up to overnight.

*You’ll know they’re set when the top has lost the glossy sheen to it, and is slightly firm to the touch.

Threadless

2010-07-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hey kids! If you love decorating cakes, there is a competition going on right now on Threadless.com. It's a t-shirt company that wants bakers to design a cake around any of their designs (Threadcakes is the name of the competition) You have to use real cake and document your whole process with photos that you'll upload once you're ready to enter. I believe that you've got until mid August to enter, so get baking! This is what I've entered. I'm pretty happy with it, especially since I finally womaned up and made my first solo stacked cake!

This is my cake inspriation:

This is my cake :)

Happy Birthday husband!

2010-06-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it's my husband's birthday and so it is thus time for a cake. His first birthday as a married man, I did not decorate cakes, and he wanted brownies. so that was that. Then, the next year, I did decorate cakes, but had started working and so his cake didn't get the time it needed and fell apart. literally. saddest dr pepper can ever. So, this year, I wanted to make sure he got something nicer than last year...which really could have been anything. I asked him what he wanted. "whatever, I trust your judgement." Ok...well, what flavor would you like, anything at all! It's summer, it's good fruit season, anything you want! "eh, that cake you made for my coming home from SERE training was good, I want that." .......alright, well then I'll make it square, since I've never done that, and I just got new square pans that I couldn't wait to try! On top of that, I found super cool candles, so I don't feel quite as inadequate :)

Welcome home

2010-05-31T18:02:00.000-07:00

My husband came back from 2 weeks of very rigorous training, so as part of a welcome home meal, I made him a cake. It is chocolate with reeses in the filling (pretty much the same as the winging cake, but without the peanutbutter mousse filling, and I used chocolate buttercream instead of plain.) I used a new buttercream recipe, but I'm not much of a fan, I'll probably go back to the recipe I've been using. I got a lot of air bubbles, and the flavor just wasn't was I was hoping for, but it turned out alright.

oooh check me out!

2010-05-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

Notice anything different? If you don't then you've clearly never seen this blog before, because it used to look sad and pathetic. But, thanks to Mandy and her wonderful blog designs, it looks happy and...not so pathetic. She did such a fantastic job, was more than happy to accommodate any changes I asked for and designed the whole thing based on pretty much nothing. If you're looking for a new blog design you can check her out here and I highly recommend that you do! Now I feel more motivated to bake and blog!

Easter Cupcakes

2010-03-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

It's Easter time, which means spring themed confections! I've made some cupcakes for my women's Bible study. The first is a chocolate cupcake with the same peanut butter mousse filling from the winging cake. I think it may be my favorite of the three. Little bee hives with jelly bean bees with almond sliver wings

Next, we have vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream filling. I toasted some coconut to make some nest material, and used chocolate eggs to make a fun spring nest.

Last, we have vanilla cupcakes with a raspberry cream filling. These I just went for more simple and iced the tops with buttercream and used melted vanilla wafers to make a design and placed them on the tops.

Winging cake

2010-03-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

My husband just earned his Naval Aviator wings, and so in celebration I made a cake for him! It's a chocolate cake with peanut butter mousse and peanut butter cups chopped up for the filling. I iced with buttercream and then sculpted the wings from fondant. The side is decorated with hand placed gold dragees (sugar pearls) It was a lot of fun to make and my husband appriciated it.

I see London I see France

2010-03-11T17:56:00.001-08:00

This weekend, my best friend from college is getting married! So, we’re throwing her a lingerie party for her bachelorette party, and I made cupcakes. Her wedding colors are marigold and pewter, so I made her future monogram out of melted vanilla candies (the bride doesn’t like chocolate….we’re trying to get her some help for that) and put those on the white chocolate cupcakes filled with raspberry mousse. I also made vanilla cupcakes with the same filling, and so you could tell the difference, I made lingerie garments to go on those.

Be on the lookout!

2010-03-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

No, there is no one after you. I don't think...I can't honestly be too sure. However, do be on the lookout for my baking blog 'confections of a bakeaholic' back up and running! I had been avoiding it because I couldn't come up with a good way to design it, and I didn't want an ugly blog! Well folks, it won't be ugly for much longer! I'm getting a Mandy designed blog! She designs really cute and fun blogs and usually a percentage of her proceeds benefits a different charity each month. This month is her birthday month though, and so she's running a deal that all (that's right 100%) of the proceeds benefit the MS Society bike ride that she participates in every year! You can get anywhere from a blog button to a full on blog makeover, and you'll be donating money to a very worthy cause! If you're a master blog designer yourself and don't really want a supercool blog, you can just donate any amount of money here, but why wouldn't you want something designed by her. We need to keep Mandy busy, because she just has too much time on her hands. Between running Survival Mode Parent, participating in Awana nights at her church, working full time, being a wife and supporting her husband as his TaeKwonDo tournaments, she just doesn't have much to do! I am of course being sarcastic, she sets an amazing example that I surely admire, so I coulnd't imagine donating to anyone else! So, go check out her blog and I'll of course announce when my baking blog is pretty! It's gonna be good!

Wedding favors?

2010-03-03T21:42:00.001-08:00

If I haven’t already mentioned, my sister Katie is getting hitched in May! She’s my only and older sister and she said she’d beat me up if I didn’t make her wedding favors. No, I’m just kidding. Don’t hit me. Well, her wedding cake is themed around Legos so I thought I’d attempt to make some favors that reflected the cake. However, a wedding is also a formal affair, so I thought I’d offer her an option between a cookie that coordinated with her colors and dress, and one that matched the cake. I made the round cookies by using a brush embroidery effect inspired by Toba Garret’s design in her book Creative Cookies. (I think she’s leaning towards the round ones.)

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-03-03T21:34:00.001-08:00

More recipes

2010-03-03T21:32:00.001-08:00

The baby shower cake I previously posted about was made up of the mom-to-be’s favorite flavors. Lemon and Chocolate. Not together, although she was pregnant…so who knew what she actually meant. I didn’t think that there was any reason why she shouldn’t get to have both, so I made the citrus cake and the best ever chocolate cake. Both had a raspberry buttercream filling and a plain buttercream frosting. I will now bequeath unto you my favorite (so far) buttercream filling recipe.

Fluffy Buttercream (a-la cakecentral.com)

3/4 C. egg whites (pasteurized or about 5 lg eggs)
2 C. shortening
1/2 C. butter (softened a little and cut into pieces)
4-5 C. powdered sugar
2 Tbs desired flavoring
2 Tbs milk or heavy cream

Whip the whites slowly at first until they get foamy, add flavor, and increase speed to medium
Start adding 1C of powdered sugar slowly
Keep whipping until meringue is shiny and stiff
With mixer in medium start adding shortening and butter a bit at a time. (at the beginning the mixture will look weird and kind of lumpy, that's normal)
Change mixer to high and mix until your buttercream looks homogenous and fluffy (5-15 min.)
Start adding sugar by 1/2 C.
Add the 2 Tbs of milk, and keep whipping until the sugar is well incorporated (5 more min)

Now, to make this a raspberry filling, you can either add a couple tablespoons of raspberry preserves, or chopped up fresh berries. You can of course substitute any berry you’d like. I won’t get mad at you. I’m just gonna say that raspberry goes so well with everything…as does strawberry, but raspberry just feels more sophisticated. I don’t know why.

I have my first official cake order!

2010-03-03T21:23:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine asked me to make a cake for her friend’s baby shower! I am so excited to get to do this! The expectant mom-to-be is a Navy pilots wife and is going to be welcoming a baby boy. That of course meant that I had to do a plane design. I just had to! (well that and I got complete design freedom!) So, this is what I came up with… A 6” round with cupcakes!

Cookie recipes

2010-03-03T21:15:00.001-08:00

As promised, here are the recipes I like to use for my cookies. (I’ve never understood the hoarding of recipes to keep under wraps. I guess that may be because we don’t have secret family recipes…)

Sugar Cookies (this is the No Fail Sugar cookie recipe via Cakecentral.com)

6 C. flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 C. butter
2 C. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla (or whatever you want)
1 tsp salt

cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well.
mix in dry ingredients a little at a time, mix until flour is incoperated and dough comes together

chill for 1-2 hours

Pre-heat oven to 350°
roll into desired thickness, cut and place on ungreased cookie sheet
bake for 10 min. or until edges are browning

Raspberry thumbprint cookies (bettycrocker.com)

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
3 tablespoons Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam
1 cup white vanilla baking chips
Red or green sugar, if desired

Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, egg and flour until dough forms.
2. Roll dough into 3/4-inch balls; place 2-inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Using thumb or handle of wooden spoon, make indentation in center of each cookie. Spoon about 1/4 teaspoon jam into each indentation.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 5 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.
4. In small microwavable bowl, microwave baking chips on High 1 to 2 minutes or until chips are melted; stir until smooth. Spoon melted chips into small resealable plastic bag; cut small hole in corner of bag. Squeeze bag gently to drizzle melted chips over cookies. Sprinkle with colored sugar.

Chocolate Snowflake cookies

2 squares chocolate (it doesn't say which kind)
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 beaten eggs
1 teas. vanilla
1 cup flour
1 teas. baking powder
1/4 teas. salt
1/2 to 1 cup nuts
Powdered Sugar

Melt in a pan: 2 squares chocolate,1/4 cup butter or margarine

In a bowl mix: 1 cup sugar and the chocolate mixture

Cool and add: 2 beaten egg, 1 teas. vanilla, 1 cup flour,1 teas. baking powder, 1/4 teas. salt, 1/2 to 1 cup nuts

Chill 3 hours.

Make into balls and roll in powdered sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 min.

It’s Christmas, and that means cookies!

2010-03-03T21:08:00.001-08:00

Ok, I realize that Christmas actually means celebrating the birth of our savior, however for some reason we celebrate with cookies instead of cake. This year I decided to conquer the sugar cookie in my small apartment kitchen. I’ll share the recipe in my next post in which I’ll share my favorite cookie recipes. For the shapes, I decided to make snowflakes, snowmen, mittens, and trees. The snowmen faces definitely came out to be my favorite! Although, I like the other snowmen too. I’ve got a thing for snowmen. The mittens have crushed peppermint to get a kind of furry look, and I used colored dragees to make Christmas tree ornaments.

Cupcakes!

2010-03-03T20:58:00.001-08:00

I am fairly confident when I say that everybody loves cupcakes. They're quick and simple and already portioned out, no cutting required! I haven't had a whole lot of experience making them yet, but I'm getting better. Although, come to think of it, you can't really mess up a cupcake. You can really just blob icing on the top and cover it with sprinkles and you've got a festive little confection! However, in order to achieve a fancier look, you don’t have to do too much! All you need is a couple of decorator tips (a large star tip and a petal tip) and voila! The top photo, is simply made with the large star (1M size) tip. Fill your icing bag halfway full of your desired frosting. In this case, I used a chocolate fudge buttercream. Starting near the edge of the cupcake, make a single swirl around the rim. Then, make a smaller circle in the center of it, creating concentric icing circles. Top it off with another swirl. Garnish with sprinkles and little candies. The ones pictured above are made from royal icing, but you can certainly buy fun candies to adorn your cupcake! The black and white ruffle cupcakes are made with alternating cream cheese frosting and chocolate fudge buttercream. You can most certainly use anything you’d like, but since these were for Halloween, I liked the black and white contrast. The ruffles were achieved using a number 104 petal tip. With the narrow end pointing out, basically draw an “n” shape over and over until you’ve gone around the circumference of the cupcake. Repeat, alternating colors on each row. I usually get 7 or 8 rows of ruffles until I’m satisfied.

Oops

2009-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've last baked! Between getting a new job, and lack of holidays, I just haven't gotten to do much, but Father's day is today and I did make cookies. The inspiration was to create cookies that men would like. That doesn't seem hard since men tend to like food period, but once you decorate something, it can quickly loose its masculinity. So, I made the proverbial dress shirt with ugly tie to go along with it out of melted chocolate. It's just not father's day without and ugly tie! Also, I thought I'd label their cookies, using royal icing, with their monograms, because it seemed masculine. I could be wrong, but they can still eat the cookies, making it a success. They came out messier than I am proud of, but I unfortunately timed everything wrong, and rushed. Hopefully they'll like them though.

Bake something Monday

2009-05-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

yes..this was on my other blog first, I recycled....
Um...so, for this monday, I had planned to share how I made over a microwave cabinet to look like a pie safe. But, uh, it didn't happen. It's super humid here and the stain isn't soaking into the wood at all. Maybe next week? Of course, now I don't have anything to do today, and with it freaking raining all the dang time, there's nothing to do. I hate Florida. I really do. Sunshine state my...well you know. So, I apologize, but it's another recipe this week. But it's one I kind of made up, so I'm not just sharing a good one I've stolen from elsewhere.

Citrus cake
1 box lemon cake (I like duncan heins)
*plus the stuff on the back of the box, except substitute orange juice for the water
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 egg (in addition to the three asked for on the box)
1 cup lemon yogurt
1 tsp lemon or orange flavor
lime zest

Preheat oven to 350
mix all the ingredience together like you would normally
pour into two 8" pans or what have you (note since the recipe includes a cake extender, there's a little more mix than you may be used to, just remember to allow at least an inch at the top for the cake to rise)
bake for about 40 minutes (check with toothpick to make sure its done)
Let cool in pan for about 5 min
let cool completely out of pan before icing.

Now, I also made a raspberry buttercream filling to go along with the citrus cake. It was a nice mixture of sweet and tangy, and since I like you, and I really do, I'll share that too. (I didn't make the base of this up, its from cakecentral.com)

3/4 cups egg whites(pasteurized or about 5 big eggs)
2 cups shortening
1/2 cup butter (1 stick softened a little and cut into pieces)
4 to 5 cups of confectioners sugar
2 tbsp flavor of your choice (I used lemon)
2 tbsp milk or heavy cream (i used milk, because it's what I had)
1/3 to 1/2 c jam/jelly/preserves of your choice (optional)

*Always make sure that your bowl and utensils are clean,dry and free of fat or liquids before whipping the egg whites for best results.

Whip the whites slowly at first until they get foamy. Add the extract, increase the speed of the mixer and start adding 1 cup of sugar slowly. Keep whipping until the meringue is shiny and stiff.

With the mixer in medium start adding the shortening and the butter a bit at a time. At the beggining the mix will look kind of curdled but that is normal. Change the mixer to high and mix until your buttercream looks fluffy (abt 5 to 15 min)

start adding the rest of the sugar by 1/2 cups, add the 2 tbsp of milk or heavy cream and keep whipping until the sugar is well incorporated (abt 5 more min). The buttercream must be transfered to an airtight container and can last at room temperature for a few days or be refrigerated 1-2 weeks.

Now, I split the recipe in half because I was going to use the plain to ice the outside to act as glue under fondant. You don't have to do that, if you're not using fondant. You are free to use whatever you want to ice the outside. Now, in the one half of the icing, I put about 1/2c of raspberry preserves into the icing. (preserves was all I could find, there's no reason why I used it over jelly or jam) and stirred it in with a whisk. Then, I used the raspberry mixture as the filler between the cake layers. (If you don't want to use icing, you can just fill the cake with the jelly if you want. I like this buttercream because it's light and fluffy, and softens the tartness of the citrus cake.) Once you've filled the layers, ice the outside with the plain, or the flavored if you so desire.

Thanks!

2009-05-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors were gracious enough to watch Apollo while we were away for the graduation. As a thank you, I've made them a citrus cake (lemon cake base made with orange juice and lime zest) with a raspberry buttercream filling. It's light and summery and delicious. They have a cocker spaniel (with a mohawk) and Apollo is a boxer mix. I thought I'd honor both dogs by putting their silhouettes on the "bowl." The dogfood is just cocoa puffs :)

fondant 101

2009-05-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

Fondant is quite the controversial cake covering. Some people love it, some hate it, most like to decorate with it, because it makes for a smooth, clean, pretty cake. I don't care for it myself. I'm a very textural person when it comes to food and moist crumbly cake doesn't mix well with chewy for my palate. Wilton fondant is probably the most disgusting from what I've experienced. It's extremely easy to use, but not good to eat. I suppose that's a fair trade off for when you're first learning. Then there are the type you can buy. Satin Ice (especially white chocolate, and I don't like white chocolate) is pretty tasty. These come at a price though. They are usually about 10 bucks for 2 lbs of fondant. Not for your casual cake decorator. There is another, cheaper route to go though. You can make your own, and it's not nearly as hard as you may fear. I just made my first batch and it came out wonderfully. There of course are different types, but marshmallow fondant (or MMF) is fairly easy to make, and tastes much better than Wilton's store kind. This recipe is from Cakecentral.com and it's called Rhonda's ultimate MMF recipe.

15 oz. mini marshmallows (regular bags have 10 oz, so be aware)
2 T water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon juice (fresh or bottled)
2 tsp light corn syrup (helps w/ pliability)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon extract
2 lbs (approx 7 C) confectioner's sugar, sifted
1/2 C Crisco or vegetable shortening

Grease microwave proof bowl w/ Crisco. Also grease wooden or heat proof spoon. Pour marshmallows and water into bowl. Microwave for approximately 2 minutes stopping and stirring at 40 second intervals. Mixture should be soupy.

Take out of microwave and immediately add corn syrup, lemon juice, salt and extracts. Stir well. Sift confectioner's sugar into mixture, one cup at a time. After approximately 5 cups, grease your hands well with Crisco and knead the mixture in the bowl it will be very sticky at this point. Add the sixth cup and continue to knead. Now grease your work surface well and turn mixture out of bowl onto counter. Sift remaining sugar, regrease hands, and knead well. If mixture seems soft, add one additional cup of powdered sugar.

Shape into a mound and put a coating of crisco on outside. Double wrap in cling wrap and insert into ziplock bag. Press air out of bag and seal. Allow to rest overnight, but, can be used after sitting for a few hours.

Now, whenever you're ready to cover your cake, you just take it out of the bag and knead it for a while. Once it's soft and pliable, just roll it out to the correct size for your cake and cover :)

grad cookies part II

2009-05-14T11:56:00.001-07:00

They're finished! Of course now, I just have to transport them without breakage or meltage...There are three designs (shown below) the bear paw, the BU symbol and the face of the Baylor bear. The bear face and paws are chocolate and the BU are vanilla flavored candy melts.

a little note about choco transfers

2009-05-13T12:05:00.001-07:00

So, I found out today, that it's best if you draw your desired design backwards (ie mirror image of what you want), that way when the chocolate drys, the image will be smooth and pretty on the correct side. I have fixed this on the Baylor cookies and pictures will be posted tomorrowish. get excited.

the graduate part I

2009-05-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

My brother-in-law (we'll call him bil for short) is graduating from Baylor University this coming weekend! We actually get to go, and I am so excited! To be honest, I'm not excited to actually go to the graduation, but getting to see family and going to Texas is what really excites me. Well, as a gift, I've decided to give him some Baylor themed cookies. (because every graduate needs cookies.) The cookies are the No Fail sugar cookies from the mother's day batch. I simply made all of the cookies, and then froze the 12 I am saving for him. Just take the cookies out a day or so before decorating them, so that they can thaw, and you're good to go! So anyhow, I am experimenting using chocolate instead of royal icing to create the designs for the cookies. So, for the chocolate, I use these chocolate waifers or candy melts. Put about 30 or so in a microwave safe bowl and nuke them for about 30 seconds. Take it out after 15s stir, and put back in for the remaining time. Then just stir until melted. (if its still not melted, or you want to use more, just heat in 30 second increments) I then place the melted chocolate in a decorating bag and away we can go!
So, now we have chocolate in a bag and we're ready to go, so all you need to do, is outline your image with the chocolate on wax paper. In this case, I'm doing the BU (I'll also have other images, but they're not done yet)

Now that you've got the outline, you need to let it dry for a few minutes, and then fill. Now, the Baylor logo is gold with green fill, so that's what I'm doing, but of course you can do whatever you want!
And there you have it. You let these dry fully (I'd let sit overnight) and then gently peel off the wax paper (dental floss helps with the delicate designs) and place. I'll use royal icing as my "glue" on the cookie, but these can sit up on frosting, you can make abstract designs with chocolate and garnish a cake with them. The possabilities are endless. If you notice, the bottom emblem looks kind of lumpy. All you need is a clean cheap paintbrush and a little water. Just gently go over the lumps or bumps with that to smooth! :)

Bake something Monday

2009-05-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

Feeling very domestic today, I decided to make my own wheat thins according to www.budget101.com.

Wheat thins
1 3/4c wheat flour
1 1/2c white flour
1/3c oil (I used olive)
3/4 tsp salt
1c. water

preheat oven to 350
combine the flours in a medium bowl
in a separate bowl, combine the oil, salt, and water
mix the flours and oil mix well, but not too much
roll out on ungreased cookie sheet like so, so that it's no thicker than 1/8"Now, then, score the dough with a knife (not cutting all the way through)
After you've done this, just sprinkle the top with kosher salt (my choice this time) Parmesan cheese, or onion powder.
Place in oven for 30 minutes, let cool for a few minutes and voila
I'm not going to lie to you, these are not as good as wheat thins. To me, they don't really taste like them at all. That's not to say that they're not good, but they're not wheat thins. So, If you're looking for a fairly quick to make, wheat cracker, these are pretty good! However, if you're looking for wheat thins, this is not the recipe.

cooookies

2009-05-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

Mother's day is just around the corner, and this year, I wanted to do more than just an informal card attached to some flowers I've only seen online. I'm sure the quality is good once it arrives, but I'm always a little wary if they're getting what I think they're getting. I'm just a little paranoid though. Anyhow, I thought to myself "self, you could try and make cookies, and mail them! That would be a wonderful idea, because if all goes well, they'll have cookies, and if not, the base for pie crust!" (neither of my mothers really bake all that much, so lets just hope all goes well...) So, I followed this recipe for No fail sugar cookies (it says no fail...how can it possibly go wrong!?)
No Fail Sugar Cookies
6 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract or desired flavoring (I used orange for a floridan citrus feel)
1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.

Chill for 1 to 2 hours

Roll to desired thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350
degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until just beginning to turn brown around the edges. This recipe
can make up to 5-dozen 3” cookies. (mine made 4 dozen of various shapes and sizes)

So, you've got your cookies baked and cooled, now what!? Well you decorate them silly! I used this recipe for royal icing, and it turned out pretty well
Royal Icing
6 oz (3/4 cup) of warm water
5 Tablespoons meringue powder
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2.25 lbs (about 9 cups) powdered icing sugar

In mixer bowl, pour in the warm water and the meringue powder. Mix it with a whisk by hand until it is frothy and thickened...about 30 seconds.

Add the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.

Pour in all the icing sugar at once and place the bowl on the mixer.

Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes. Icing will get thick and creamy.

Cover the bowl with a dampened tea-towel to prevent crusting and drying.

Tint with food colourings or thin the icing with small amounts of warm water to reach the desired consistency. (make sure to set aside some of the thicker so you can make your outlines. Once your outlines are dry, you can fill them in with the thinned down icing)

I find it the easiest to have a variety of gladware/tupperware/plastic bowls out so that I can mix colors and such all at one time, and then can begin the decorating process. (I'll start taking pics as I decorate to illustrate better in the future)

These are the finished productFor the teacup, I outlined in white and filled in white. Then while the fill was still wet, I drew a line across the top and bottom with the pink icing. Then, taking a clean toothpick, drew figure 8s draging the pink and white together to get that effect.

The round pink cookies, I outlined and filled in pink, let dry overnight. Then, I took a very fine color dust, used a stencil (like the type you use on a wall to paint with, but clean) and brushed the color on. Then, I followed over with the color to give further definition.

The round purple cookies, I outlined, filled and let dry overnight, just like the pink. Then, I just freehand outlined the design on there with the same shade of purple. very simple!

The heart is just purple outline, purple fill and while the fill was still wet, added swirls of pink and toothpicked it through.

Let's start at the very beginning

2009-05-07T12:02:00.001-07:00

Well, because sister Maria said that it's a very good place to start, and she knows what she's talking about. It was a warm and rainy afternoon in the summertime (it actually was!) just after we moved into our new apartment and I was out running errands at Michael's craft store. Since it was raining, I thought I'd just hang out inside the store until it let up a little. (Never a good idea in a craft store...but the only other option was Target next door, which could be worse) As I was wandering up and down the aisles, I came to a little corner tucked away from everything else. The contents of this aisle was to forever change my life, and thus began my story. (There really should be sound, so I could imput some sappy beginning credits theme here) There, hanging on the wall of the cake/candy/cookie decorating aisle, were flyers for 50% off Wilton cake decorating courses for the month of July! Well, who can pass up a sale on a class they'd been interested in taking!? Not me! So, with flyer in hand, and a song in my heart I signed up for course one. (Actually, I took it home and talked to my husband about it first, and then went back to the store, but that doesn't sound as poetic.) The next 5 months of my life I spent devoted to learning the craft of cake decorating in accordence to the the ways of Wilton. I never expected to fall in love with the art of cake decorating the way that I did. I just hoped to meet some people and make friends while in this new place, and expected to pick up a new hobby. Instead, I discovered a new passion that I am hoping to become a profession. I can't learn enough, practice enough, design enough, or talk enough about cakes. Just ask my husband. He rolls his eyes everytime he sees that I'm watching Ace of Cakes or the Cake Challege shows, or when I read cake books like they're the next New York Times bestseller. (It's ok, I do the same when he's talking about airplanes or computer games) So, I thought I'd begin a blog of how-tos, showcase what I'm working on, bounce ideas off of whoever wants to read this, and showcase other projects and products that I think are amazing (I have a link to cake wrecks if you want to see other things)