Fairy Wings and Feral Hogs

I had an order over the weekend for some warthog cookies for a boy who was graduating from kindergarten (and yes, I know feral hogs and warthogs aren't the same thing, but that sounds catchier in the title, don't you think?). The boy asked for warthogs specially, which I thought was a bit of a strange request...I assumed he liked Pumbaa from The Lion King, because I couldn't think of any other reason why a kindergartener would want warthog cookies. Turns out he is a big fan of Discovery Channel and Animal Planet and African animals are his favorite--so there ya go! Anyway, warthogs are very strange-looking and really quite ugly. I tried my best to create a cookie that was at least a bit cute and still could be identified as a warthog; apparently the young graduate was pleased, so I count that as a success ;) Now you can judge for yourself:
I made a dozen just to put on a plate, and put a dozen more in cello bags with ribbon for the kiddos at the party to take home as favors :)

So, I was at my parents' house on Wednesday working on these (because I'm getting new countertops in my kitchen and currently have no countertops at all) when my husband called and asked if I'd have time to make a dozen Tinker Bell cupcakes for tomorrow! Our neighbors wanted to order them for their granddaughter's birthday....I knew I would still need a lot of time for the cookies, but since I'm a crazy person, I said yes. So these cupcakes were pretty last-minute; I baked and put them together Thursday morning/afternoon. Despite that, I think they came out pretty darn cute!
All the decorations are fondant; I thought I would just cut out a little Tinker Bell silhouette for a simple, quick decoration. I should know by now that the things I think will be simple and quick never really are. *Sigh* Anyway, cutting a teeny tiny Tink out of fondant with an Exacto knife is not the easiest thing to do. It doesn't help that Tink has such a small waist, or that the silhouette I chose has her weensy little arms and weensy little fairy wand sticking out. Also, once I had cut the silhouette, it wasn't totally clear that it was Tinker Bell. Since I couldn't cut out all the fine detail, like in the silhouette I had printed out, mine looked like it could have been some sort of deformed rabbit (the wings are the ears, see?). Luckily I managed to fix this pretty easily by drawing on the outline of Tink's dress, her shoes, her wand, and her hairdo. I also put some sparkle dust on her wings to make them stand out, and I am so glad I did!

Here's Tinker Bell scattering fairy dust on us all! I used a pretty floral-patterned rubber stamp to create the background. (In case you'd like to try this, place a piece of saran wrap between your stamp and the fondant; I'm not sure why, but apparently rubber stamps and fondant are not supposed to mix.)

Here's Tink among the flowers...

And here are the flowers by themselves, just because they're cute ;)

I am happy to report that the birthday girl was very pleased with these, as was her family! I'm also happy to report that I have cupcake orders every weekend for the next 5 weeks, so I should be around fairly often with new pics for you! So, see ya real soon!

Cooooookies! More Cooooookies!

I have been making a TON of cookies over the past two weeks. So...here they are!
Fancy red heart with gold detailing

And here it is packaged up all perdy-like :)

Sassy zebra-striped hearts ;)

Instead of just individual cookies, I've been making up lots of plates and platters. This one was for a simple backyard barbecue with some friends.

Butterflies, bees, daisies, and tulips.

Next was a platter for a weekend riding clinic. I hand-cut some cookies for the first time (the boots and hats below) and I was very pleased with how easy it was to cut the dough and how well they turned out (of course, cookie cutters are much easier, but it doesn't take nearly as long as you might think to cut cookies by hand).

Cowboy boots and cowboy hats!

Some red bandanna-print cookies to add a pop of color to the platter :)

And a pretty paint pony! All of the cookies for this platter were a lot of fun to make :)

Here they are all together! My parents just happened to have this platter which goes so very perfectly with the cookies.

Next up, some cookies to celebrate our league-winning track team! My husband and I both coach track at the local high school (my hubby is a teacher), and this year both the boys and girls teams won league championships! Good job athletes!!

It's hard to tell, but the gold parts are all sparkly. You can kind of see a little shimmer on the cookie on the bottom left.

Next up, a platter for a college graduate:

He is planning on becoming a history teacher, and he also coaches track, so along with the traditional caps and diploma scrolls, I made some track feet, history textbooks, and pencils.

And those are my cookies! Holy moly! Decorating cookies is a lot of fun, and I'm really enjoying making up cute platters, but making cookies is soooooooooooo much work! They take for-ev-er! After making cookies almost nonstop for the past two weeks, I'm glad to have a break ;) However, I hope to be making some more delicious creations soon, and of course when I do, I'll be back to share! 'Til then, ciao!

Mother's Day and an Attempt at Fondant

So, I decided it was about time for me to attempt to cover a cake in fondant. I made the cake. I got the fondant. I watched the videos on YouTube. I learned that those ladies make this look a lot easier than it really is. How do they make it so smooth? How are they not left with excess fondant which folds over and makes unsightly little creases? Why does their fondant simply blend back into itself to create a superbly uniform covering? I hope to some day know the answers to these questions, but for now, this is what I got:
Aside from the slight tear in the back (that I cleverly hid from view and which you would never have known about had I not just told you), I suppose it's not bad for my first try. But here's the cool thing: all you have to do is cover your imperfect fondant in lots of frosting squiggles, and no one will be the wiser!

TA-DA!! Yes, I know, isn't it lovely? But wait, there's more! A quick trip to the back yard...

...and you have a beautiful cake topper! Quite nice, no?

Anyway, moving on now! I know Mother's Day was a while ago, but I'm obviously a little behind in my blogging. My mom's favorite cupcake of mine is the chocolate salted caramel, so I adapted that into a cake. I don't have any pics of the scrummy inside, but it was three layers of chocolate cake with caramel sauce and delicious salted caramel frosting between each layer. The whole thing is covered in whipped ganache, and I made some fondant calla lilies for the first time :)

And here's a close-up of the flowers, which I am including mostly because I think it's a nice shot of my little bow. I was very proud of my little bow. This pic is slightly fuzzy, but you can make out the tiny pleats. So cute :)

That's all for now, folks, but I have a bazillion sugar cookies to share, and I will be back with them very, very soon, most likely later tonight :)

Babies! And Late Rabbits :)

So over the weekend I made some cupcakes for a baby shower. Twins!

Aren't the babies cute all wrapped up in their little blankies? Yes, yes they are.

Awwww, tiny gumpaste babies! So sweet :)

So anyway.... there were alphabet blocks which, btw, take kind of a long time to make. In case you're thinking of making some.

Some cute little stamped plaques. Since she's having one of each, some of the cupcakes said both "It's a boy!" and "It's a girl!" The rest just said BABY and had cute ponies.

So many babies! Aaaaaaaaahhhh! (I'm not quite sure why all my pics look so fuzzy today. Sorry 'bout that.)

And here they are all together again :) These were funfetti cake with vanilla buttercream. Rather, they were supposed to be funfetti cake...but the cake store was out of jimmies, so I attempted to make funfetti using colored sugar instead. This does not work. FYI.

I had another order over the weekend for some White Rabbit cupcakes. You know, the one from Alice in Wonderland who is running terribly late for a very important date. These are lemon cupcakes frosted with white chocolate buttercream.

I chose the animated Disney White Rabbit because I like Disney, and also because he was the simplest to copy ;)

Here he is, poor guy! He's late, he's late!

I painted the pocket watches with gold luster dust...I hadn't used luster dust very much before, but this was pretty simple, and I think it turned out well :)

Happy Birthday Joey!

Flowers and Flutterbies

I had the opportunity to make some cupcakes last weekend for a friend's twin daughters' birthday party. We went with pink and lime green butterflies and flowers :) I was super excited to make cute, girly cupcakes, and I was very happy with the way these turned out!

The cupcakes are half vanilla filled with strawberries and half chocolate, all frosted with vanilla buttercream. The butterflies have some sparkle to them, as do the flowers, but it doesn't show up well in the pictures. On some pics you can see a hint of shimmer in certain places...

Each girl had her own special cupcake :) Happy first birthday Ella and Milana!

Packaged up and ready to go!

Wait--these look familiar! The next week, my best friend placed an order for more flower and butterfly cupcakes, but this time in pink and purple.

Here they are in my awesome purple cupcake stand! I think it works perfectly with these cupcakes :)

Happy spring everyone!!

Sugar Cookies!

Sugar cookies are so fun! Pretty decorated sugar cookies are fairly easy to make, but the process is rather time-consuming. But I think it's worth it, because you can make such darn cute cookies! Cookies are a lot of fun because there is an almost endless variety of shapes you can make, and then of course you can decorate them however you please. Fun fun! So to begin, you need some sugar cookies (of course) and some royal icing. I have tried a fair few different sugar cookie recipes. My favorite is this recipe from bakeat350.blogspot.com. If you are interested in sugar cookies, I would definitely advise you to browse around that website. She makes some really, really awesome cookies, and always has great decorating tutorials. Okay, so, that other thing you need: royal icing. Royal icing is powdered sugar, meringue powder (or egg whites), and water. You will need two consistencies of icing: stiff, for outlining and decorations; and thin, for flooding. So here are my supplies, all ready to make cookies! You don't want your stiff icing too stiff or it will be difficult to pipe, but it needs to be stiff enough that it will hold its shape to make a good outline. I suggest some trial and error to decide which consistency works best for you. Then add some water to thin out your icing. When you dip a spoon into the icing, you want it to run right off and blend back in with the icing in the bowl within a second or so. For this thinned icing, I highly recommend getting some squeeze bottles. Cookie decorating will be so much easier. First thing you gotta do is pipe on your outlines using your stiff frosting. If you will be outlining one cookie in multiple colors, like the ones on top, wait for one color to dry before piping on another to prevent them from blending together. Now you wait for all your outlines to dry. I have moved on to flooding sooner than I ought to have before without any disastrous consequences, but you really should wait at least a few hours. Once your outlines are dry, the next step is to flood the cookie with your thinned out icing. You basically want to pour a bunch of icing into the middle of the cookie. Squeeze bottles are very nice for this because they're not messy, and because you can easily get icing into smaller areas. You want to put on enough icing to almost entirely cover the cookie. Just make sure you don't have too much or it will flow over your outlines and make a mess.

The next step isn't much fun. Take a toothpick and spread the frosting right out to the edges and into the corners. You can flood a few cookies at a time before going back and spreading the icing out, but be cautious not to wait too long or your icing will already have started to dry and it won't look very nice at all when you try to spread it. Now you have to wait for this to dry. Royal icing does dry fairly quickly, as I said, but you really want to make sure it is completely dry before you move on to decorating. Again, wait at least a few hours, or even overnight.

The last step is decorating! Use your stiff icing again to pipe on decorations :)

Again, wait a while to be sure your icing is completely dry before you try to package or transport the cookies.

Now the best part: lots of pictures of cookies! I haven't made a ton of sugar cookies yet, but here is what I have done :) (Go check out bakeat350.blogspot.com to see some more awesome sugar cookies!!)

Little jack-in-the-box dudes :)

Alphabet blocks! Prizes to anyone who can figure out what all my pictures are supposed to be haha ;)

And adorable little onesies :) The above cookies were all for a baby shower. I suggested onesies to the mom, but she didn't want anything too "baby" or cutesy, so she suggested ties on them. They came out super cute, and I also made some with little bowties and buttons and a cute little pocket. See why sugar cookies are so fun?

Here are all the baby shower cookies packed up and ready to go. Sugar cookies look great in little cellophane bags tied with a simple ribbon. It's a good, simple way to prepare them as favors :)

Wedding cake

Pretty ornaments and Christmas trees....

...see how nice they can look? What a beautiful (and tasty) place marker!

My husband and I recently bought our first home, so I made these to thank our realtor and our mortgage broker. The lines are a little rough, but I think they came out pretty cute overall.

And finally, some poinsettias for Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by! See ya next time! ;)