Homemade Christmas Cookies - December 2013

My son's band was doing a Christmas cookie sale at one of their concerts.  I made the music note cookies (and some of the circle ones) for the fundraiser, and then I used some of the extra cookie dough to make some Christmas cookies for home.

To make the cookies I just followed a recipe for cut-out sugar cookies.  After the dough was mixed, I separated it into two bowls.  I used green food coloring to make the dough in one bowl green, and I used red food coloring for the other.

For the music note cookies I took red and green cookie dough and rolled them into fat snakes.  Then, alternating the colors, I put them together and rolled them out into a long strip.  I used a music note cutter to cut the notes out of the striped dough.  

After I got all the notes I could cut out of my striped dough, I gathered it up and rolled it out again.  The  notes on the top row (below) were cut from that dough, and they had more of a marbled look.  I also cut out some circles and stars to finish getting our amount of cookies we needed to bring.

The cookies below are what I made with the remaining dough.  I used some cutters and did some freehand.  For some (like the wreath) I treated the cookie dough like Play-Doh, rolling it into balls or snakes to make the various cookies or cookie parts.

Before:

After:

For the candy cane cookies below I made a long snake of red and a long snake of green, twisted them together, and then formed the twist into the shape of a candy cane.

Before:

After:

Merry Christmas!

(I created my animated name at this site.)

Thanksgiving Cake Balls - November 2013

These are some cake balls I made for a dessert for Thanksgiving.  I used the 'cake scraps' I had left from leveling the cakes that I used to make my daughter's Peter Pan cake.

To make the cake balls I followed Bakerella's instructions.  You can find them here.

(I created my animated name at this site.)

All You Need is Faith and Trust... and a Little Bit of Birthday Cake! - November 2013

This is the Peter Pan themed cake I made for my daughter Carissa's 9th birthday.

To make this cake I baked 2 six inch cakes, 2 eight inch cakes, and 2 nine inch cakes.  I leveled them, stacked them (using bubble straws and cake boards in between for supports), and iced them.

I measured the circumference and height of each layer.  Then, I rolled out and cut to size three pieces of white fondant.  After that I wrapped the corresponding fondant around each layer of cake.

I used my airbrush food coloring drops, paint brushes (only used for cakes), and toothpicks to paint the scenes on the fondant.  I had printed out different scenes that my daughter picked out from the Peter Pan movie, and I used those to reference to as I painted.

After I was finished painting I sprinkled some gold shimmer dust on the tops of the cakes where the icing was showing to resemble pixie dust.

If I had more time I would've had more pictures on it and some of the pictures (like the mermaids) would have come out better.  Why do you ask did I not have time...?  Well, this was not the first cake I made for her birthday party.  The first cake was going to be the Big Ben clock tower with the characters on the clock hand, but that cake met an unfortunate demise. :(  So, the cake above was a starting over from scratch Plan B that began late the night before the party and finished right up until her party started.  :O

I was pleased with the way the cake turned out though, and my daughter was really happy with it.

[I may update the post with a little more details on the first cake and a few pictures, but for now it'll have to wait.  :) ]

(I created my animated name at this site.)