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.)

Gender Reveal Cake - It's a... ??? - November 2013

When my sister Valerie was pregnant with their second baby, she and her husband decided to find out the gender.  After some persuading from her friends :) they decided to have a gender reveal party, and they asked me if I would bake the cake for it.  My mom offered to decorate it, but they didn't want us both to know the gender ahead of time, so after I baked and assembled the cake I frosted it with a layer of icing that would conceal any of the colored cake before handing it off.  Then, my mom finished frosting and decorating it.

I baked French vanilla almond sour cream cake in 2- 9 inch cake pans and French vanilla almond sour cream cake tinted 'the mystery color' in 3- 9 inch cake pans.  Since I was using a crystal cake stand, I put a round cake circle on the stand under the cake so no one would see the color of the cake through the crystal.  ;)  I alternated layers of colored and white cake and iced them with white frosting in between as I stacked them.  When all the layers were assembled I iced the cake with a crumb coat.  After the crumb coat set I iced the cake with just enough frosting so my mom couldn't see the color of the cake when she went to decorate it.

My mom iced the cake with white frosting and made little peaks on the sides.  My sister had asked her to write 'Oh, Baby!' on the cake, so she piped it in green icing on the top.  Then she used pearlized pink, blue, and green sixlets around the base of the cake and several on the top.

The cake turned out really cute and sweet, and when they cut the cake everyone was excited to find out they were having a... 

...BOY!  :)

(I created my animated name at this site.)