Embossing On Fondant {Video Tutorial}

Today we're having a surprise baby shower for one of our co-workers. No worries, she's not a blog follower so she won't see them here first. I volunteered to make cupcakes. I love making cupcakes and jump at the chance to make them when I can. My co-worker is having a boy so I immediately thought of making fondant teddy bears to top the cupcakes with. I decided that instead of trying to make bears with actual faces and features that I would simply cut out a teddy bear shape from a piece of fondant that I had embossed.

Last year I discovered this tutorial by The Magical Cupcake Company. I immediately ran out to Joann's to look for the Cuttlebug embossing folders. I went a little crazy and bought several because they were on sale and I had a coupon too. I tried them once and then never again. I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to try them out again since I wanted a simple design for these cupcakes.

These are the first cupcakes I made with the embossing folder.

Anywho, I made a video tutorial to show you how I embossed the bears for the cupcakes. Hope you find it helpful.

Have a great week everyone!!!

A Birthday Cake I'd Like To Forget

Have you ever made a cake that you just want to forget about? This happened to me yesterday. We are celebrating my husband's birthday today and I wanted to make him a nice masculine cake. That plan went out the window when the cake did not bake like I thought it would and I had to come up with plan B.

Normally, I'm a box mix or an altered box mix cake gal. These are the types of cakes that I'm comfortable making since making cakes is just a hobby. This time I wanted to try a scratch recipe and I chose a lemon cake recipe from my Magnolia Bakery cookbook. I thought one batch of this recipe would make a nice fat 9x13 cake. Sadly, I was wrong. The cake was dense and did not rise very much. I don't think it was due to over mixing because I was very careful when alternating dry and wet ingredients to not over mix. Also, in my opinion the cake was not lemony at all and seemed bland.

Anyway, I came up with a plan to cut the 9x13 layer in half and torte each half. The layers were stacked and filled with lemon curd and the cake was iced with lemon buttercream. The lemon curd was a success. It was my first time making it and it's very yummy. The lemon buttercream is just a variation of my buttercream recipe. I omitted the vanilla and almond and used 1 tablespoon of LorAnn lemon emulsion.

The frustration came when I was icing the cake. With the cutting in half and torting I had a lot of crumbs. I suppose I could have done a crumb coat and then come back with a final coat of icing but I'm impatient and lazy. After all the frustrations I had run into already I just wanted the nightmare over. When I'm having trouble icing a cake I usually put a basket weave, rose swirls or ruffles on it. I decided to go with ruffles but instead of the traditional vertical ruffles I thought I'd try something new and do horizontal ruffles. Big mistake.

I know some of you will look at this cake and say it's not bad but in my mind it is horrible because it is nothing that I wanted it to be. Well there's always next year. The great thing about my husband is that he doesn't care what his cake looks like. He loves me no matter what.

I wasn't going to take pictures of the cake and share it because I just wanted it to go away but I decided that if I share things with you that don't go right that you will see that it happens to everyone. The big lesson I learned was not to try out new recipes on important cakes. Also, I learned that you have to be adaptable when making cakes and never give up. I really hated this cake last night but this morning it's growing on me. There can be beauty in imperfection.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies for Father's Day {Recipe}

Normally for holidays and birthdays I make cakes, cupcakes or cookies but for Father's Day this year I decided to make brownies. What dad doesn't love brownies? What dad doesn't love peanut butter chocolate chip brownies? I think you'd only find a handful that don't.

So today in honor of Father's Day I'm sharing my recipe with you.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies
{adapted from Bakerella}
Print Recipe

6 tablespoons salted butter, softened
1/2 cup natural creamy peanut butter {I use Jif Natural}
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup packed Splenda brown sugar blend
3 eggs
1 teaspoon Madagascar bourbon vanilla {I use Nielsen-Massey}
1 1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour {I use King Arthur}
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup peanut butter & milk chocolate morsels {I used Nestle Toll House}

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 jelly roll pan.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.

In a mixer cream the butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add in the sugars and mix until combined.

Next, add in the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until combined.

Stir in the peanut butter & milk chocolate morsels or if you're lazy like me add them in the mixer and mix on low.

Spread the mixture in your greased pan with an offset spatula and bake for approximately 23 minutes.

Notes: I am an unconventional baker and I like to use salted butter in all my recipes. I still add a dash of salt {about 1/8 tsp}. My husband is diabetic so I try to cut back on sugar where I can. If you want the "full strength" version of this recipe then by all means use regular brown sugar. I baked the brownies for about 23 minutes in a pan that is dark with a non-stick coating. Depending on the pan you use the baking time may vary.

Enjoy! Happy Father's Day!

Ballet Cookies

Do you listen to music when you decorate cookies? I do. I get lost in the music and it makes the decorating go faster. Do you dance when you decorate cookies? I do. When I'm waiting for cookies to dry, so I can move on to the next step, sometimes I've been known to get up and dance around the room.

So now that you know some personal stuff about me let's move on to the cookies. I was asked by a friend if I could make some cookies for her daughter's ballet recital. I was more than happy to make them. She requested simple scalloped cookies with ballet shoes on them. The colors are white & purple. Here's what I came up with.

Do you know how hard it is to photograph purple? It always comes out looking blue. Fortunately I think I was able to capture the purple color pretty well in the photograph. By the way I'm going to point this out so that you can see how crazy my brain works. I did not notice until I was writing this but I did not place the cookies correctly. They should be turned a little more clockwise. It's not fun having a brain like this because sadly I do not care for most of the cookies I make. I find flaws in all of them.

Anyway, I really hope Sydnie and her friends enjoy the cookies and have a great recital.

Have a great weekend!

Patriotic Crosses With Ruffles {Tutorial}

I had some leftover icing from the patriotic butterflies I made so I froze it. This was my first time freezing royal because I've heard mixed reviews on doing it. I will say that it froze just fine and when thawed it seemed slightly runnier than when I put it in but the color did not change at all. It was frozen from May 27th through June 9th. I will say that the only downside to freezing icing is that it takes quite a bit of time to thaw. If you're impatient this is not good. I would suggest taking it out the night before you need it.

I also had several different shapes of cookies frozen. When you mainly decorate for fun it becomes cost effective to do these things. If I make cookies for friends and family and I have leftover dough I go ahead & cut shapes that I think I may want to decorate soon and bake them. Then once they are cooled I freeze them. I use Sugarbelle's sugar cookie recipe and I follow this post for tips on freezing the cookies.

So armed with leftover icing and cookies I decided to practice on the ruffle technique and make patriotic crosses with ruffles. I love God and I love my country. This is a great idea for a God Bless America theme.

To make patriotic crosses you will need:

• red, white and blue stiff consistency royal icing
• #104, #103 and #102 Wilton piping tips

Begin with red stiff consistency icing and a Wilton #104 tip and ruffle along the edge of the cross. You can allow this step to dry before continuing on but I'm lazy and impatient so I did not wait.

Next, with white stiff consistency icing and a Wilton #103 tip ruffle inside the red.

Finally, with blue stiff consistency icing and a Wilton #102 tip make a ruffle in a cross shape. In this picture I did not do this. I went around in a circle, in the middle, instead of making a cross. In the video you will see that I changed the technique since taking the photos. Either way looks good.

Here is the video of the process. In this video I'm simply demonstrating how I made the cross. For more in-depth information on making ruffles please watch this video by Ali Bee's Bake Shop. She explains the ruffle technique beautifully.

Finally, just for fun I also decorated some hibiscus cookies I had cut for May flowers and never got around to making them. I used the same ruffle technique. Aren't they lovely? These would be a great addition to your 4th of July platter.

I've got several things coming up. One is the Inspiration Challenge for July which is home decor. Be sure to check out June's Inspiration Challenge here. There's still time to participate. I'll be working on some cookies for a friend at work, Father's Day is coming up and so is my hubby's birthday.

Have a great week!

Inspiration Challenge: June {Fabric Patterns}

I never imagined that when I became obsessed with cookie decorating that it would lead me to meet some wonderful friends that share the same love and obsession for cookies that I do. One of these friends is Stephanie from Ellie's Bites Decorated Cookies. Stephanie and I like to cookie for our friends and family. I guess you could say that we are hobbyists when it comes to cookie decorating. I expressed to Stephanie how sometimes it is hard to get motivated to make cookies just for fun and she came up with this great idea that we do a 12 month inspiration challenge. Each month we pick a theme and challenge ourselves to make cookies based on the theme. It will give us an excuse to make cookies and it will also challenge us to think outside the box as decorators.

For month one of the inspiration challenge we decided the theme would be fabric patterns. Since Father's Day is this month I wanted to translate my pattern onto neckties. I went to different stores snapping pics of neckties and when I got home I thought that I had enough pics to be able to choose one pattern. Well after looking through the pics I decided that I just wasn't happy with what I had. I scoured the Internet looking at fabric patterns and most were too busy or just not the look I was going for. After a lot of searching I finally found a pattern that I liked.

The pattern is simplistic but I really like how it turned out. Here is the inspiration fabric pattern.

Image Source: http://www.etsy.com/listing/65715867/leaf-tea-towel-leaves-flour-sack-towel?ref=sr_gallery_12&ga_search_query=leaf+cotton&ga_page=3&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade

Although my design is simplistic this first challenge was challenging. Free handing is not my forte. I'm just not that good of a drawer. I wanted to challenge myself to not use my Kopykake. I decided to go with a wet-on-wet technique because it would force me to not think too much because you have to work quickly before your icing starts to dry. For more info about the wet-on-wet technique please see this post.

So do you want to know the most exciting thing about this challenge?  We want you to participate. I will be hosting a link-up party {at the bottom of this post} where you can share your cookies with us. The link-up will run for the whole month of June. All you have to do is find a fabric pattern and translate the pattern onto any cookie. I hope you will participate in this challenge and we look forward to seeing your designs. Each month we will share a new challenge and give you the opportunity to participate and post your creations. Next month's challenge is “Home Decor”. Grab your camera phone and head over to HomeGoods, Target, or even Pottery Barn and find your inspiration.

Please be sure to check out Stephanie's challenge design here. She turned a pattern from a dress into cookies. If you like this idea please be sure to thank her for coming up with it and if you want to share your designs on Stephanie's page you can do so by leaving a comment with the link to your design. She will add your link to her post. This is our first challenge so we're still working out all the details. Finally, if you don't follow Stephanie already please look through her blog and see her designs. She inspires me. You can find her on Facebook here.

Let's get this party started!