Inspiration Challenge: November {Show Me Your State}

Where is the time going? Every time I think I can get ahead with projects I'm suddenly racing to get them done in the nick of time.

It's time for another inspiration challenge. This month's theme is "Show Me Your State". I was born & raised in Texas and I've lived here all my life. I've ventured out of state on a handful of occasions but I don't see myself ever living anywhere else. I love Texas!

Here are the cookies I made to represent my state. I had a more elaborate set planned out in my head but I decided to keep it simple. I love cowboys (represented by the hat), boots, the Longhorns (please don't hate me Aggies, I don't watch football like I used to) and my state. I had to throw in the "Don't mess with Texas" cookie for fun.

The boots were inspired by my Ariat Fatbaby's. They are my favorite kind of boots because they are really comfortable.

Now please head on over to Ellie's Bites Decorated Cookies and check out Stephanie's New Jersey cookies. I'm so glad that Stephanie and her family made it through the storm okay. I know that many others were not so lucky and suffered great losses. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the storm.

We would love to see your state cookies. Please link them below. You have all month to do so. Next month's challenge will be "Winter Wonderland".

Thanks for stopping by and happy creating!

Happy Blogiversary & A Book Signing

I can't believe that today my blog is one year old. I started it as a place to share my creations with my family and friends. I thought they would be the only ones reading it. Little did I know that one year later I would be celebrating this day with so many others. Thanks to everyone that supports me. I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

Blogging has become such a big part of my life. I love the creative freedom and being able to teach. I also love all the wonderful friends I have met along the way. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next year brings.

Now let me tell you about the real excitement of today. I got to meet Bridget of Bake at 350. Bridget just published a book called Decorating Cookies: 60 + Designs for Holidays, Celebrations & Everyday and she had her first signing at Hubbell & Hudson in The Woodlands, TX. This was the highlight of my day because she is one of my favorite bloggers. Meeting her was amazing. She is an absolute sweetheart and she is so beautiful.

Thank you Bridget for allowing me to post about this. Congratulations on all your success!

Graveyard Cake {Video Tutorial}

If you read my previous post then you know that I made a graveyard cake for two of my co-worker's birthdays. Here is the finished cake. It would be great for Halloween with hands or zombies coming out of the ground. I just love how the Oreo dirt looks so realistic!

Something you don't know about me is that I'm totally addicted to watching makeup tutorials on YouTube and some of my favorite ones to watch are the getting ready videos. I thought to myself "how can I take this concept and use it for what I do"? I knew I was going to be decorating a cake for my co-workers so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out a "watch me decorate a cake" video. There are tons of videos on YouTube of people decorating cakes so I'm not inventing the wheel here. This type of video is new to me. I hope you enjoy it. I sped it up to try & shorten it as much as I could.

Thanks for stopping by and happy creating!

Royal Icing Transfers For A Cake {Video Tutorial}

Two of my co-workers had birthdays this week so I decided to make a cake to celebrate both of their birthdays. What better than a good old graveyard cake to celebrate getting a year older? Lol!

Today I'll be showing you a video tutorial on the royal icing transfers.

I've made some royal icing transfers in the past but I'm no expert on them. All I know is that I never really had issues with them and I experienced little to no breakage. Well wouldn't you know it but as soon as I hit the record button to film a tutorial it seems that everything that can happen does happen. Needless to say this was not my best experience with transfers but in the end it all worked out and I only had two breakages. This brings up a good point. Always make extras when you make transfers in case you have breakage.

Anyway, I've always used parchment paper for my transfers and have never had an issue with sticking. I've heard other decorators express problems with it but I didn't understand why because my transfers usually come off with ease. This time around I did get sticking with the parchment and I learned something that I believe is the cause. Usually my husband keeps our house as cold as a meat locker but we had some cooler days this week and our thermostat was set higher. This difference in temperature is what I believe caused the sticking problem. It's my thought that the transfers do well in a cold environment. Another thing that happened is that I made my flood icing too thin so it took the tombstone transfers longer to dry. The warmer temperature in the house did not help matters.

What I learned is that consistency is key for drying. Using a thicker icing will help your transfers dry faster. I won't make the mistake of making my icing too thin again. Also, I believe that the temperature in your house is important when making transfers. The cooler the better.

So without further ado here is the video. Although I had some issues with my transfers I hope that you will still find this tutorial helpful. 

Stay tuned for my next post where I show you the finished cake.

Pumpkin Pancakes

Earlier this year my friend Terri & I went to visit her daughter at college. We stayed at a nice bed & breakfast called White Rock Creek and on the first morning they served yummy pumpkin pancakes. This is where my obsession with pumpkin pancakes was born. Retha and Dana were such wonderful hosts and run a beautiful establishment. You can find their pumpkin pancake recipe here.

Flash forward to last month when I had breakfast at IHOP and tried their pumpkin pancakes. I was in love with the bold flavor of their pancakes. I began a quest to try and recreate the flavor of the IHOP pancakes. After four attempts I think I finally have a recipe I like and I'm sharing it with you.

Pumpkin Pancakes:
{adapted from White Rock Creek Bed & Breakfast}
Print Recipe

• 2 cups flour {I use unbleached flour}
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup canned 100% pure pumpkin
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl combine milk,vanilla, pumpkin, egg and oil. Mix well. Add the wet mixture into the dry mixture and mix well. The batter will be slightly thick.

Cook on medium heat until the edges appear dry {approximately 3 mins}. Turn and cook another 2-3 minutes.

Notes:
I think these pancakes are great with maple syrup. I like fairly large pancakes and I'm able to get 7-8 pancakes from this batter. The amount of pancakes will vary depending on the size you make them. If you have leftovers simply put them between sheets of wax paper and freeze them.

Happy eating :)

Inspiration Challenge: October {Halloween Candy}

Another inspiration challenge is upon us. In honor of Halloween,Stephanie and I chose Halloween Candy as our theme. Being that I love candy I had many choices to choose from. I narrowed it down to Almond Joy and Butterfinger. Let me show you which one I chose.

When I saw these Butterfinger Halloween pumpkins in the store I immediately knew that this would be my challenge candy. I already knew before I picked a candy that I didn't want to try and recreate the wrapper but instead I wanted to recreate the candy itself.

Let me show you how I did it.

First, I dyed my dough orange with AmeriColor orange food coloring gel.

Then, I cut out my pumpkin shapes and used a chopstick to make the facial features.

I used an up and down pouncing motion to get the details.

Finally, I used the end of a paintbrush to make the grooves in the pumpkin. I dragged the paintbrush across the cookie.

Do you want to know something funny? When I bit into the candy they weren't as orange inside as I thought they would be. Oh well I decided to make the insides of my candy look like traditional Butterfinger candies.

Here's a video I made to show you how I decorated the cookies.

Now head on over to Ellie's Bites Decorated Cookies to look at Stephanie's cookies. Aren't her M&M's so cool? I love them.

Thanks for stopping by today. Don't forget that you have the whole month of October to post your Halloween candy pics using the link-up below. I'm excited to see what you come up with. I'm also very excited about next month's challenge "Show Me Your State". We want to see the state you live in represented in cookies. The skies the limit on this next challenge. You do not have to be limited to your state symbols. Tell us about your state through cookies.