Ava's Barbie Party

Mom's 50th Birthday

Chocolate cake with mocha almond fudge filling.

Cute as a Button

Finley's "Cute as a Button" smash cake and cupcakes.

Dylan's Tiki Cake

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

I posted that I wanted to try these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls, I decided this weekend was as good as any. They were super easy, super yummy, and they don't include any egg, so the raw dough is completely safe to eat!

I did a Google search and found this recipe.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1(14oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup semi-sweet choc. chips
1 1/2 lb choc. bark
*The original recipe called for pecans, but omitted them*

In a large bowl cream butter and brown sugar with a mixer on med speed.
Add vanilla. Gradually beat in flour and add milk. Add choc. chips and pecans. Shape into tiny balls. Place on wax paper and chill 2 hours.

Melt choc. bark in microwave. Dip balls into the choc. to coat. Chill to set.

I ran out of chocolate thought it would be fun to do some with white chocolate.

Red, White, & Blue - Red Velvet Cream Cheese Brownies

I have seen brownies made from cake mix before, but never tried it myself. I saw a recipe for red velvet brownies online, but I didn't have all the ingredients I needed. I saw that Bakerella made brownies from a chocolate cake mix, so I tweaked that recipe a little for the red velvet box of cake mix I had in my pantry.

Brownies:
1 pkg Red Velvet Cake Mix
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
8 tbsp water

Cream Cheese Topping (Bakerella's Recipe):
1 8 oz. pkg cream cheese (softened)
2 eggs
1 lb confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I dyed some of the cream cheese topping blue before I swirled it on top. It kind of baked into the brownie in some places, so there are parts where the cream cheese is sandwiched between the brownie. The verdict? YUM!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls?

Yesterday somebody brought chocolate chip cookie balls to Jonathan and Carolyn's. They were so yummy! Along with the frosting bombs (that I never got around to making), these are next on my list of things to make!

Welcome Baby Cake Pops

Cupcakes in a Jar

I've seen these cupcakes-in-a-jar on a few websites, but when I saw these ones a while back I completely fell in love with the idea and planned to make them for my fellow teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. As it turns out, I didn't end up having enough time to make them.


So I made them this week instead! Jonathan and Carolyn had a "Meet the Baby" party for their little Kaleia, so I made some cupcakes-in-a-jar to take with me! I think they look much cuter in the taller jars from my inspiration, but I would need to put two cupcakes in each jar, and that just seemed like a lot of cake for somebody to eat in one sitting. So I opted for shorter jars. I think my favorite thing about these were how well they traveled, so much easier to transport than actual cupcakes!
 

Cinco de Mayo, Anyone?

I started following RecipeGirl a while ago on fb because she had a lot of kid-friendly recipes. A few days ago I saw her recipe for Margarita Cupcakes and decided I had to try them. No, they're not exactly friendly to my diet, and no, I don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo. But I like to find any excuse for a margarita. Cinco de Mayo sounds like a good excuse to me!

Her recipe yields 24 cupcakes, but I did away with a few of those and made some minis, well, just because. I love mini cupcakes!

Ingredients:

CAKE:
9 ounces Margarita Mixer, bottled liquid
3 ounces tequila
3/4 ounce Grand Marnier - I used Triple Sec because that's what we had in the bar
1 (18.25 ounce) box white cake mix
3 large egg whites
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 Tablespoon lime zest


LIME BUTTERCREAM ICING:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 to 6 cups powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lime zest
green food coloring, if desired
small lime slices for garnish, if desired


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two dozen cupcake tins with paper liners.

2. Prepare cupcakes: Whisk together margarita mix, tequila and Grand Marnier in a small bowl. Measure out 1 1/4 cups for the recipe; pour the rest on some ice and drink it while making the cupcakes :)

3. In a large bowl, blend cake mix, egg whites, vegetable oil, lime zest and 1 1/4 cups of the margarita mix from step 1. Blend on low for about 30 seconds and then increase speed to medium and blend for two additional minutes. Batter will be slightly lumpy.

4. Spoon the batter into cupcake liners (about 3/4 full). Bake for 20-25 min, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool for about 10 minutes in the pans, then remove them to a rack to cool completely.

5. Prepare icing: Once cucpakes are completely cooled, prepare the icing. Place butter in a large bowl and beat with electric mixer until butter is fluffy. Add 5 cups of powdered sugar, salt, lime juice, and lime zest. Mix until thick and creamy. Add more powdered sugar until the frosting is of a good spreading (or piping) consistency. Mix in a tiny amount of green food coloring or gel paste if you'd like the frosting to have a green tint. Ice cupcakes in whatever manner you prefer... spreading or piping the frosting. Use small lime slices as garnish.

Jolee's Smash Cake

So, maybe you say I got a little carried away. I can live with that. This was Jolee's smash cake. Yes, I must be out of my mind because I made a 2-tiered smash cake. I've wanted to do one that was 2-tiers for a while now, and Jolee seemed perfect for it!

Her cake was made to match her party decor (Hugs & Stitches), which looked like this:

In pictures, this cake looks a lot bigger than it really is, so I took a picture of it next to the first thing I could get my hands on so you can compare the size. Closest thing was my desk, so a stapler it was!

 

 

 

Police Man Cake

This cake I made for two adorable little brothers, Blake & Luke, who have birthdays that are very close together. Their mama Lindsey did an amazing job with all of the decor, including a cardboard box jail, and a donut and coffee (chocolate milk) station. Too cute!

The cake is covered with fondant and all accents were made out of fondant.

Easter Egg Cake Pops

I did a test run of some Easter cake pops. These ones are vanilla and buttercream frosting.

Cupcake Cake Pops

My first cupcake cake pops were a disaster, but after a little practice, the 2nd ones were a little better. I had a fellow cake friend recently tell me about a place in Temecula that sells cake pops. When I looked at their pictures, it was clear that they used a mold to create the "wrapper" for the cupcakes. I did some research and found two molds that I liked. I went with my least favorite first, and will hopefully try out the one I really like very soon. Using the mold was so much easier than trying to shape the "wrapper" part with a cutter. It also made it much cleaner-looking after it was dipped. I also found some round red candies that I like much better for the "cherry" than the red M&Ms I was using.



Learning as I Go

Lately I've been getting a lot of fb messages and texts asking about how I do some of my cake pops or other things. People have asked how I get my cake pops so round. Quite honestly, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I learn by doing and practicing, practicing, practicing. Often, when people ask me to make something for them, I will usually do a test run before I will tell them yes. One example of a cake pop I wasn't sure I would be able to pull off are the Blue's Clues cake pops. The test run worked beautifully the first time, except for the fact that the paws were dipped in red candy coating instead of blue (I did the test run the same day I made the mushrooms for Sawyer's cupcakes, so red is what I used!) For cake pops in general, I get a lot of information from Bakerella's website. Then from there, I practice to see what works best for me. My cake pops were NOT so round in the beginning, but with practice they get better. I don't usually post the pictures of my practice work, just because it is very embarrassing to somebody like me who is super self-conscious as it is. But I decided that maybe I should start posting some of my practice pictures.


I got an email from a friend who first asked if I would do her wedding cake. After I told her no (I've had to turn so many brides down, I just don't think I'm ready for a wedding cake) she suggested that I make some cake pops instead. After giving her a list of ideas I had, I was very confident I could do all of the ideas except for one. So I did a test run, and it was a disaster!

The idea was to make little wedding cakes. The cutters that I used to mold the pops were clearly the wrong sizes and I didn't refrigerate the cake long enough so that my edges stayed sharp. More practice very soon!



Frosting Bombs Instead of Cake Pops?

Uhmmm, yeah, these bad boys could definitely get me in trouble. Just came across these frosting bombs, which are the same concept as cake pops, minus the cake. As a corner-piece grabbing frosting lover, I think I will have to try making these sometime.

Hank and Hunt

Braysen's Pirate Party

Because I have SO MANY pictures from Braysen's 1st birthday party, I decided to put the goodies on my cake blog. More pictures from the party can be found here, and there are many more on facebook.

A ton of stuff, right? I know! I have a serious problem when it comes to ideas for goodies. I get so many ideas and want to all of them. I really have a hard time eliminating things, so I just went with it!

All of the decorations on these cupcakes were edible. I used raw sugar for the "sand" on the cupcakes.

The treasure chests were made out of fondant. The treasure is sprinkles and hand-made coins.

Fondant X-marks the spot

The coins I used fondant to create. I punched them out with a circle cutter and searched everywhere around my house for something that I could stamp with in order to make them look like coins. I ended up using the top of a tequila bottle. :) I then brushed the coins with gold and silver lusterdust.

Fondant sword, also brushed with silver lusterdust.

 Braysen's smash cake. This cake was the first time I used what is called a buttercream transfer. I'm not completely happy with how some of the edges turned out. I don't think I piped the icing thick enough. I'll know better for next time!

Marshmallow pops.
In many of these pictures you will see these little tags that were originally supposed to be cupcake toppers. They were designed by Rhiannon at Doodlebug & Dimples. I used them on some of the sticks for the goodies, on table centerpieces, and sprinkled on the tables.

Cannonballs (red velvet cake balls)

In the background ar more marshmallow pops and skull-shaped vanilla cake pops.

One thing I don't have a closeup of the chocolate pretzel rods, but you can kind of see them in the bottom of this picture.

 I called these cupcake sandwiches simply because I couldn't think of a clever way to word whoopie pies, but they are really just whoopie pies!