June 7, 2011 · 10:08 pm

Sunshine Cookies!

Here in Sacramento it has been yucky weather for the last couple weeks… lots of clouds, lots of rain, and wind mixed in there too. It’s JUNE! Sacramento isn’t supposed to be like this! I  had some leftover dough after doing the graduation cookies last week so I decided to make some sunshine cookies to try to make the clouds disappear and bring on our usual sunny springtime!

I used my spiderweb cookie cutter from my halloween set. And I didn’t feel like making buttercream for just 19 cookies, so I did the outlining in a thicker version of my regular icing (similar to the way the pros do it with royal icing). I used golden yellow and some orange to make them bright and cheery, then ran a toothpick through them for the “firework” look. I did each one different to make a plate of FUN unique sunshine!

Since I did each cookie different, each felt like a work of art. After I finished each one, I would make my husband come look at how beautiful it was. He was trying to play his video games and I don’t think he appreciated the interuptions every 2 minutes…

Here are a couple close-ups:

This one was my favorite…

I forgot to take a picture of the cookies on the bright red platter so I took one on my phone and it turned out TERRIBLE, so you don’t get to see it. Just imagine it looking amazing. 🙂

*The cookies worked! The sun was out all day and it got close to 80 degrees!!*

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June 5, 2011 · 1:16 pm

Graduation Cookies!

My little brother graduated from college and I made him cookies for his graduation party. He was on the crew team and it has become a big part of his life, so I also wanted to incorporate that into the cookies. Here are the new cutters I bought for his cookies (from cheapcookiecutters.com):

The only boat they had was a canoe and he does NOT row canoes. He gets so offended if you mistakenly call it a canoe or a row boat lol. So I didn’t get a boat.

I was worried about losing the tassel of the cap, but they were easier than I thought they would be.

The oars on the other hand, were a pain in the you -know-what. They are about 4 inches long but only about 1/2 inch wide at the paddle part. the mid section is SO skinny that I had to carefully straighten them all out before I baked them. I broke lots just trying to get them off the pan. Here is what survived:

When it came time for decorating, a few more oars got broken. Good thing I made a ton of those little s**ts.

School colors are dark green and yellow/gold. (I had a hard time getting the green to get dark enough.) The oars were so small I decided not to even outline them, and it worked out okay. I just kept the icing a little farther from the edges and didn’t do too much so it wouldn’t run down.

Here are the final products:

That crew one was my favorite. Too bad it was one of the last ones I did, I would have done more like it!

I did a few funny ones for my brother… he often sat in the seat in the boat called the “stroke seat.” They are kind of like the leaders of pace. I made one that said “Stroke it!” I thought it was hilarious, until I showed my brother the picture and he informed me that I had a misspelling:

The 2- is the symbol for a 2 man race in which each guy has only 1 oar. It’s the boat my brother finished the season racing. (It’s very difficult because if one guy is pulling harder than the other, the boat turns. They have to be precisely together, and the boat is only as fast as the weaker man.) I know my brother was proud of this title, so I did a few cookies with the 2-.

The “row row row your boat” was my husband’s idea. My brother didn’t laugh.

The only platters/trays I had that were big enough for this many cookies were red, and of course not everything goes with red, so I headed to the store to get a new platter or 2 that were more color neutral. I found this serving tray at Target with handles on the sides, and it’s perfect. A couple inches tall so it could actually hold even more cookies if needed!

I officially have a second order placed! A coworker’s husband just graduated so I will be making cookies for their party. Different colors, so it will be fun!

But first, I have a baby shower to make cookies for next week!

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May 29, 2011 · 9:53 am

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Usually when I make something, I get little to none of it because I either make it for someone else, or I make it to share.. Well last night I felt like cookies. Did it matter that it was 10pm and I was out of sugar? Nope. I borrowed some from my parentals (who live very close-by) and I made cookies at 11pm.

I wanted chewy.. the cookies I have made before had good flavor and ingredients, but they were always harder than I prefer. Here is the recipe I used.  Apparently there is scientific evidence that makes these chewy cookies so good. And they really were. Although I think they are better after cooling completely (yes I had one for breakfast) than they did last night when they were warm.

Recipe says 10-13 min, and I definitely went the full 13 and they were still a little uncooked-ish in the middle, but letting them cool on the pan definitely helped them set. I used only about a cup of chocolate chips, I don’t like when they take over my cookie and I’m not the biggest chocolate fan. Oh and I used chopped walnuts, the recipe didn’t include nuts. I think next time I am going to add some oats, my mom’s cookies have oats and I love it…

I know chocolate chip cookies are a little boring compared to my other cookies, but this recipe is good so I wanted to share! Plus, what’s easier and quicker than homemade chocolate chip cookies?!

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May 28, 2011 · 4:56 pm

Baby Cookies!

I went to a baby shower today and I wanted to make just a couple cookies to give to the parents-to-be. Plus I wanted to try out my new ONESIE cookie cutter!! I was so excited about this one. Here is the cutter:

The baby’s name will be Jude Indigo Rule, and the parents are doing everything in green and brown (rather than the traditional blue).

    

    

I had SUCH a hard time getting my brown to darken. It just looked like tan/orangish. I finally added a little black and it got much better. My buttercream turned out a lot darker than the icing though because I always forget that buttercream darkens after a few hours. Oh well they still looked so cute! There was only 4 so I came up with 4 unique saying to put on them.

The first one is “Hey! Jude” cuz well, I had to do it…

The second is “Rock ‘n Rule”…

The third I did the initials…

And the last one is “iRule”… I just thought it was a cute saying, but I found out after I gave it to the mom-to-be that that is exactly how the dad-to-be introduced himself to her when they met. “Hi, my name is Russ, and I Rule.” Haha…

I put all 4 little individual wrapped cookies in a little gift bag. I had planned on tying them to the top of the gift I was bringing, but my treat bags were shorter than I thought.

It worked out better anyways cuz other gifts ended up stacked on top of it and they would have gotten broken. And plus it started raining and we had to grab all the gifts and run them to a car. Cookies need protecting! lol.

**This is going to be a cookie summer! Coming up: graduation cookies for 2 different parties and 2 more baby showers!

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May 22, 2011 · 9:22 am

Cake in a Jar

My little brother and a good friend of mine graduated college this weekend. My friend asked for cake, and I had been dying to make these jar cakes ever since someone told me about them. I thought it was the perfect time to make a little personal cake for a couple of people!

School colors are (dark) green and gold (yellow-gold, really) so I decided to do green cake and golden-yellow buttercream. I couldn’t get my green very dark with the colors I had. I was too scared to try to add black or something.

I filled the jars about 2/3 the way up, and the cake actually puffed out way more than I was expecting.. good 2 inches above the rim of the jar. One of them actually spewed down the side of the jar. I had read that this might happen a little, and so I just scooped the top off to make room for the frosting.

I wasn’t really happy with how these turned out. They browned from baking and pulled away from the side of the jar a lot. Not pretty looking, but at least they will taste delicious.

I had enough batter left to do 2 more jars, so I picked my favorite colors and was going to do layers…

It just turned into 2 layers really, and kind of boring. Oh well. They looked cool from the top:

But I covered them with buttercream of course!

After the buttercream hardened up a bit I put the lids on. They looked pretty ugly so I added cute little bows.

   

At least they will look pretty once the lid is taken off!

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May 21, 2011 · 5:29 pm

First Cookie Order

My coworker’s daughter has worked for years, in one way or another, for the republican party. It’s a huge part of her life, and she is about to leave to start a 6 month internship in DC. For her last day of work, her mom wanted to surprise her with a couple dozen custom sugar cookies made by *me!*

We ordered these cookie cutters from cheapcookiecutters.com:

        

I was originally going to just do the washington capital cookies plain white with white nonpariels or something… my husband said that would look dumb, so he helped me figure out which details to include and which to leave out. It was a lot of piping, but I was really happy with how they turned out. The elephants were lots of fun, I had to just google for ideas. I have star sprinkles so I just picked out all the white ones!

Here is the final product:

These may have earned me a HUGE project this summer, we will see!

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May 20, 2011 · 1:27 pm

Business Card

I delivered my first order today!

My coworker ordered 2 dozen cookies to surprise her daughter on her last day of work.  She insisted that I make and attach a business card in case anyone was interested in ordering any more. This is what I made real quick to send with the cookies:

I actually received a personal ‘thank you’ call from the surprised cookie recipient!

I will be uploading the pictures of the ordered cookies soon!

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May 15, 2011 · 12:10 pm

Birthday Rainbow Cupcakes

I was going to make my own birthday cupcakes, but my mom ended up making me some funfetti cupcakes! yumm…. But since I was having a BBQ a couple days later to actually celebrate my birthday, I still decided to make some cupcakes myself.

This post was my inspiration. I went with yellow cake instead of white… It ended up making my colors not as bright and perfect as I wanted. My blue was a little greenish and my purple just looked brown. (They ended up turning out great though once they were baked.) Oh and I used Wilton icing colors – pink, lemon yellow, leaf green, sky blue, and violet.

I used my finger to push the batter to the edges like the inspiration post said, but They still didn’t bake perfectly… I’m guessing bubbles or something is what brought the lower colors up.

I was about to run out of pink so I did the last few with pink on bottom and purple on top. A few ended up without pink, and the last one actually only had green blue and a tad of purple. My husband got that one, he always eats the ugly stuff so no one has to see it!

I did a simple white vanilla buttercream, and piped it on so that it looked fancier. Topped with rainbow sprinkles of course! My brother asked me how I got them to look so perfect.

I was feeling a little disappointed about the color thing until I actually cut into one…

It looked so much better than I was thinking it was going to! One of my friends said she didn’t know it was rainbow until she bit into it, and it made her so happy she had 3 more!

Next time I may try different colors instead of rainbow..

Orange and Black Attack cupcakes?!?

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May 8, 2011 · 9:19 pm

Lemon Pudding Cake & Chocolate Strawberries

For Mother’s Day I wanted to make something amazing to take to my mother-in-law’s. I know they favor lemony desserts and so I offered to bring this cake that I already had on my “need to make this one of these days” list.

My aunt makes an amazing lemon cake that I have always liked. It starts from a box, and I know if has some pudding mix in it.. and then she pokes holes in the top and mixes powdered sugar and lemon juice and pours it over the top of the cake… I decided I wanted to try and make something similar, but maybe “fancier” looking, since hers doesn’t actually have frosting or anything on it.

I found this recipe while perusing different lemon recipes and I thought it sounded amazing… plus it is accompanied by a light frosting so I could “fancy” it up. I pretty much just followed the recipe with only a few minor changes. A few of the comments recommended using lemon cake rather than yellow, so I went with that. (I am of the opinion that it’s difficult to get desserts too lemony.) For the icing I used lemon juice rather than extract, cuz well, I don’t have extract.. and I used 2x as much. Also, I don’t have a 10×15 inch pan. (Seriously?! Who has a pan that big?) so I did half at a time using an 8×8 pan, and just slopped some of the icing in between.

I think the “beat for 4 minutes on high” part made the the batter uber smooth and the cake itself looked like velvet coming out of the oven. Also the comments said to  definitely keep the cake in the fridge – the cool whipped icing is key for the refresh-ness of this cake!

Here is the final picture:

I left it pretty plain looking… and of course, here is the cut picture:

Served with fresh cut up strawberries of course. It paired perfectly! This cake was YUMmy! Super smooth and light and moist. I wished there was more of the icing. It is definitely better cold right out of the fridge. I think the strawberries were an essential part, I don’t think I would make it again unless I had the fresh strawberries for it.

For “fresh” strawberry definition, see this post!

Since we are lucky enough to have both families in town, we spend brunch/lunch with my in-laws and dinner with my family. I told my family I was bringing strawberries. I don’t know what they were expecting, but I brought these:

My grandma loved the strawberries (yes they are fresh!) so much I am making her some for her bunco group later this week. (The cups near the center are filled with chocolate drizzled walnuts.)

After brunch with the in-laws I had HALF of the lemon cake left over. So before heading to my family dinner, I stopped home and used the leftover frosting and frosted the cut side. It looked good as new, you couldn’t even tell that it was reused!

**Coming up next… I am making my own birthday cupcakes!

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April 30, 2011 · 3:08 pm

Fresh Strawberry Angel Cake

I decided to make my mom a (late) birthday cake. Her birthday fell on Easter this year and with everything going on I didn’t have the time to make her anything, so better late than never!

I will admit, I bought the angel food cake. They are like $4 at the grocery store so I didn’t want to spend all the time making it myself. I cut it in half horizontally so that I could slip a layer of strawberries in the middle.

Filling recipe:

2 cups chopped fresh strawberries

3 tbsp pureed fresh strawberries

Then I put the lid on and made fresh strawberry butter cream (YUM!)

I had some trouble with the butter cream… needless to say, it’s pretty heavy for an angel food cake. I hadn’t really thought that one through. My problem was when it came to frosting the outside where the filling is. I put quite a tall pile of filling in there, so there was a wide section to frost with just strawberries. They started coming out a little and getting stuck in my frosting. I ended up putting half of the butter cream in a ziploc and piping a flat blob across the filling section and smoothing it upwards to “stick” it to the cake part. Here is the finished frosted product:

I started getting low on butter cream as I was trying to figure out how to frost the inside of the angel food cake.. so I just kinda blobbed it in as best I could. Didn’t have enough frosting to make it all the way down to the bottom but no one will notice, right? 🙂

I started cleaning up and forgot to put the cake straight in the fridge. I started drooping a little on the sides so I fixed it up quick and stuck it in the fridge to harden up.

When I decided a few weeks back that I wanted to make a strawberry butter cream, I started looking online for recipes and didn’t really find anything that suited what I was looking to do… So I used my own vanilla buttercream recipe and adapted it a bit. Here is what I ended up with:

1 stick butter, softened

1 16oz box powdered sugar

3 tbsp + 1 tsp fresh strawberry puree

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp milk

I just mix everything together at once, and probably a little longer than I should. It’s easier to frost the cake when the butter cream is a little airy and “whipped.”

Let me tell you – this butter cream is AMAZING. I will be bringing the cake to my mom in a little bit and we won’t eat it until later. I will try to get a pic of it cut to put in here later with an update on how good it tastes all together!

**Strawberry disclaimer:  by fresh I mean I drove out to the strawberry fields and bought  strawberries that were picked this morning! Being in N. California I am spoiled and have easy access to the best strawberries! I mean look how red they are!

UPDATE-

The cake was amazing, of course. I love the buttercream, I will definitely be using this recipe again! I probably won’t use it on angel food cake though, it was very sweet, and I’m not a huge fan of super super sweet or super super rich things. Here is the inside of the cake photo, as promised:

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