Graduation Cookie Weekend

This weekend I had several graduation cookie orders, must have been a popular weekend for grad parties, because my weekend was spent split between either attending graduation parties or baking sweet treats for them.

Nothing like a weekend of graduation cap cookies to remind me that I graduated from high school 9 years ago and my youth has all but faded.

Here are some of my orders this weekend:

Ravenna Bulldog Blue

Former West Michigan Christian Senior + Future Ferris state Freshman

& Cookie Bouquet Centerpieces x 5 for a Former Forest Hills Central Senior + Future Michigan Tech Freshman

The cookie cutters I used for these were a graduation set from Wilton that I bought off Amazon.

The set I bought is here.

I was happy with the shape and size of these. I had a graduation cap cookie cuter from before but didn't love it because the tassel was so small it would fall off. So for anyone looking for a good graduation set, I recommend this one.

Congrats, Class of 2016!

I love making cupcake cakes. I hate making regular cakes.

Cupcake cakes > Regular cakes

First of all, you do not need any silverware to eat a cupcake cake, it requires no cutting... just pull it apart and eat it!

But, the main reason I like cupcake cakes so much: they are soooooo easy to make. 

I promise, and I am going to help you make your own.

We will start of with an easy one, A Butterfly.

Dresses are also easy: seen here.

First thing you need is cupcakes. I made some of my vanilla bean cupcakes. Use any recipe you like, here is a good one from food.com

(or use a box mix. No one will judge, you are among friends)

You also need something to put the butterfly on- I use cake boards from Wilton & I buy them off amazon because I have almost figured out how to use amazon prime to never have to step foot in to an actual store. I buy these, but any are fine.

Then you need to arrange your butterfly. For this cupcake cake, this is how you arrange your cupcakes:

This particular cake is smaller, it only takes 14 cupcakes. If you wanted a larger cake or to incorporate more cupcakes, you could just expand its "wings"

Then make your frosting. I use my FAVORITE crusting buttercream. This is the one thing that I will not say is ok to buy from a store. It is too easy to make your own frosting and a lot of store bought frosting tastes like chemicals. My frosting recipe is here.

The customer that ordered this cake wanted bright colors, primarily purple. I went with purple, pink, blue, and yellow. I also used some sugar pearl sprinkles.

Then all you have to do is decorate your cupcake cake however you wish and you are finished!

And always use any leftovers to taste test... for quality control purposes ;)

Happy Baking!

Growing up with a grandpa and and uncle who were farmers, we were raised to believe all tractors should be green & yellow. Not just green... John Deere Green. 

So when I got this fun cookie order for a 7 year old's tractor themed birthday, you can imagine the pressure I was under to nail the correct shade of green using food coloring. It was like my grandpa was watching over me with every trial and failure, whispering "it might as well be an international".

(if anyone does not get that last joke, it is some gentle tractor humor for you, and I mean no offense to red tractor lovers, I was born this way)

Luckily, the yellow was not nearly as stressful.

Wrapped up and tied with a green & yellow ribbon.

Of course, I had to make an extra one for my uncle! :)

I was very happy with how they turned out. Which was a relief because I had to basically hold my breath the whole time I was free-handing that John Deere logo.

Most importantly the birthday boy liked them!

<3, Andrea

Dessert Bar

Last weekend I catered a dessert event for my brother's school. It was a black tie event, and they ordered several different kinds of desserts. It was for their multimedia class, and was set up as an oscar like award show after party.

These were the desserts that I made for the event:

Gold Star vanilla sugar cookies. My favorite vanilla sugar cookie topped with royal icing Airbrushed in gold shimmer and topped with edible gold sprinkles. 

Behind them on the cake stand are individual turtle cheesecakes. These could not be easier. The cream cheese filling is creamy and the crust is made from a vanilla wafer. I topped them with walnuts and a caramel and chocolate drizzle.

Since it was a movie themed event I wanted to give the treats movie themed names, but I decided against it because I could only come up with names for a couple of them.

I was going to label the cheesecakes as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cheesecakes", but I didn't and I will probably regret it forever.

These were so good and so easy to make. I made my fudge brownie recipe and baked it in mini muffin tins in. I then used a cookie stick to make a "dessert kabob" with one regular marshmallow and a coconut marshmallow.

I made 3 kinds of cake pops. 

The first was a red velvet cake pop. I used my red velvet cake mixed with cream cheese frosting. I then dipped them in white chocolate and sprinkled them with crumbles of red velvet cake.

The second was a quadruple chocolate cake pop. It was a fudge chocolate cake, mixed with chocolate buttercream, dipped in milk chocolate and rolled in chocolate sprinkles.

The third cake pop was a vanilla cake pop. Vanilla cake, mixed with buttercream, dipped in white chocolate and topped with edible sugar pearls.

Individual Cherry Pies.

Flaky and buttery pie crust, in mini muffin pans, filled with cherry pie filling and top with a pie crust heart.

Short Cut tip: Use store bought pie crust and store bought pie filling and these would take zero effort.

I made 3 different kinds of chocolate covered pretzels.

The first one is a pretzel dipped in milk chocolate and rolled in mini M&Ms. I wanted to name this one 8 mile (get it? M&Ms? eminem?) but I didn't feel it would be super appropriate, so I decided against it.

The second one is a play on the Take 5 candy bar. Remember those? It was like pretzels and chocolate and peanut butter? You cannot go wrong with that combo. The pretzel is dipped in milk chocolate and then covered in peanut butter chips.

The third pretzel is dipped in white chocolate. Half of them I put little mustache sprinkles on and the other half have sugar pearls.

I made two types of cupcakes.

The first is my popular cookies & cream cupcake. For this cupcake I replace some of the flour in the actual cupcake with oreos that have been put in the food processor, then top it with cookies & cream buttercream frosting and a mini oreo cookie.

The second was a new cupcake to me, but I liked how it turned out. I modified a recipe I found on pinterest, and made vanilla strawberry malt cupcake topped with strawberry syrup buttercream and a paper straw.

I also found this idea for bow tie napkins on pinterest that I thought was so cute, I wrapped mine with washi tape so it would be easy to pull off. I also got plastic champagne flutes for the kids to drink their punch out of. Non alcoholic punch. My favorite punch to make for a crowd is sparkling raspberry punch. Its my favorite because it is really easy. You take a tub of raspberry sherbet, empty it in to a punch bowl, and pour a two liter of sprite over it. It tastes really good and is always a big hit. Especially when served in plastic champagne flutes! 

Mustache Baby Shower

Today I am going to share another great collaboration with Charity of  Charity's Creative Cakes. If you remember from my previous post, we worked together on baseball cookies + cake. 

My combo orders with Charity have quickly become my favorite. It is so fun to match my cookies/cake pops to her amazing cakes. We spend the whole time texting each other pictures of every step of the process and making sure that our colors are matching, but the finished products always look so cute:

(photo credit to Bobbi- I love getting finished product photos from customers)

For these cookies, the color scheme was blue, green, orange, and yellow. And the theme was mustaches. Which I love.

For the cake pops, I did my Very Vanilla cake, which is one of my favorites. It is really dense and makes a great cake pop. I mixed it with buttercream icing. You can find my recipe for buttercream here.

I dipped them in Wilton Candy Melts. If you are going to dip anything in chocolate, seriously, Wilton candy melts. 

Some quick cake pop tips I have learned along the way:

1. Melt your chocolate, then dip the cake pop stick in the chocolate and put in the cake pop

2. Do NOT freeze the cake pop. Put them in the fridge for an hour or so. If you freeze the cake pop and then dip it in the chocolate, when it starts to warm up it will expand and crack your chocolate shell.

3. Before dipping, add a small amount of shortening to smooth the chocolate and give the candy melt a shiny smooth chocolate coating.

4. Do not be afraid to make cake pops! So many people say that they seem so complicated, but I promise they are not! You could even use boxed cake and canned frosting to make things even easier.

(How cute are those little mustache sprinkles?!?)

The sugar cookies are my vanilla bean sugar cookie with royal icing. Decorated as little baby boy onesies:

For information on cookie & cake pop ordering and pricing, as well as other sweet treats I offer, see my Ordering Info Section

Andrea

Easy Cupcake Frosting

I am going to share my favorite cupcake frosting with you guys because it is so easy to make, but tastes so much better than store bought frosting.

Another thing that I love about this frosting is it is very versatile. It can be a stiff icing perfect for detailed borders around cakes, cookies, or cupcakes or it can be a smoother consistency perfect for spreading easily on to a cake for a professional looking finish.

The secret to varying consistencies? Milk. And how much milk you add. 

This was not always my go to frosting recipe, I have tried several different kinds. Some required heating and cooling-- which were good, but the time involved was a real problem for me. I have a problem with patience (meaning I have none). I did try a cream cheese type frosting recipe which was delicious and tasted like a spreadable cheesecake, but it was really too runny (but I will whip it out occasionally with red velvet cupcakes, because red velvet cake and cream cheese icing are soul mates). I wanted the frosting that you get from the bakery, the frosting with a "crust" on the outside, super creamy on the inside, and topped with the perfect "cupcake swirl"  (that perfectly piped frosting twist on the top of the cupcake). That is when I found Wilton's recipe for Crusting Buttercream Frosting. And I have never gone back.

Before we get to the recipe: spoiler alert: My BUTTERcream icing does not contain BUTTER. I know, just move past it. You CAN make this frosting with butter-- I have just found to get the best "cupcake swirl" shortening works better. 

But I am going to call it buttercream, because shorteningcream does not sound as good.

**Recipe adapted from Wilton's Buttercream Icing recipe**

This makes a lot of frosting, and can be easily cut in half if you only need a small amount of frosting... Except I have never had a problem with TOO MUCH frosting.

Happy Baking!

Craft Show x 3

Mark your calendars because I will be at 3 Craft Shows in March. I will have cupcakes and cookies available for purchase and will be booking orders as well... and doing some giveaways!

So come see me and then buy all my treats.

Links to the facebook events here:

March Madness Vendor Event

Ladies Day Out Vendor Event

Marching in to Spring Vendor Event

Hope to see you there!!