Cookie Decorating

Hello all!Yes it has been a while since I wrote anything. I have been so busy with life and stuff that I have not had time to blog lately. So I wanted to tell you about some cookie fun I have been having. I love making cookie. That is one of my favourite things to bake. I love making cut out cookies in different shapes and icing them. I have recently discovered royal icing. As a way to decorate your cookies. So I have been having fun practicing. I have been inspired by this blog that I have been following. sweetopia This blog rocks. If you want to see some amazing cookies you check it out. I have really gotten into this whole cookie decorating thing. There is a local bakery in my area that specializes in decorated cookies. The work they do is great. I have learned that they offer decorating classes. So I plan on signing up. The place is called Sweet Impressions. Check them out. Here are some of the cookies I have made.

Cookie Pizza

Hey sorry I have not been around much. I have been busy. Life tends to get in the way of doing fun things. Or am I taking a break from challenges in the kitchen to do easy things. I can get so overwhelmed by trying something new that it hinders me from moving forward. Any ways not to keep you from stopping by and checking out what I am up to I want to show you what I have been doing. Today I made cookie pizzas. They were so much fun. I made one with brownie base and the other with a chocolate chip base then loaded on the ganache and toppings. Looks so good. They are going to Ben's work. I like to send stuff over there every now and then. Also this weekend they all have to work overtime. So this should brighten there days. If they make it to the second day and if I know these guys it will be gone on Saturday.

 This is the chocolate chip pizza cookie.

This is the brownie pizza cookie. Yum I say.

St. Patricks Day Cupcakes

So I was bumming around on the internet this am and stumbled upon Chocolate Guinness cupcakes. I had made once before a Chocolate Guinness Cake. Loved it! It was the best chocolate cake I had ever made and eaten. So these cupcakes looked like they would be really good. They would be if they were anything like the cake. So off to the LC (Liquor Commission) for my Guinness Extra Stout. Which I did not have on hand. We should stock it more often as it makes for a very delicious and moist chocolate cake. Went to the LC and they were out of Guinness Extra Stout. Oh no now what? Well the guy recommend another brand that would be as good he said. It was O'Hara's Irish Stout. O.K. lets try that then. Will you really be able to tell the difference? So now on to the cake making. Turned out great. The recipe was huge so cakes all around for many people. Ben will bring a bunch to work. We will have some for bible study and just some to snack on. How is a girl to lose weight when she keeps making all this good stuff to eat. I don't know. But boy those Chocolate cupcakes with ganache spread on top and then Bailey's Buttercream icing on top of that. Yummy goodness!! I can't stand beer just on its own but in cake it is heavenly. You can't even taste it. Well that was the extent of my celebrating St. Paddy's day. But I think that was a good way. The guys at Ben's work will agree I think. Hey Curtis?

 This is only some of the cupcakes it made like 42. When a recipe makes that many you have got to share.

Gone So Long

Hey sorry I have been gone so long. I have a lot on my mind these days. Working out some major life stuff. I will be back at this baking thing again. I promise. I realized the other day that I have never made cinnamon buns. I really need to. They are soooo tasty. So maybe that will be next on my list.

Fear Be Gone!

I keep discovering as I tackle another fear how they are not as difficult as I thought. I get this idea in my head that oh I can't make that. Or I made that once and it did not turn out so I won't try again. So yesterday I decided to make angel food cake from scratch. I have made it 3 times before with 2 successes and one failure. Each time I tried I used a cake mix. That I ever used a cake mix is hard for me to believe. I always bake from scratch. Well my mom who is an amazing baker told me once that she made her angel food cakes from a box. So I thought that that was the thing to do. My mother since informed me that she does not do that any more cause of all the unhealthy stuff in a cake mix. She also told me how healthy angel food cake is. There is no fat, very little flour, a bit of sugar and mostly egg whites. So go and slice your self a big piece. Unless you did as I did filled it with pudding and slathered on the whip cream. Oh so good! I have this great cookbook that I love called Better Homes and Gardens Old-Fashioned Home Baking. They have this recipe in there for lemon angel food cake. What they did was once the cake is made you cut off the top of the cake about an inch of the way down. Put to the side.Then cut an inch from the edge and an inch from the middle and cut all around pulling out this middle part making a well in the cake. Which you fill with lemon filling. Then put the cake top on and cover with whipping cream. I then shaved some lemon rind on top. Turned out great! I was so pleased. I will definately make again.

 

  

This bottom picture is suppose to show you the lemon filling in it. But my recipe for the filling said adding food dye was optional. Well I see now that to get the nice yellow colour they had in their photo I needed to add the food dye or found some natural way to do it. Any suggestions how to yellow this more with out food dye? 

Cupcake Craziness!

So valentines is here and that means time to make valentines treats. So I asked my kids what would you like to make as a treat to give friends for valentines. They both said cupcakes. As my daughter got a recipe box filled with only cupcake recipes for Christmas, I knew we would be making ones from there. So we picked to make Boston Cream cupcakes and Sweetheart cupcakes. Both I was a little nervous with  as parts of the recipe I was not sure how it would work. The Boston Cream ones required a yellow cake to be made. Also it needed a vanilla pudding and chocolate frosting. So once all the components were assembled I got to work putting them together. The recipe said to stick a hole in the bottom of the cupcake and put your pipping bag with pudding in it into the cupcake and fill. Fill? How much? Could I fill it too much and have it burst? Would I know when it was filled? Do you know a cupcake can hold a lot of pudding? You may be wondering, but with a hole in it won't the filling come out? No very little did come out. A drop or two out of a few of them. But they turned out good. Kids tried them today and said they were great! I wondered if I had over baked the cupcakes but the kids did not notice. I am more picky about these things. Then we also made Sweetheart cupcakes and they turned out nothing like the picture. What you were to do was bake a chocolate cake and make a white icing that you added some raspberry jam to to turn it pink. Again I think I baked the cupcakes too long. Oh well what can I do now? So once the cupcakes were cooled you slice off the top and cut a heart shape out of the middle of it. Put a heaping of icing on top of the bottom of the cupcake and place the top on. The icing will fill the heart up and it looks really pretty. According to the picture. Well I could not get the cookie cutter part to work. Either my cookie cutter was to small or too big. The tops just fell apart or did not look right. Oi! Well I said forget that. I just iced the tops and they turned out fine. Just different. Tasted great. I really liked the icing with the raspberry jam in it. I would do that again. So do you celebrate valentines day? What a great time to tell the special people in your life what they mean to you. Yeah over here in North America we have commercialized it. But despite all that I think its a day to remind us to tell the people in our lives we love them. Sometimes we forget to do that and this just reminds us.

Another New Look

So I am at it again. Changing the look of my blog. The last one I really liked but there were glitches with it. I could not figure out how to fix them. One being the date would not show up and in its place would be the words undefined. Drove me crazy. So I went to Leelou where I got blogger templates before. I added it to my other blog and it worked great. So I tried Leelou again. She has so many FREE templates and other goodies for your blog. Did you catch the word free? She makes great stuff. Anyways hours spent on the computer trying different sites out settled on Leelou added the template and Voila! New templated but wait what is that I see? No date agian and undefined in its place. Ah!! Not again. So bare with me as I figure out all these things. Also let me know what  you think of the new look. How important is it for you to have a date? Well have a great day all. Thanks for stopping by!