Christmas tree

Quickie but goodie! butterscotch rice crispy treats colored with green food coloring shaped into a christmas tree wrapped in sour cherry candy rope, big cinnamon gummy bears and about 50 gum drops. a little hard to see but there is a rice crispy star on top.

rice crispy treats:

3 tblspn butter

10oz. marshmallows

6 cups rice krispies cereal

1 cup butterscotch chips

5-10 drops green food coloring

put butter in a pot and cook over low heat.

once butter is melted, add marshmallows and cook down until melted.

add butterscotch chips until they too are mostly melted.

while everything is cooking, put the 6 cups of cereal into a large bowl.

combine all ingredients into large bowl and stir around just until incorporated. before adding food coloring, take out a small hunk of treat, that will be for the star. add green food coloring to the rest if the bowl, incorporate until smooth.

lay a piece of parchment paper on the counter and take out the ball of rice crispy treat.

slowly mold the christmas tree making sure not to pack to tightly otherwise the treat will be to dense.

once the tree is shaped, add decorations however you like! just like a real tree!

take the small hunk you took out, and shape it into as best a star as possible. i like making a disk, leaving it in the fridge for a bit, then cutting the star out. push a tooth pick into the star and place on top of the tree. enjoy!

Strawberry waffles with brown sugar bacon

so not that this is a dessert, but man were these waffles were good, and just in case someone needs a super easy super tasty recipe for breakfast, well... here's one you can use! not to mention a little candied bacon to go with them...

candied bacon:

cook the bacon as regular, but while cooking, just sprinkle a little brown sugar over each piece to add a little flavor and crispiness.

Strawberry waffles

1 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 cups buttermilk*

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

1 cup chopped strawberries

add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. add the rest of the ingredients into the dry mixture. whisk until mixed. make waffles based on instructions of waffle maker. enjoy!

*if you want a sweeter waffle, you can substitute regular milk for buttermilk. use 1 tablespoon baking powder, and omit the baking soda.

Happy thanksgiving!!!

thanksgiving turkeys and pumpkins! yeah, i love thanksgiving!!!!

the turkeys are pumpkin spice cake with caramel cream cheese frosting, rolled in chocolate jimmies. there is a ginger cookie with candy corn feathers on it, the head is a mini cupcake the same as the big one, with raisonette eyes, candy corn beak, and fruit by the foot gobbler.


pumpkin spice cake:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoons salt

2/3 cup butter

1 3/4 sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

1 cup pumpkin pie filling

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

mix butter first then mix in sugar, then eggs, one at a time. separately mix all powders together, then mix into wet mixture. add milk then vanilla. finally mix in pumpkin pie filling and spice. mix all together, then put into a ziplock bag and pipe the mixture into cupcake papers. bake for about 13-15 minutes @350degrees. let cool and frost

the pumpkins are the same pumpkin spice cake with orange colored vanilla buttercream frosting, rolled in orange decorating sugar, and topped with a rainbow twizzler stem.

Halloween cupcakes

Halloween treats!!! vampires with mini cupcake "bites", ghosts and spiders. i won second place in the Cupcake Camp challenge, i might have done a little better if the vampires didn't get tossed around in the car on the way to the competition. still cute though, check out the angry eyes on the ghosts!

the vampires and mini "bites" are black bottom cupcakes with cherry filling, so when you bite into the cake, it bleeds in your mouth! cream cheese frosting, black sprinkle hair, m&m eyes, and hot tamale fangs.
spiders are hostess cakes with pocky legs. the legs are held together with a little melted chocolate. the eyes are royal icing.
almond pocky legs!!! mmmmmm......
the ghosts are devils food cake with a little melted chocolate on top to hold a mini twinkie in place and covered with a thin layer of fondant with black food coloring.

Spicy Dragon

so today is my "pepper" cupcake challenge. i decided to do two types, jalapeno and serrano. the jalapeno are devils food chocolate cake with a cayenne cream cheese frosting. the serrano is also devils food cake with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting. hopefully the cream cheese will soften the blow of the spicy chocolate cake.

the green dragon is the jalapeno cake with cayenne cream cheese

the red is serrano pepper chocolate cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

the eyes are marshmallows pushed and frosted together with m&m eyes, the teeth are also marshmallows, the claws are Mike&Ikes candy as well as the nostrils. horns and spikes are chocolate cookies cut in triangles.

Elise's baby shower

trying to decide what to make for this special day was tough. do i go with traditional "baby shower" theme or do something a little different? well being me i decided to do something different, not to mention all my candies i made melted because is was about 110 degrees in the house. so the sunflowers made the cut! because it was so hot i had to keep throwing the pieces in the fridge for a bit to cool them and harden things back up. the petals turned out a little droopy, but i think they all still looked like flowers.

cake- triple lemon layer cake:

lemon sponge cake

lemon curd filling

lemon cream cheese frosting

covered in fondant, airbrushed with yellow

sunflowers: oreo cookie decorated with yellow and orange colored vanilla cream cheese frosting.

lady bugs: red m&ms with handpainted chocolate design

Pepper

Next week I have another Iron Cupcake challenge in San Francisco and the theme is pepper. I couldn't decide to go with spicy peppers, or regular black pepper. so, I decided to make both! The spicy came out super SPICY but really GOOD, the black pepper came out yummy, but I don't know if you really taste the pepper, and I'm not sure if I want to put in anymore, as it might be overkill. I have a week to tweak the recipes, here are my first attempts! After the competition I'll post the recipes!

mixing in Serrano peppers, Cayenne pepper, vanilla soaked buttermilk, and cinnamon.

dark chocolate Serrano pepper cupcake with chocolate cayenne pepper ganache

Hazelnut, lime, and black pepper cupcake with lime butter cream frosting, rolled in colored sugar (to "look" peppery?)

Lola's 1st monkey party

What do you get when you mix a baby monkey and a baby Lola?... party monkey cupcakes of course!!! the cake is vanilla, the frosting is a chocolate buttercream, the hair is chocolate jimmies, the face is a white buttercream frosting piped, the eyes are m&ms, the nose are strawberry jelly beans, and the ears are banana chips! 

4th of july BBQ

What do you bring to a barbeque? corn on the cob and some veggies maybe... just don't tell anyone at the party the veggies i brought are made of candy and sugar!

the corn on the cobs are vanilla cupcakes with orange vanilla frosting with a little yellow food coloring, multi colored jelly beans for kernels, yellow starbust for butter, and colored turbinado sugar for salt and pepper. 

the peas and carrots are the same vanilla cupcake and frosting as the corn on the cob but with green food coloring, green skittles as peas and cut up orange starburst for carrots. 

jack skellington cake

Jack Skellington cake. Tailor's 16th birthday came up and i know she loves nightmare before christmas so i thought Jack's head would be a nice touch to her birthday. seems like she liked it too cause she stuck a candle in his head and happily ate his brains out! a girl after my own heart!

Matt's Totoro birthday cake

So Matt turned 28! Being that he LOVES Miyazaki films, Naturally he asked for his favorite character. TOTORO!!! I thought i would throw in a few soot balls as well

i started out with a normal, round cake. Devils food cake with Cream Cheese Caramel filling.

then i made another square vanilla cake, also with cream cheese caramel filling.

then i quartered the vanilla cake to make the ears and leg/feet.

i stuck a skewer on each side to keep all parts together. 

next everything was coated in vanilla buttercream frosting, followed by white Fondant.

airbrushed with a light gray, pink for the mouth and ears.

the whiskers are toothpicks painted black. the eyes and teeth are molded fondant. the teeth are actually one long strip with teeth cut into it.

these are soot balls, they are rice krispie treats rolled into balls and then coated in chocolate. the eyes are white royal icing, with painted black dots.

Totoro is sleeping in a bed of flowers and grass. all faux grass from michael's cut and shaped. it all sits on floral foam

i think next time i'll make the insides red, just for a little added authenticity. :)