Ladybug Birthday Cake

I made this cake last weekend for the 1st birthday party of Lydia.  Lydia is the daughter of our friends Ashlie and Matt and she loves the color red.  So appropriately, the theme of the party was ladybugs!  Matt and Ashlie sent me a picture of a cake made by Pink Cake Box and asked that I repeat it.  So I definitely don't claim this design as my own!  It was fun to make, although I did have quite the delivery scare.  The week that I was supposed to work on it, I got sick.  Being sick and making food for 30 people doesn't mix!  So I had to wait until the morning of the party to put it all together.  Eek!  This meant that the cake couldn't be refrigerated to firm up like I would usually do with an all-buttercream cake.  We loaded it into the car, got going, and let me tell you, that thing wiggled and giggled like you wouldn't believe!  I seriously thought it was going to topple over!  But alas, God was smiling on me and we made it there with the cake in once piece.  In the end the cake made it there, although slightly leaning and with some shifted lady bugs.  I heard that it was a hit.  Whew!

Here are the final pics of the cake and Little Miss Lydia enjoying it...

Photo credit : Pablo Alvarez (friend of Matt and Ashlie's)

Brush Embroidery Granny Cookies Tutorial

I was asked to bake something for a recent benefit bake sale for a little girl that has a severe medical condition.  The proceeds went towards paying for her medical bills, so I figured I'd make something fancy looking that might make a few more dollars for a worthy cause.  I've been wanting to try out the brush embroidery technique and thought this would be the perfect time to try!  I like how they turned out.  I thought of naming them "Granny Cookies" because they look like something a granny would eat with a cup of tea.  :)
Here are my finished cookies and a step by step of how I did them.

Step 1:  I iced some sugar cookies with royal icing and let them sit for a few hours until firm.  I also added a white pearl border.

Step 2:  Pipe a flower outline onto the cookie.  Don't worry about it looking perfect here, it can be pretty sloppy and still be redeemed.  :)  You can do one flower in the center or make some hanging off the edges like this.

Step 3:  Take a small paint brush (used only for food, of course) and dip it in a small bowl of water nearby.  Dab the brush on a paper towel to get the excess water off.  Then brush the icing on your flower outline in toward the center to make petals.

Step 4:  After brushing the outer petals, pipe in two or three more petals in the center and repeat step 3 on those petals.

Step 5:  Add a dot to the center of your flower and also around the flowers if you'd like.

And that's it!  I put these in twos in clear plastic bags and tied with ribbon to make them even cuter.  This was time consuming to make 40 cookies, but sooo easy!  Try it!

Super Mario Brothers Cake

My hubby just turned 30 on Friday and his cake request was Super Mario Brothers.  He saw a five tier Mario cake online and wanted something just like it.  I talked him down to three tiers and went to work on the design: a three tiered cake with Mario popping out of a green tube at the top.  The cake took me about a week to finish between the baking, making the icings/fillings, and creating all of the little fondant decorations.  We unveiled it at his 30th birthday on Saturday and it was a hit.  :)

Here are some pics of the finished product.  Enjoy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!

A whole new world!

Well, we made it to Wisconsin.  We've been here a week and I haven't had much time to blog until now.  So let's rewind to last Thursday.  We hired movers and they came to our apartment and had all of our stuff packed in their truck within a few hours.  After that, we headed over to U-Haul to get a tow dolly to tow Ryan's car behind my car the whole way to Wisconsin.  Yes, we drove from Florida to Wisconsin in this contraption...

I really thought that we were going to end up in a ditch somewhere on the side of the road in the middle of Kentucky, but we made it safe and sound.  The roads were all clear except for an icy stretch in Tennessee where we almost collided with a semi, but that's a story for a later date.  The point is, we made it!

Now I am getting myself acclimated to a whole different world.  A world where you see stuff like this while driving...

Yes, that's a truck full of snow.

And this...

A ski and tubing hill with lifts!  So fun, and it's only about 35 minutes away. :)

I think it will be fun living here and getting to do different things than what I was accustomed to in Florida.  Next up in our plans is Ryan's 30th's birthday I'm making a Super Mario Brothers cake to celebrate it.  Then the Packers will play in the Super Bowl the day after his party  Should be a fun couple of weeks!  :)

You Gotta Start Somewhere!

We started packing our apartment this week and I found a few old pics of the first stacked cake I ever made.  Wow is it bad!  I guess it's just proof that practice is a GOOD THING!   Here she is.  Isn't she a beauty (insert sarcastic tone here)?  :P

Hahahaha!  I laugh every time I see it.  Man, I really didn't know what I was doing.  This was made out of two box cake mixes and a few cans of frosting.  No boards in between tiers, no support dowels.  It slid all over the place in the car on the way to take it to my friend Cristina.  I made it for her as a little happy engagement present after her hubby proposed.  I'm just glad I've made other (and much improved) cakes for Cristina since then to redeem myself!

I'm sorry Cristina!  hehehe  :)  

Candied Pecans

I made these yummy crunchy pecans to include in a few Christmas care packages that we sent to friends and family.  They are good on their own or you can throw them on some ice cream or a nice salad.  Best part is, they were soooo easy!

Ingredients
1 egg white
1 or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (to taste)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 pound pecan halves

Directions
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly butter or spray with a non-stick spray
In a bowl, beat the egg white until foamy. Mix in cinnamon, sugars, salt, and vanilla extract. Mix well. Stir in pecan halves, stirring until well coated. Spread on baking sheet.
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

To make a pretty gift out of the pecans, fill up any size mason jar, top with a circle of fabric and screw the lid on.  Add a bow to finish it off!

Christmas Round Here

Our house is modestly decorated for Christmas this year because we are moving to Wisconsin NEXT MONTH!  This is our first Christmas together as a married couple, but we didn't go all out and get a big tree just for the fact that we will have to come back from Christmas vacation to tear it all down AND pack the whole place up to move.  Packing is bad enough, and we didn't want to be vacuuming up pine needles on top of that.  So we just went with my trusty old 3 foot tree that I've had since college.  I threw some garland up and carefully placed lots of pretty shiny things to make it feel like Christmas.  Here's what we ended up with...

Remember my autumn candle arrangement?  I switched it up by adding all things red, silver, and glittery to make it all Christmas-like.

Then I added my most favorite red and silver mercury glass trees to my wine bar area.  Up on the top shelf is a simple candle nativity - the reason for the season!

Here's our tiny little tree next to our TV high tech fireplace.  Oh, apartment living!

Some garland on the bar - nothin' too fancy.

And finally some new additions to the ornament collection this year.

1.  The most perfect ornament ever made - a blown glass mixer  :)

2.  A cute polar bear from World Market

3.  Sledding snowman

4.  Our first Married Christmas wedding cake ornament :)

So that's Christmas in our Florida apartment.  Who knows, next Christmas I may be posting about Christmas in our new house!  :)