Anise Pizzelles

These are the last of the christmas cookies for this year. I really love pizzelles, but not the making of them.  They take along time when your iron only has 4 grids. I wonder if the big bakerys have bigger ones. I can't imagine a big bakery only doing 2 or 4 at a time.  Huge waste of their time.

Of course, I like mine much better than any bakery. At least they taste like anise. I have never had one from a bakery that tasted like anise. 

Meringue cookies

I've always wanted to try meringue cookies, so I decided to go for it this year.  They are really very easy. You just have to make sure you beat it long enough. My first try wasn't a great one for this very reason.

Use:

4 large egg whites (if using carton eggwhites, use 3/4 cup)
1/2 t. of cream of tartar
1 C sugar
1 t. flavor
color

The egg whites need to be room temp.  Put them in the bowl of your stand mixer. You will want to use a stand mixer, take my word for it.
After they are frothy, add the cream of tartar.. When soft peaks are formed, add the sugar 1 T. at a time.  Turn the mixer up to med.high and beat until sturdy peaks are formed. Mine took around 10 minutes to get to this stage.

When your peaks are well formed, add the flavor and color.  Put into a decorating bag with a large star tip. You can also make Christmas trees with a round tip. Just keep going in circles until you reach the desired height. Don't go real high or they may have trouble when you bake them.

Bake at 250 degrees for aproximately an hour.  Leave in the oven after turning off the heat without opening the oven for a few hours, or overnight.

They should be hard to touch when you remove them.  When you eat them, they will melt of your tounge. Yum...

Store them in an airtight container.

Chocolate/peanut butter cupcakes

If you are a chocolate/peanut butter lover, these cupcakes are for you. They have a lindt
peanut butter truffle in the middle. With peanut butter icing.   SOOOOOO good.

Cranberry/eggnog cupcakes

These are the best tasting cupcakes.  I love cranberries anytime of the year, but especially at Christmas time. 

The recipe is from Your Cup of Cake, but I used a scratch recipe instead of a box mix.

Turkey Pumpkin Cupcakes

How about a cute little turkey on top of a delicious pumpkin cupcake?  They would be perfect to finish off your Thanksgiving dinner. After the pie, of course.  The turkey is chocolate fondant with colorful feathers.  The cupcake is pumpkin, with pumpkin spice icing.

Here's a pic of just the cupcake.

Chocolate/toffee cupcakes

These cupcakes are a very moist delicious chocolate. Then comes the chocolate ganache that is then rolled in toffee bits around the edges.  Then a little dollop of buttercream with some toffee bits sprinkled on top.

Mini pies

Has anyone tried the new mini pie cake pan from Wilton. I had to go to 3 stores to get my hands on one. lol.  The lady at the checkout said they have really been selling. I'm just glad I was able to get one.

Just a little bit of info before you attempt to use yours.  Make sure the pie crust is to the top of each well. I would even leave it go onto the top of the pan too.  My first attempt with the pan, I just made sure the crust was to the top of the well.  NOT A GOOD THING. The crust really shrunk down alot.  In a few of them, the pumpkin is higher than the crust. Any they all had 1/4 cup of the pumpkin mixture in them.

There is about a 1/2 inch between the wells, so there is enough room to bring your crust over the top and crimp it.  I will definitely do this next time.

The pan is great as far as the pies just sliding right out.  No sticking at all. They only took about 20 minutes to bake.  My recipe for pumpkin pie tells  you to heat the oven to 425 for the first 15 minutes. I did it for 10, but I don't think I will do it next time. Just 350 for the full 20 minutes.  I'm not sure if that is what made the crust shrink so much, but I'm not taking the chance again.

If you have used this pan, and have any suggestions, please leave them in the comment section.  Any help is welcome.

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

How is this for the 'great' pumpkin Charlie Brown?  I think he would be perfect. Plus, you get a yummy cupcake.  The pumpkin is a cake pop covered with chocolate.

Witches hat and Ghost

Some more Halloween cupcakes. The ghosts were really popular, so I tried out the witches hat too. I also have spiders in the works, but I don't have a picture of them yet.

Ghostly cupcakes

Cupcakes are completely edible. The ghost shape is a tootsie roll pop covered in marshmallow fondant. Yum,Yum.

Peanut butter chocolate

How about some peanut butter icing with a little chocolate cake?  Sounds good to me.  Plus you even get a reese cup with a little dollop of pb icing on top.  I love how the reese cup looks like a little cupcake on top. This combo is my favorite.

Apple IceCream CakePops

Just in time for fall, here are a few Apple Ice Cream Cone Cake pops.

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

Whats better than a cupcake?  A cinnamon roll cupcake.  Two favorite treats in one.  The cream cheese icing makes it extra yummy.

Cinnamon crunch through the cake.

The icing has cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge cupcakes

What's better than chocolate and peanut butter???  A chocolate peanut butter fudge cupcake.  This cupcake is chocolate cake, a layer of peanut butter, then chocolate fudge icing.  DELICIOUS!!!!!!

Pizza Pie cookies

Who doesn't like pizza?  Who doesn't like cookies?  How about both in one bite?  They don't really taste like pizza, but they look like it.  Lemon flavored sugar cookie with royal icing.  I don't usually use royal icing, but out pizza shop has been so hot lately, I figured royal wouldn't melt off the cookie. Plus, royal gives more definition to the pepperoni pieces.

Ice Cream cake

This was my first attempt at an ice cream cake.  My daughter thinks it looks like a big eyeball, but it  tasted great.I was trying to make it 'flag-like'.

All I did was get a 1/2 gallon ice cream, a jar of hershey hot fudge sauce, and some teddy graham chocolate bears. I crushed the bears and added them to the heated fudge sauce.  Leave the ice cream out so it will soften.  Put half in your pan of choice and refreeze till it is solid again.  Add the fudge sauce that has cooled, and put it back in the freezer till this layer hardens.  Then put the rest of the ice cream on top of the fudge sauce and freeze the whole thing overnight.  I used whipped cream icing to cover the cake, then gel for the decorations.  Tastes just like DQ's , and you can use any flavor ice cream available at the grocery store.  I think I am going to try another  one with actual cake in it instead of 2 layers of ice cream.  It's birthday cake and ice cream in one.

4th Of July cupcakes

Red,white, and blue cupcakes are a  neccessity for the 4th of July at any picnic.  Perfect for everyone to have a treat without alot of mess.  Unless you have dogs that think the papers are a real treat like ours. lol.    They are chocolate cake with red,white, and blue buttercream icing.   Sprinkles and a chocloate star add the sparkle.

Sweet potato cupcakes

I've always heard of sweet potato cupcakes, but never made them before. They will be one of my top 5 cupcakes now.  Lots and lots of flavor. They smell delicious when they are baking. Lots of spice.  Just the cupcake is good for me, but I know everyone likes frosting too.  I frosted them with brown sugar buttercream.  Pretty good.  I may search for another recipe to see if there is any difference. I know alot of people like cream cheese frosting, but I'm not a fan.

I saw cupcakes photgraphed like this on pinterest and thought it was such a cute idea.  Of course, you can't really see the cupcake, so here is another pic.

1

Chocolate covered oreo's

I have been doing alot of chocolate covered oreo's lately .  I love the watermelon's.  It's alot of chocolate.

And who doesn't like ladybugs?

And finally. Graduation

Birthday cakepop cones

This  order for 30 cupcake cones is for a  little girls birthday celebration at preschool. Her mom wanted the cakepop cones. They are perfect for 4 year olds. Just a few bites of cake.  And what kid doesn't like an ice cream cone? Plus, no mess.  Yellow cake, icing, and covered in white chocolate with sprinkles.  I hope her class enjoys them.

All packaged and ready to go. 

The kids probably won't know they are cones.

Sno-cone cupcakes

I saw these cupcakes on Bakerella.com and knew I had to make them.  She comes up with such great ideas. And, who doesn't like sno-cones?  Especially red,white, and blue ones.  My fave was always the blue  raspberry flavor. I will admit that it has been a long time since I had one though.

I didn't have as much luck with putting all three colors in the nut cup type cupcake paper.  She taped the 3 colors in plastic bags,cut the tips off, then put the batter in the cups.  I wasn't getting the colors in evenly, so I did it one at a time. I just put the cup in a pan that was resting on a towel, so it was tilted. I put the blue in first in the lowest corner, then I added the white. Then I turned the cup around, and added the red.

If you are very neat and tidy, you won't want to try these. lol.  They are a bit messy

But, they are really cute after they are baked.

I put icing down into the cupcake where the crack is. I just used white icing on the first one, then used blue, red, and white sparkling sugar.

The sparkling sugar....

I wish I had been a little neater with the sugar, but, what can you do? lol.  I'm going to try using red, and blue icing on the next one.  I'll post that pic later.

I used a glove spritzed with some water to round off the icing.  It's a bit easier than trying to round it off with a knife.  I hope you will visit http://www.bakerella.com/ and see some of her other great ideas.  She is the 'cakepop' queen.

Sweet hamburgers

The perfect dessert for you Memorial day picnic, or any picnic, is a hamburger cupcake.  The cupcake is halved with a brownie for the burger. Condiments and lettuce are icing, then it is sprinkled on top with raw sugar.  Gotta have those sesame seeds on your bun.

Watermelon Cupcakes in a Jar

Whats better than a cold slice of watermelon on a hot summers day?  A watermelon cupcake of course. It won't drip down your chin when you bite into it. lol.  Green icing on the bottom, watermelon flavored cake, then watermelon flavored icing.  Chocolate chips are the seeds.

Graduation Cupcakes

This is one of the graduation cupcakes I will be doing for this year.  The mortarboard is chocolate, so the cupcake is completely edible.   Made with whatever school color you choose.

Mother's Day Cupcakes

Just a peak at some of the cupcakes I  did for Mother's Day.  Hope everyone who had one enjoyed them.

Lenibvs Cupcakes Wallhanging

When I saw this fabric in the quilt store, I knew I had to have it.  It's perfect for my decorating space. And it's so cheerful.

Here's a close-up.

Cupcake Ice Cream Pops

These are the first group of cupcake Ice Cream pops I have done for Mother's Day.  Since my mom has been gone for 10 years, I always do something with the breast cancer ribbon in her memory.  The other one is just a mom celebration with colorful sprinkles.  I'm going to do some more this week, so I will post more pics later.

I also got a new candy melter. It really isn't made for melting chocolate, but I thought it would work.  And I was right.  You can melt 2 different colors at the same time. Or ,if you need alot of chocolate, you can have 2 pots melted at the same time.  It works great. And it keeps the chocolate warm for longer than the Wilton melting pot. Plus, the wilton pot gets a little too warm sometime. After melting in the crock pot, I just put the dial on warm, and it keeps the chocolate perfect.  It melts slower, so if you are in a hurry, this won't work as fast as you want.  I start it out on high for the first 5 minutes to get it nice and warm, then lower it to low till the candy is melted.   Plus, it comes with lids, so the chocolate won't cool off while you are working with it.

I got mine at Kohl's for a really good price. Less than the Wilton pot.  I'm not knocking the Wilton pot, I just like this one cause I can do two colors at once, plus the pot is deeper, so you can melt more chocolate at once.

New take on cupcakes

I've seen cupcakes done in mason jars lately, so I decided to try my hand at them.  I also did one in a baby food jar.  Perfect size for a little one, and no mess.  Now, I just need to get someone to give me some baby food  jars.  They are fun to do.  The only thing is they take longer than your normal cupcake to bake.  They have to be baked in a pan with water in it.

Cupcakes done in a mason jar.

Cake in a baby food jar.

2nd try with the cake pop pan

I tried the cake pop pan again.  I didn't fill the cavities as full as instructed.  It worked a little bit better, not as much came out of the top holes.

The shape of the balls is still not round.  More like an egg shape.  If you press the top down, it looks more round. But, you can't keep pressing it down when you are coating it with chocolate.  :(

Some of them would also be great for 'x-rated cake. A few  of them came out of the pan with a 'nipple' attached.

Yes, that is really how they came out of the pan. lol

Cake Pop Pan

I saw this cake pop pan on tv and decided to buy it. I got mine at Ross for $13.99. Expensive, but less than the 19.99 on tv.  The directions say to fill the bottom cavities with cake batter. You can even see it in the picture on the box.

I filled mine with banana cake mix. Baked it at 350 for 25 minutes. This is what the directions tell you to do.

This is the cake mix that came out of the top hole. Alot more than should have come out in my opinion. I could have had a half dozen more cake balls with the excess.

They came out of the pan very easily.

These are supossed to be round, but as you can see, they are more egg shaped on the top.  Very dissapointing.

I'm not really happy with the pan. I will give it another try, but it's not something I would recommend at all.  This is just my opinion.