Snowflake Pie

Santa brought me the most amazing snowflake plunger/cutters for Christmas this year! My mom and I put them to good use today: Mixed Berry Snowflake Pie!

My mom made this glorious filling, and the truth is that we used a Pillsbury crust. In order to use the plunger/cutters, we needed to have the dough at a very uniform thickness, so I cut corners here. Next time the crust will be home made.

Cooking, but not posting about it here...

Until now! Christmas cupcakes.

Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting!

Harry Potter Cupcakes

Okay, I admit it, I'm a total Harry Potter nerd. Yep. My ringtone? Hedwigs Theme.

Nerd.

So what, like I'm not going to make Harry Potter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and White Chocolate Toppers?

 And I was too excited to go see Harry Potter 7.2 to take any decent pictures of these before they were devoured. They were, by the way, delicious pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting (adapted from Smitten Kitchen's lovely recipe). I added mini chocolate chips, which, if I say so myself, was a pretty

Rose Cake

I know you've seen this before, but...

maybe you haven't seen it quite like this: Rose Cake

In honor of having some really beautiful women over to my house this evening, I made a rose cake (like the whirly-gig cake, only better I think). This is strawberry with strawberry filling (homemade) and bourbon vanilla buttercream frosting. What do you think? 

Chomp.

Cake Decorating Part I

Show and Tell!

I enrolled in Wilton Cake Decorating 1 at my local craft store. Nothing fancy, but I am kind of having a blast learning how to decorate something larger than a cupcake. This is my first cake. Tada! This is a cream cheese pound cake with vanilla frosting. Numnums.

Happy Birthday to Me

Let's just see how big I can get the "cupcake" label in the cloud over here --->

A happy coincidence: A friend ordered a box of red velvet cupcakes the same week of my birthday. And happily, a batch of cupcakes is greater than a box of cupcakes. What to do with the extra cupcakes? Hmmmm. Happy Birthday to me! This time around I used Magnolia Bakery's recipe for the cakes, but played around with the frosting.

Whirly-gig swirly cake

The great thing about being at home, at least for me, is the huge and completely stocked kitchen my mom has. Even better -- she'll usually pick up just about any additional ingredients I need to try something new. I found a picture of a cake that looked sort of like this one if you squint and tilt your head a little, and it was on! Frostinnngg!

Rosy, swirly, whirly cake. This is just a typical chocolate cake. Two layers. Nothing fancy. But the frosting was ahhhmazing for a couple of reasons: 1. Almond extract. I love the stuff, but I can't usually have it because Lito (my better half) is allergic. Meh. 2. Cream cheese. I can't name a single thing that isn't improved by the addition of cream cheese. Think about it: Brownies? Check. Bean dip? Check. Cheesecake? You can see where this is going.