Valentine Donuts

Okay, so I was at Target and, as usual, I totally fell in love with the adorable Valentinesey Stuff (Heart and Whale-shaped cookie jars? Yesplease!) I'm a sucker for marketing displays and awesome things, so I picked up a Nordic Ware Heart-Shaped Donut Pan! I couldn't find it online anywhere -- it's sort of like this, though.

As you can see from the donuts, I had a little bit of trial and error with how much batter to put in the pan, and how thick I should make the almond glaze. The thinner donuts with the thicker glaze won out. They're cuter and they tasted better. 

Elmo!

Little M and his mom (and their trusty yellow lab, Isa) take care of Brownie during the week while Lito and I are at work -- so naturally when little M turned two, I had to do something awesome for his birthday. Since he's usually dancing to Elmo or Thomas when I drop Brownie off in the mornings, and since I have this awesome piping tip and because Elmo is easier to make than Thomas, I made Elmo cakes. Voila!

Ingredients: 

• Body: Yellow Cake
• Fur: Red Buttercream Frosting (with a whole jar of Wilton "No Taste" red coloring)
• Eyes: Sliced Marshmallows and Sparkle Black Gel
• Nose: Peanut Butter M&M
• Mouth: Oreo

A couple of things I am happy about:

1. The fur! The red Elmo fur was actually red, didn't taste horrible (have you tasted red frosting? it's normally pretty gross b/c the coloring is too strong)

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.