Mini cupcakes crawfish toppers

These cupcakes are just the right size for one bite at a time.  I made molded white chocolate crawfish for toppers.  The brown icing is still vanilla buttercream.  I just put brown color in it to look like mud.

The cake plate is a cherry blossom pink depression glass platter.  I collect that pattern and will take any excuse to get to use it for some reason.

Strawberry Shortcake

Wilton has a great selection of shaped pans.  I used them a lot when I was first starting out doing cakes.  This was one of my first cakes using Wilton shaped pans.  A family friend started me off on my collection of vintage cake pans.  She gave an entire box of pans when she retired from baking.  Since then, I've started collecting vintage pans on my own.

Daisy sugar cookies

Continuing in my quest in learning to make iced sugar cookies, I made some daisy cookies.  I'm also going to try to ship them to my family back home to see how they turn out after going through the mail.

Baby Shower Elephant Cake

This cake was made with the Wilton 3-d Bear pan.  I used cardboard covered in fondant for the ears and Marshmallows for the front paws.  Its on top of a 16" round with fondant leaves.  The bottom border has molded blue, chocolate baby items.

Tulip Cookies

I'm learning to make iced sugar cookies.  I found several good recipes on All Recipes.com. I used piping bags and a number 3 tip to pipe and a bowl with the thinned icing, but next time, I think I will get squeeze bottles.  The icing definitely has to stay covered and I think using a squeeze bottle instead of a bowl for the thin icing will give me more control when filling the colors.  Here are some tulip cookies.

Cowboy Themed Wedding Cake

A beautiful country wedding cake.  All fondant and hand made flowers.

Baseball cake

Last weekend was really tough. I got a call from another baker in my area asking for help. She was put in the hospital the night before a cake was due. I took the cake and was able to turn it out the next morning. It wasn't easy but I was happy to help and I surprised myself at how fast I was able to do it.

It was a baseball themed cake. A jersey, baseball hat made of cake, and a fondant scroll and ribbon. French vanilla cake, chocolate fudge filling, covered in fondant. 

Layered flowers cake

I will be posting a tutorial on how to make all these flowers in my tutorial section.  Were invited to eat at a friends house and I made a cake for dessert.  These flowers are easy and quick.  They took me maybe 2 hours from start to finish.

Enjoy

Growing Lettuce

I found a great way to grow our own romaine lettuce.  After buying 1 head from the local grocery store, take all the leaves off.  Put it in a jar of water and everyday change the water.  The lettuce will grow as long as its in water.  It grows really fast.  We are putting it in our kitchen window.  Its fun to see how much the lettuce has grown since we started.   Just a little tidbit of info for today!

I'm hoping to add a few more.  They are actually kind of pretty in our window.  Its nice to see in the mornings.

Whole Wheat Bread

I absolutely love bread making and have been making all our own breads, rolls, hamburger buns, and hotdog buns for a while now.  I have a bread machine that but I do not use it to bake the breads.  I prefer to shape my own dough and form it myself.  It's incredibly cheap to bake the bread instead of buying it from the store. We've saved a lot of money doing this way.  I can also freeze extra hot dog buns and hamburger buns since the recipes make so many.  I take a few out the day of and keep the rest frozen.

My husband likes whole wheat bread everyday for his sandwiches.  I make this bread once every couple weeks.  The recipes makes 2 loaves and we freeze one to use after the first is gone.  Homemade bread doesn't seem to last quite as long as store bought breads but that's ok.  If for some reason we don't finish it off, the extra goes to the compost pile. 

I get about 18 slices from each loaf.