My House for my friend Donna

Donna, here's an updated picture of our house. I received your letter and sketches. Thank you!!! I am so excited to get started. I like what you did with the porch area. By looking at this picture, you will see that we're kinda heading in the right direction. I measured it and it's 8 feet wide. If you click on the picture it will enlarge it for you.

Cupcakes for Benefit

This Sunday my nieces and my daughters volunteered in a special event to raise money for children with Down's Syndrome. They were working the cupcake booth, so what better opportunity to practice some more!
These cupcakes were easy. I used the Cinch cake mix in yellow and chocolate, which are both very tasty. Then I decorated them in three different ways to add a little variety.

Cookie Class Part 3 - Fondant Cookies

Today was the last of our 3-day cookie course. We were asked to bring some cookies, colored fondant, the cookie cutters we used for the cookies, some Crisco and some corn syrup. Getting this ready was a breeze because I still had all the different colored fondant from my daughter's birthday cake. I'm glad I stored it properly in Ziplock bags.
I had never used fondant to decorate cookies and I must say that I was impressed. The result was a neater, more professional-looking cookie.
As additional decoration, we used the royal icing from the 2 day of class.

Sunflower Tuscan Cupcakes

My cousin Marianne enlisted me to make cupcakes for a Tuscan-themed party she will be having to celebrate her mother's and niece's birthdays today. She decided on a sunflower design and I got right to it.
I started baking the afternoon before. A lady from cookie class told me they sold a really good cake mix at Fresh & Easy. So, I stopped by on Friday and I was pleasantly surprised. I got two of their Cinch brand Deluxe Moise Yello Cake Mix for $1.09 each. Then, a few items adjacent to that, I spotted this Fresh & Easy brand Dark Chocolate Cupcake & Cake Mix. Being a mother and wife to chocoholics, I grabbed this one too. I think this one was about $3.
The cupcakes baked really well. They had a different look and texture than the ones I'm used to baking. I couldn't resist and had to taste one. I took one of the yellow ones and was pleased. I could taste the fluffiness of the egg a little, but it was really moist and tasty!
I started thinking these cupcakes would be too plain to just serve like that with icing on top. So, I got to thinking how I could make these "Tuscan." What exactly is "Tuscan"? I did a little research online and finally got inspired. I've never filled my cupcakes before and I had a cake filling I had purchased from Fabulous Cakes. It was this Bavarian cream. I am convinced this taste would go so well with the flavor of the cupcakes.



I wanted to add a little more jazz to it so I took out my handy-dandy Brandy! I mixed about an ounce into the Bavarian cream. I liked the outcome.



I filled my bag with the Bavarian cream and put a filling tip (Wilton Tip 230) at the end. Filling the cupcakes was a breeze! That little tub was enough for all 50 cupcakes!

Next came the decorating. I mixed my colors: golden yellow with a bit of orange to get the rich sunflower petal color; dark brown and a bit of black for the center.

I filled one bag with each color and used a Wilton Tip 22 for the center and a Wilton leaf Tip 67 for the petals. The decorating came very easily.


I packed the cupcakes to-go in my Cupcake Courier. I love this container! It holds 36 cupcakes and the rest I just put in my rectangular cake/cupcake holder. Now, I'm ready to go!

Tried the Cookies at Home

My daughters and nieces are having a bake sale and asked if I'd make something for them to sell. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get some practice decorating cookies.
It was easier because I had some royal icing left over from class. This cookie shape worked really well. My hand was steadier than it'd been before.