Christmas cookies!

I'm exhausted. Two nights of baking 7 different types of cookies! Tonight I packaged them for gift giving and tomorrow they will be hand delivered.

My favorite to make this year were the cut out cookies pictured below. A basic sugar cookie recipe with royal icing, sprinkled sugar and some with coconut. Festive!

Happy Holidays!

Golden Velvet Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing.

I decided to modify my red velvet cake recipe (without the chocolate or the food coloring). I substituted 2 oz. of water for the 2 oz. of food coloring. I'm pleased with the result!

Red velvet cupcakes.

I have an entire carton of buttermilk of which I needed a 1/2 cup for mashed potatoes and a 1/2 cup for buttermilk biscuits. I decided to use some of it for red velvet cupcakes. Tomorrow I'll make buttermilk waffles to use the rest.

This icing is amazing. I found it on the Confetti Cakes blog (I love her work). I did not use her recipe for red velvet cake but an old family recipe that I prefer.

Pies, pies and more pies!

I really need to keep this up more. I started out so hot and heavy... but we've been busy and with good reason.

I did bake a few pies for Thanksgiving as I had orders! They all came out great and had great reviews. (One apple, two pumpkin, one of which was fat free!) I'm exciting for the next one, coconut cream!

What I'm really looking forward to though is holiday cookies! Last year I baked seven layer bars, cranberry cheesecake bars, pecan pie bars, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, seven layer cookies and peanut butter bars. This year I want to try more traditional holiday cookies and I bought new sugar cookie cut outs. I'm really excited to use some new decorating techniques I've learned!

On to the pie pictures!



I treated myself to a new Kitchen Aid 5 speed hand held mixer for little baking projects!

Bundt Cake

I've been itching to bake a cake over the past couple weeks, but between wedding planning, working out (wedding dress related) and work, I've been too tired.

Tonight I made a chocolate chip Bundt cake with a chocolate glaze. I had some butterscotch chips left over from some seven layer bars I made last week, so I tossed them in. Yum!

I love Autumn!

I haven't posted in a while. Getting engaged, vacation and now wedding planning has kept me pretty well occupied.

Today I baked my first apple pie of the season AND got to use my pie bird for the first time, yay! (Isn't he cute!?) I'm also including a picture of a breakfast cupcake I made last week. It's pancake batter with chopped up crisp bacon mixed in, baked in a cupcake paper, "iced" with maple whipped cream. Yum!

My sister's birthday cake/gum paste cherry blossoms.

Butter cake, dark chocolate ganache filling, vanilla butter cream icing, gum paste cherry blossoms, Satin Ice dark chocolate fondant for the branch.

2 Cakes and cupcakes!

First, a German chocolate cake for T. His favorite, for his birthday, today.





A cake for my friend Jackie for her daughter's 13th birthday. Vanilla butter cake with chocolate mousse filling and marshmallow fondant.





Finally, vanilla butter cake with butter cream icing and fondant Tiffany style box cupcake toppers for Jackie, a surprise for her birthday tomorrow.

Potato-Bacon Torte

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Brown Eyed Baker, last week. Michelle posted a recipe she'd made after having seen Melissa D'Arabian's new show, Ten Dollar Dinners, on my favorite channel, Food Network. I decided to try the recipe tonight. The only word that comes to mind is, YUM!











Recipe here!

Banana muffins or how I'm addicted to baking and can't even make it a week without baking something....

Whew... long title. I bought these adorable muffin top baking cups and had an itch to bake last night. This resulted in banana muffins with a butter flour and sugar crumble on top.

My first tiered cake!

I'm really happy with how this turned out. As such, I've posted many pictures. (I apologize, I'm not sure how to do a "cut" on here, yet.) Butter cake, 4 layers each tier, filled alternately with vanilla butter cream and whipped ganache.

Carrie's Birthday Cake

Guinness chocolate layer cake filled with Bailey's flavored chocolate ganache, iced with Bailey's flavored butter cream icing. An Irish Car Bomb cake. mmm!