Merry Christmas!

Just before I left to go out of town I made the most adorable Christmas-themed cake pops.  I made them the evening before we left town and the pictures have been trapped on my laptop for a week, just waiting to be posted in cyberspace.  The order was simple, 30 cake pops, Christmas themed, arranged.  I found the most adorable little box at Hobby Lobby (aka, my new favorite place to spend my money!) on sale for 60 percent off, scoured the internet for some ideas and voila!  A Christmas basket was born.  Here are the pictures of the arrangement followed by the individual pops.  LOVE!

I'll be working on a New Year's basket tomorrow, so stay tuned for those pictures.  I will be trying something new with them-wish me luck!  Merry Christmas!

Cake Pops and Christmas

This has been a crazy couple of weeks; seems everyone is giving cake pops for Christmas this year.  This week alone I made 184 cake pops.  Nothing as spectacular as the penguins from last week, but still cute.  Here are the pictures.

A really "cool" party

This week I kept myself busy making things for a one-year old's birthday party.  The party had a penguin theme.  Here is the invitation:

Cute right?  My friend asked for cupcakes, cake pops, and a smash cake.  She wanted penguin cake pops, which provided a challenge since it is impossible to find black candy melts this time of year.  Apparently, they are only available around halloween.  I was able to get some guidance from a specialty baking shop and found some black candy coloring.  This was my first attempt at coloring chocolate, but it turned out great!  I was worried that the food coloring might change the flavor of the chocolate, and I think it did a little, but they still tasted great.

I made a couple extra pops, so I used one to top the smash cake, I just made him a little hat to match the invitation.  The tree is a fondant "cone" with buttercream foliage.

The cupcakes are just a basic buttercream, with these cute little snowflake sprinkles I found.  The large snowflake is royal icing.  I'm really proud of my piping, it is really improving!

I made a few different snowflake shapes and because I couldn't decide which were my favorites, I decided to use them all.  I think they turned out great!

Here's to Eva, I hope your party is really "cool!"

Vintage Rudolph Cookies

A friend of mine is obsessed with party planning.  She spends her evenings searching party blogs and planning her daughters' birthday parties.  I have to admit, the parties she puts together for her kids are nothing short of amazing; I wish I had her dedication and know-how.  


This year for her oldest daughter's party, she is doing a vintage rudolph theme.  She asked me to make her some rudolph cookies and some "rudolph nose" cake pops, which are just plain red cake pops.  The cake pops were nothing special, but the cookies were another story.  She ordered a printable collection from The TomKat Studio called the "Vintage Rudolph collection."  Are you familiar with this blog?  She has the most amazing graphics, definitely worth checking out!  I have been wanting to try to do some edible image cookies so I had her send me the graphics.  I had them printed and then I adhered them to the cookies.  They turned out better than I could have imagined.  Here is the picture.  

I hope they taste as good as they look!  Happy birthday Emma!

Chloe Kardashian vs. the Viola

This week was a C-R-A-Z-Y one for baking.  I made 84 cupcakes, 60 cake pops, 1 cake, and 24 cookies all for other people.  As you can probably imagine, by Thursday night, my kitchen looked like a bomb filled with flour and sugar had gone off.  I think just about every bowl I own was dirty!  I took some pictures of the cake pops and the cake to share with you all.  A friend of mine's son was having a birthday. He plays the viola and she asked if I could make a viola cake for him.  I don't know anything about Violas, but thankfully, the facebook community helped me out with a very amusing Kardashian reference, which put everything into perspective for me.  After that conversation, I did some actual research and I came up with this:

She also asked for some cake pops to go with the cake.  These turned out really cute!

Not much going on this week, an order of cake pops for the winner of my giveaway, and then a little holiday called, Thanksgiving!  We will be visiting family this year, so I don't think I will be doing any baking, but if anything changes, I will be sure to post some pictures!  All the best to you and yours for the holiday!

Hope and Cookie Stencils

A friend of mine is organizing an event to raise money for her relay for life team, Jim's Flyers.  Michele is so dedicated to raising money for Cancer research; she lost her father to Cancer a few years ago.  It is inspiring to watch Michele as she raises money throughout the year for her team.  When I did relay for life I sent an e-mail out to my family and hoped for donations.  Jim's Flyers does so many fundraising events; last year they raised over 3000 dollars at a yard sale, an impressive feat considering I made about 30 dollars on my last yard sale.  This year, Michele organized an event called the HOPE Bazaar.  She has about 20 vendors bringing their merchandise to the fire hall today and a portion of their sales goes to her relay team.  I am unable to attend the bazaar because of a JMU football game (priorities!) so I offered to donate some cookies to the cause.  


The emblem for the Bazaar was a butterfly so I searched the web and found these amazing cookies stencils!  Have you ever used cookie stencils before?  Me neither.  Basically it is a stencil that you lay over your cookie then you use royal icing to drag the design over the cookie.  There was definitely a learning curve with these.  You couldn't put too much pressure on the stencil or the cookie would break.  If you didn't put enough pressure on the stencil it would slide.  If you used too much icing it pressed under the stencil.  If you didn't use enough icing it wouldn't fill the stencil.  Eventually, I got the hang of it.  The cookie with the icing wasn't quite large enough to use the stencil with the spread wings, so I had to use the smaller stencil.  Not exactly what I wanted, but I think they turned out really cute.  (I should mention that I tried a couple of techniques on these cookies.  Before I tried the stencil with the royal icing, I tried a technique I saw on the internet to "air brush" the cookies without an airbrush.  I most definitely won't be doing that again.  It didn't work for me and the effect was NOT what I wanted.)


Here is the final result.

After I finished the purple cookies, I tried my stencil on a plain cookie.  Much easier to do, and I'm not sure which effect I like more.  I think I might like the plain cookie a little more.  They are so simple but there is something beautiful about them.  I'm going to have to play with the stencils a little more.  What do you guys think? 

Good luck today, Michele!  I hope you raise tons of money for your relay team and that people like the cookies!  By the way, if you are reading my blog, I would love to know what you think.  Leave me some love, folks!

Football and Halloween!

This was a busy week for cake pops.  One of my wonderful Physical Therapists asked me to do some footballs for her daughter's football party on Sunday.  Her daughter is an Eagle's fan, so my husband was against this from the start, but in the words of the great Joe Fox (You've Got Mail, anyone?) "It's not personal, it's business."  I hand formed the football shapes, dipped them in chocolate and then piped on the stitching with white chocolate.  Here is how they turned out:

This week was also my oldest's Halloween Party at school, and I wanted do something special for him.  He is a huge fan of cake pops and I saw these on the cover of a magazine and I figured I could do them for him.  They were a huge hit!

The mummies were my favorite!

The pumpkins were cute too, but a lot of work because my markers stopped working and I had to paint on the faces with chocolate and a paint brush!

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy too.  I've got 2 cake pop orders coming up and then our last home game at JMU the following weekend.  I'm thinking I might mix up my JMU cake pops and do some footballs with the purple and gold pops.  Stay tuned...

Sweet Sixteen and a Soccer Picnic

3 years ago when I started baking for other people, I was exclusively a cookie maker.  I would spend hours over a batch of cookies using egg whites, sugar, and food coloring to turn batches of sugar cookies into works of art.  I've gotten better over the years; my piping is cleaner, the icing has a better consistency, and the cookies taste better, and as much as I love making cakes, pops, and cupcakes, my heart is with cookies. This weekend I was honored to have been asked to create cookie pops for a very special lady turning 16.  They didn't give me a lot of direction, just colors and the direction to "be creative," music to my ears...here are the pictures.  I made 4 separate designs, just in case!

Jimmy also had his end of the season soccer picnic on Saturday.  All of the U6 teams were asked to bring a dessert and Jimmy requested vanilla cupcakes.  They were a huge hit- gone before anyone really got the chance to see them and I heard one little girl tell her dad it was "only like, the best cupcake ever!"

Next week, I've got another fall cupcake order and an order of Halloween cake pops for Jimmy's Halloween party at school.  I will be sure to post pictures, I'm going to attempts pumpkins, ghosts, and possibly mummies.  Spooky!

Have I mentioned I love fall flavors?

We got home from Disney World on Saturday.  We had an amazing trip, but it was wonderful to get home and back to my kitchen.  One of my co-workers asked me to do cupcakes for a surprise grandma shower at work.  Originally she had asked for raspberry, but they are out of season and so expensive right now, so I suggested an apple or a pumpkin cupcake.  I had found a couple of pumpkin recipes but I finally settled on this one from one of my favorite blogs, Cupcakes Take the Cake.  The recipe was easy, the cupcakes were amazing and she was not lying about that frosting.  I was searching the cabinets for something to eat it with!

I have mixed feelings about the apple cupcakes.  They were made with apple cider and they were amazing the day I made them, but they didn't keep well overnight.  When I ate one today, they were a bit dry, so next time I might add some applesauce to keep them more moist, but they tasted amazing.  The frosting was very sweet, but a nice compliment to the cupcake and it was really easy to make since I didn't have to make my own caramel sauce.  I'm not sure my pans are ready for that kind of commitment. :)  My only complaint about the frosting was the consistency.  It just wouldn't sit up so the frosting ran a little as it warmed and as the cupcakes were on their way to work with me this morning.  If anyone out there has a good caramel frosting recipe, I would love to try it!

I have to say, this was my first time using the french tip, typically I go for the open star tip, but I think I might start using this one more often.  The piping was so easy and it looked really beautiful.  The cupcakes were enjoyed by everyone and I got lots of compliments.  No orders from anyone yet, but I'm keeping business cards at school, just in case! ;)

My Homage to Fall

Well, we had another JMU game this weekend.  Sadly the Dukes lost this one in overtime, but the tailgate was fabulous!  We were joined by some great friends and their kids, the weather was amazing, and we made some new friends today.  I remembered my business cards this time, but unfortunately not as many folks were at the tailgate so no one really asked for any, but thats all right, I feel some new business coming on!  I'll save that news for another post.

I have had this idea in my head for a couple weeks to do an acorn cake pop and I saw a link on-line to a donut hole acorn that I thought I could adapt, so I tried it- and they turned out really cute!  To compliment them, I also made some candy corn shaped ones, that were really fun.  This time the flavors inside were chocolate/chocolate and spice cake/cream cheese.  The spice cake went first, but I think that was because the kids were eating them and those were the candy corn ones.  My oldest spent the day chanting, "orange, white, yellow, orange, white, yellow!"  Here is the picture.

I tried and new camera technique this week, although my photography friends would not consider this a technique, just good practice, and went outside to get some really good natural light.  I think the picture turned out better, but I need to work on my placement.  That shadow you see is my arm!  We are headed out of town tomorrow so I won't be blogging this week, but look for me next week, I have a huge cupcake order to do on Sunday, so I will be posting some pictures!

Homecoming and some new business (hopefully!)

This past weekend was homecoming at James Madison University.  JMU is such a special place for me.  In the 4 years I spent there, I made friends that I will keep forever, met my husband, and found my way to a job that I truly enjoy.  We love going back and seeing all the changes, having the opportunity to reunite with those friends that we made, and making new friends.  This weekend, I made some JMU inspired cake pops and I never expected the reaction I received from my fellow tailgaters on Godwin Field.  People were so complimentary of the pops and I had lots of people asking for business cards-note to self: always keep business cards in the car!  Hopefully this will lead to some new business and the possibility to expand to areas outside of the Winchester/Berryville area!  Here is the picture of the cake pops I made.  I have to say, this is my 4th set of pops and they get a little easier each time!  I rolled 36 pops and I actually got 36 pops into the display.  I didn't lose a single pop in the chocolate and it took me less than an hour to make these!!!  Those of you who were following my first attempt at pops (the dalmation pops) know that this is a HUGE improvement!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering...JMU won the game on Saturday, stomping the Richmond Spiders 31-7.  Go Dukes!

Signs of Fall

Well, the 77 degree, humid day certainly didn't indicate fall to me, but I've had a recipe for chai latte cupcakes saved in my bookmarks for at least 6 months after a friend of mine suggested the flavor to me.  Today I felt like trying a new recipe and I actually had all the ingredients to make these delicious little fall treats.  The recipe can be found here.  


The cupcakes were spicy, but not overwhelming, and the frosting was light and creamy.  The recipe only made 12 cupcakes, so if you need any more than that, you'll need to double or triple the recipe.

Enjoy these cupcakes with a glass of milk, they are sweet!

Just Because

In August I had surgery to repair some damage to my ankle.  I've been going to physical therapy and last week I was showing my therapists some of my pictures and they were impressed by everything, but they were most impressed with my cake pops.  I recently bought Bakerella's cake pop book and there were some pops I have been wanting to try out, so I decided to take some pops into the therapy office on Tuesday, just because they have been so sweet.  Here they are!

It takes a village

My oldest son came home with a homework assignment in his backpack from his preschool last week.  The assignment was to create a family tree.  I searched around online and found a really cute project on the Fiskars website that I thought we could do together.  Here is the finished project:

I know that it looks like he probably didn't do much of this, but in reality he actually did a lot of it!  He chose all the colors and papers.  I bought several punches and he punched out and glued on all the leaves.  He also attached all the photos and name plates.  We finished this on a rainy day when there wasn't much else going on and I must say, it was nice to do some crafting with my son.  He was very proud of his work and wants to hang it in his room when he gets it back.  I can't wait to put it in a frame!

Baking and my first blog!

Hello my name is Jeanette and I am a blog lurker.  

Really, I love to read blogs that other folks have written, but the thought of blogging myself is a bit overwhelming.  Typically, I go online, read through my favorite blogs, marvel at the photographs they have posted and say to myself, "I can do that."  So here it is: my first blog post; the photographic proof that yes, I can in fact do all of those wonderful things I see online!  

The quality of this photo is terrible but the subject was just too fun not to post!  A friend asked me to make some Scooby Doo cookies for her son's birthday party and here is the end result.  Scooby-Doobie-Doo!

A few weeks ago I had a giveaway on my facebook page and the winner chose 2 dozen cake pops for her "31" girls night party.

A friend of mine was hosting a baby shower and in lieu of a cake wanted cake pops!  I was honored to do them for her.  The party didn't have a theme, but the colors were lavender and plum.  I think they turned out really sweet! (no pun intended!)  She gave the cookies away as favors.  

So fellow bloggers, here it is, my first blog post.  Enjoy!