Cakes and Cupcakes

I cannot believe Christmas is in less than a week!  I had a few events that I never shared and wanted to show you :)

A first birthday for a little boy who loves dogs!

A baby shower for a soon to be baby girl.  The mom to be picked out this adorbale bedding that I used as inspiration for the cake. 

Thomas the Train cupcakes for a 3rd birthday!

Baking Class and Marshmallow Snowmen

I did a baking class on Tuesday night that was a holiday/entertaining theme.  I really enjoyed doing it and I think all of the guests enjoyed it too.  I was very nervous, since I have only done one before.  I have another next week, where I am teaching cake pops and mini pies and I am now excited for it :)

I did a 40 minute demonstration and then everyone could break into groups and work on the following activities:

1. Decorating Cupcakes - Gingerbread with mini gingerbread men on top and chocolate with peppermint icing and mini candy canes.  
2. Rolling, Decorating and Filling Cookies - I have a cookie recipe that can be used for 4 different cookies.  I demonstrated the dough and brought two of the cookies and the group worked on the remaining 2. 
3. Chocolate covered pretzels - I demonstrated how to melt the chocolate and dip the pretzels and then people could dip pretzels on their own.
4. Making marshmallow snowmen - good to go with hot chocolate or on cupcakes.

Everyone went home with a packet of recipes and a box of goodies :)  

Unforunately I do not have a lot of pictures from the event, but I did want to show you these cute Marshmallow snowmen.  I found the idea in my Martha Stewart Cupcake book and I wanted to share them with you!  They are perfect for regular cupcakes or I think they would be super fun at a kids party with hot cocoa.

Marshmallow Snowmen

Ingredients:

Regular Marshmallows

Chocolate Sprinkles or Black Edible Pen

Orange Gummy

Junior Mints

Royal Icing or Buttercream

Toothpick

Directions:

1. Using a toothpick poke two holes in one marshmallow for eyes and then insert sprinkles.  If using pen as eyes – see last step.
2. Using a toothpick poke 1 hole for nose.  Cut a slice of the gummy as thin as the toothpick and about ¼ of an inch long and insert in hole.  
3. Using icing “glue” top marshmallow to bottom one.  
4. Spread a dab of icing onto junior mint and place on the top marshmallow.
5. Let dry overnight.
6. If using pens, draw eyes and buttons after they have dried overnight.

Thanksgiving Roundup!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend!  We were down in Atlanta where my Dad's sister lives.  It is usually nice and warm down there, but unfortunately this year it was just as cold as NY.  That didn't stop us from having fun with our cousins :)  

and stealing their food.....

My Aunt makes quite a feast, I always look forward to it. We have a few people in our family that are now Gluten Free so she made a special baked brie (my favorite!).  She topped the brie with a little honey, brown sugar, dried cherries, dried apricots and sliced almonds.  She then baked it until it was warm and gooey and the sugar melted in - yum! (The picture below is before it was baked)

Every year she gets a Turkey Ice-cream cake from Baskin Robbins, but her Baskin store closed down.  So I was put to work to try and recreate one. Since there are 5 older cousins, I decided to do the cones as feathers instead of legs so each of the kids could have one.  My cake was certainly not as polished as Baskin Robbins, but I was happy with how it turned out for my first try.

My 94 year old Grandpa was able to make the trip this year! We got a great picture with him and all of his Great Grandchildren! (Savanna wouldn't stay in by herself....) We bought the matching pajamas from PajamaGram.

The kids had fun on Friday making peanut butter and jelly and grilled cheese pie pops for lunch with the Baby Cakes Pie Pop Maker.  It was such a fun activity for them and they cook super fast which is great for their attention span.

Hope you had a wonderful holiday as well!