Showing posts with label Portfolio Projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portfolio Projects. Show all posts
Guest Speaking Today at Mommy & Me Creations!
Build Your Blog Conference 2013
I was a proud attendee of the Six Sisters' Stuff Build Your Blog Conference on Saturday. It was completely overwhelming, in a good way! The way that "my brain hasn't stopped thinking about what to do first" kind of way. There was a meet & greet dinner at a bakery the night before, which I think was actually more beneficial for networking than the actual conference. It's nice to hand out a business card & chat face-to-face, rather than picking up generic cards at an exchange table-- hence the reason why I will be adding a photo to my next business card creation because those ones definitely stand out. The ones who had photos already on their cards...SMART!
Anyway, Saturday started with a great inspirational speech from Brooke Walker, my favorite daytime lifestyle show hostess. I ran right up to her & said, "Hi" before she went up to give her speech. Brooke is super sweet & she even remembered the video clip they played of my son singing their show's theme song MONTHS ago. I hope to work with her in the future, possibly even giving a cooking demo on Studio5 with her or Darin. The theme of Brooke's talk was to INFLUENCE others through our blogs & use our hearts as well as our heads in the way we run our blogs/businesses. She had 6 great tips that I will be implementing for sure. I would post them all, but they are kind of deep & would need lots of explaining.
If you couldn't tell by the photo of Brooke speaking, I was totally near the front! I was almost always the front row nerd/teacher's pet in school anyway, & this is stuff I REALLY wanted to learn, so of course I got as close as I could.
They day was scheduled into 4 different breakout sessions with 3 class choices per session (if you can't do the math, that is 12 classes to choose from!) So it was really hard choosing which ones I wanted to attend, but it didn't really matter, because they recorded all the classes on audio AND video & will be emailing them to us shortly after the conference. Doesn't that just shout, "BANG for your BUCK?!" I am so pleased with my purchase! The Six Sister's are so sweet for doing that for all of us!
This is what my day turned out to look like:
Class #2 Food Blogging Panel with Maria from Two Peas & Their Pod, Laura from Real Mom Kitchen, Erica from Favorite Family Recipes, Nikki from Chef In Training, & Amanda from Kevin & Amanda.
LUNCH/GIVEAWAYS
Class #3 How to Make Money Blogging by none other than Larry Adamson founder of My Recipe Magic & father to the Six Sisters
Class #4 Smack 'Em Across The Face: How To Stand Out and Grab People's Attention by Nathan McGee from Provo Craft
I almost had a headache at the end from all the great information! What a great time to be a blogger. I love what I do & I am so glad that I can {hopefully} become successful with it. If not, oh well, I will still be cooking, baking, & blogging for fun! There were lots of sponsors & affiliates there as well, so hopefully I will be working with a few of them soon.
One of the best parts of the conference was meeting some of my favorite bloggers:
Nikki @ Chef In Training is an awesome food blogger & specializes in pudding cookies (AND she even remembered that I guest blogged for her like 4 months into my blogging "career" which was like 11 months ago.)
Jocelyn @ Inside BruCrew Life came all the way from Indiana for our Utah blog conference. I was too excited that she was there! Such a sweet gal, so humble, & has YUM YUM recipes on her blog!
Jordan the Fun, Cheap or Free Queen @ the blog Fun, Cheap or Free. She is probably one of the only bloggers I know that isn't a foodie. Through her blog, she taught me a super awesome way to budget & it has kept us on track shortly after I started implementing it.
Meet Courtney, un-officially known as the 7th Sister of Six Sisters' Stuff. She's their good friend & works for My Recipe Magic.
Of course I had to catch a picture with as many of the Six Sisters that I could! Camille (far right) has been such an awesome mentor. Such a sweetheart, emailing me & giving me pointers. These girls are paying it forward by showing us bloggers how to be successful. Such a great group of gals!
Of course I met up with my girls Paula & Jenn from The REAL Housewives of Riverton & Alexis from We Like to Learn As We Go that I met at the My Recipe Magic Launch Party.
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| Paula, Me, Jenn, Alexis. |
All in all I had a great weekend learning & of course socializing. My blog will be evolving... Are you ready?!
I was a proud attendee of the Six Sisters' Stuff Build Your Blog Conference on Saturday. It was completely overwhelming, in a good way! The way that "my brain hasn't stopped thinking about what to do first" kind of way. There was a meet & greet dinner at a bakery the night before, which I think was actually more beneficial for networking than the actual conference. It's nice to hand out a business card & chat face-to-face, rather than picking up generic cards at an exchange table-- hence the reason why I will be adding a photo to my next business card creation because those ones definitely stand out. The ones who had photos already on their cards...SMART!
reade more...
Anyway, Saturday started with a great inspirational speech from Brooke Walker, my favorite daytime lifestyle show hostess. I ran right up to her & said, "Hi" before she went up to give her speech. Brooke is super sweet & she even remembered the video clip they played of my son singing their show's theme song MONTHS ago. I hope to work with her in the future, possibly even giving a cooking demo on Studio5 with her or Darin. The theme of Brooke's talk was to INFLUENCE others through our blogs & use our hearts as well as our heads in the way we run our blogs/businesses. She had 6 great tips that I will be implementing for sure. I would post them all, but they are kind of deep & would need lots of explaining.
If you couldn't tell by the photo of Brooke speaking, I was totally near the front! I was almost always the front row nerd/teacher's pet in school anyway, & this is stuff I REALLY wanted to learn, so of course I got as close as I could.
They day was scheduled into 4 different breakout sessions with 3 class choices per session (if you can't do the math, that is 12 classes to choose from!) So it was really hard choosing which ones I wanted to attend, but it didn't really matter, because they recorded all the classes on audio AND video & will be emailing them to us shortly after the conference. Doesn't that just shout, "BANG for your BUCK?!" I am so pleased with my purchase! The Six Sister's are so sweet for doing that for all of us!
This is what my day turned out to look like:
Class #2 Food Blogging Panel with Maria from Two Peas & Their Pod, Laura from Real Mom Kitchen, Erica from Favorite Family Recipes, Nikki from Chef In Training, & Amanda from Kevin & Amanda.
LUNCH/GIVEAWAYS
Class #3 How to Make Money Blogging by none other than Larry Adamson founder of My Recipe Magic & father to the Six Sisters
Class #4 Smack 'Em Across The Face: How To Stand Out and Grab People's Attention by Nathan McGee from Provo Craft
I almost had a headache at the end from all the great information! What a great time to be a blogger. I love what I do & I am so glad that I can {hopefully} become successful with it. If not, oh well, I will still be cooking, baking, & blogging for fun! There were lots of sponsors & affiliates there as well, so hopefully I will be working with a few of them soon.
One of the best parts of the conference was meeting some of my favorite bloggers:
Nikki @ Chef In Training is an awesome food blogger & specializes in pudding cookies (AND she even remembered that I guest blogged for her like 4 months into my blogging "career" which was like 11 months ago.)
Jocelyn @ Inside BruCrew Life came all the way from Indiana for our Utah blog conference. I was too excited that she was there! Such a sweet gal, so humble, & has YUM YUM recipes on her blog!
Jordan the Fun, Cheap or Free Queen @ the blog Fun, Cheap or Free. She is probably one of the only bloggers I know that isn't a foodie. Through her blog, she taught me a super awesome way to budget & it has kept us on track shortly after I started implementing it.
Meet Courtney, un-officially known as the 7th Sister of Six Sisters' Stuff. She's their good friend & works for My Recipe Magic.
Of course I had to catch a picture with as many of the Six Sisters that I could! Camille (far right) has been such an awesome mentor. Such a sweetheart, emailing me & giving me pointers. These girls are paying it forward by showing us bloggers how to be successful. Such a great group of gals!
Of course I met up with my girls Paula & Jenn from The REAL Housewives of Riverton & Alexis from We Like to Learn As We Go that I met at the My Recipe Magic Launch Party.
|
| Paula, Me, Jenn, Alexis. |
All in all I had a great weekend learning & of course socializing. My blog will be evolving... Are you ready?!
Cut-Out Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
First of all, Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all have someone special to share the day with: a significant other or a best friend or your family. Have fun today!
One of my friends asked me if I would do some high-heel shoe sugar cookies for an event she was in charge of & even though I hate cut-out sugar cookies for a reason (read why HERE) I said that would be fine. I wanted to try my hand at royal icing again because it has been like 7 months since I last tried it. These cookies weren't that bad actually. The dough was easy to work with & it didn't look awful re-rolled. They are actually quite soft & a perfect base for a sugar cookie. I tried a different royal icing this time, but it still made a TON of icing. Maybe third time is a charm & I will realize I need to like half the recipe, even if I am icing like 90 cookies.
Anyway, if you want a soft sugar cookie that holds it's shape this is great. If you want to give royal icing a go, this recipe was super easy to whip up. I am still figuring out how to thin it (for different consistencies), and I think I am going to go buy clear plastic bottles next time & give that a go instead of my pastry bags. I think it might be easier & I won't have icing pooping out the top of my bag (even when there is a rubber band on it.)
Okay, enough talk...check out the cute shoes! I think they turned out fairly nice. Sadly, I hit my groove & picked up the pace on the last tray I was decorating, but now I know what works best & will give you my tips so you can have success!
Cut-Out Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
- 5 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, & salt. Set aside.
- Cream butter & sugar until light & fluffy. Add sour cream, eggs & vanilla until combined. Scrape bowl.
- Gradually add flour mixture until incorporated. Divide dough in half onto two pieces of plastic wrap; flatten dough, wrap tightly & refrigerate until chilled, 1-2 hours. (Tip: Dough may be made to this point & refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month.)
- Preheat oven to 350*F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
- Generously flour work surface & rolling pin. Unwrap one of the chilled pieces of cookie dough, place on floured surface & sprinkle extra flour on top. Starting at the center, roll the dough out until about 1/4" thick, sprinkling with additional flour if needed, to avoid sticking. Dip cookie cutter in flour & cut out dough shapes. Transfer cut-out cookies to baking sheets.
- Bake 8-10 minutes until just done; before they brown on the bottom. Do NOT over-bake if you want a soft cookie. Allow cookies to cool on a baking rack. (Tip: cooled, unfrosted cookies, may be stacked in a sealed container & stored at room temperature for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to 2 weeks.)
Makes 5-7 dozen cookies depending on size.
Royal Icing
Recipe lightly altered from Bee In our Bonnet by: Amber (Dessert Now, Dinner Later!)
*HALF this recipe if decorating the full recipe of cookies above.
- 1 cup water
- 6 Tbsp meringue powder
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (use clear vanilla if you want white icing)
- 2 lb bag of powdered sugar
- In a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, mix the water & meringue powder until it is incorporated & slightly foamy.
- Add extracts & mix for a few seconds.
- Add the whole bag of powdered sugar. Mix on low until incorporated, then on high for a few minutes. It will become fairly stiff, & look smooth, glossy & leave peaks/ripples in the bowl where the paddle passes through the icing.
**Divide icing into separate bowls for different colors. COVER unused BOWL(s) with a damp dish towel while not in use. Mix in color until desired shade is achieved.
***Thin icing using 1 tsp of water at a time until desired consistency. (For more information about consistencies go HERE.)
****Use clear pastry bags with rubber bands on the ends to help keep icing moist. Also, place unused pastry bags into a cup with a damp paper towel on the bottom to keep the tip from drying out when not in use.
Have fun decorating!
- For these shoe cookies I used a Wilton #3 tip for the white, pink & purple. I had colored & thinned my purple & pink icing to help it spread, but not so thin it falls off the cookie (which it did a little if I got too close to the edge.)
- I piped the border, did a zig-zag with the icing to fill in the cookie & used my finger to help spread the icing if it didn't quite fill on it's own. Technically I should have had two different bags for this part:
- The icing as stiff as it is when it's made (no thinning) for the edges
- The thinner icing to fill the center
- You may also use a toothpick to pop any bubbles that form. I did have a few bubbles in my icing that I didn't catch.
- Then I let the base colors (pink & purple) dry for an hour or so before I piped the white trim & bows with the icing AS IS when it was first made.
Pretty simple, just a lot of cookies & I was using my toothpick to help spread the icing to fill in the gaps, but then I realized that was stupid & used my finger. LOTS faster. Then popped any air bubbles with the toothpick (do this before it dries, so only do a couple cookies at a time before moving on.)
Next time I wouldn't be so lazy & I would use the white to pipe the edges & then thin the pink & purple enough to spread on it's own without my finger. You live & learn right? But they still turned out cute so I am happy. :)
First of all, Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all have someone special to share the day with: a significant other or a best friend or your family. Have fun today!
One of my friends asked me if I would do some high-heel shoe sugar cookies for an event she was in charge of & even though I hate cut-out sugar cookies for a reason (read why HERE) I said that would be fine. I wanted to try my hand at royal icing again because it has been like 7 months since I last tried it. These cookies weren't that bad actually. The dough was easy to work with & it didn't look awful re-rolled. They are actually quite soft & a perfect base for a sugar cookie. I tried a different royal icing this time, but it still made a TON of icing. Maybe third time is a charm & I will realize I need to like half the recipe, even if I am icing like 90 cookies.
Anyway, if you want a soft sugar cookie that holds it's shape this is great. If you want to give royal icing a go, this recipe was super easy to whip up. I am still figuring out how to thin it (for different consistencies), and I think I am going to go buy clear plastic bottles next time & give that a go instead of my pastry bags. I think it might be easier & I won't have icing pooping out the top of my bag (even when there is a rubber band on it.)
Okay, enough talk...check out the cute shoes! I think they turned out fairly nice. Sadly, I hit my groove & picked up the pace on the last tray I was decorating, but now I know what works best & will give you my tips so you can have success!
Cut-Out Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
- 5 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, & salt. Set aside.
- Cream butter & sugar until light & fluffy. Add sour cream, eggs & vanilla until combined. Scrape bowl.
- Gradually add flour mixture until incorporated. Divide dough in half onto two pieces of plastic wrap; flatten dough, wrap tightly & refrigerate until chilled, 1-2 hours. (Tip: Dough may be made to this point & refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month.)
- Preheat oven to 350*F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
- Generously flour work surface & rolling pin. Unwrap one of the chilled pieces of cookie dough, place on floured surface & sprinkle extra flour on top. Starting at the center, roll the dough out until about 1/4" thick, sprinkling with additional flour if needed, to avoid sticking. Dip cookie cutter in flour & cut out dough shapes. Transfer cut-out cookies to baking sheets.
- Bake 8-10 minutes until just done; before they brown on the bottom. Do NOT over-bake if you want a soft cookie. Allow cookies to cool on a baking rack. (Tip: cooled, unfrosted cookies, may be stacked in a sealed container & stored at room temperature for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to 2 weeks.)
Makes 5-7 dozen cookies depending on size.
Royal Icing
Recipe lightly altered from Bee In our Bonnet by: Amber (Dessert Now, Dinner Later!)
*HALF this recipe if decorating the full recipe of cookies above.
- 1 cup water
- 6 Tbsp meringue powder
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (use clear vanilla if you want white icing)
- 2 lb bag of powdered sugar
- In a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, mix the water & meringue powder until it is incorporated & slightly foamy.
- Add extracts & mix for a few seconds.
- Add the whole bag of powdered sugar. Mix on low until incorporated, then on high for a few minutes. It will become fairly stiff, & look smooth, glossy & leave peaks/ripples in the bowl where the paddle passes through the icing.
**Divide icing into separate bowls for different colors. COVER unused BOWL(s) with a damp dish towel while not in use. Mix in color until desired shade is achieved.
***Thin icing using 1 tsp of water at a time until desired consistency. (For more information about consistencies go HERE.)
****Use clear pastry bags with rubber bands on the ends to help keep icing moist. Also, place unused pastry bags into a cup with a damp paper towel on the bottom to keep the tip from drying out when not in use.
Have fun decorating!
- For these shoe cookies I used a Wilton #3 tip for the white, pink & purple. I had colored & thinned my purple & pink icing to help it spread, but not so thin it falls off the cookie (which it did a little if I got too close to the edge.)
- I piped the border, did a zig-zag with the icing to fill in the cookie & used my finger to help spread the icing if it didn't quite fill on it's own. Technically I should have had two different bags for this part:
- The icing as stiff as it is when it's made (no thinning) for the edges
- The thinner icing to fill the center
- You may also use a toothpick to pop any bubbles that form. I did have a few bubbles in my icing that I didn't catch.
- Then I let the base colors (pink & purple) dry for an hour or so before I piped the white trim & bows with the icing AS IS when it was first made.
Pretty simple, just a lot of cookies & I was using my toothpick to help spread the icing to fill in the gaps, but then I realized that was stupid & used my finger. LOTS faster. Then popped any air bubbles with the toothpick (do this before it dries, so only do a couple cookies at a time before moving on.)
Next time I wouldn't be so lazy & I would use the white to pipe the edges & then thin the pink & purple enough to spread on it's own without my finger. You live & learn right? But they still turned out cute so I am happy. :)
Junebugs' Birthdays & Marshmallow Fondant Recipe
Every once in a while, you might get a glance of cakes that I do. Most likely in June. My two children were born 2 years & 3 days apart. So the first part of June is pretty crazy for us with their two birthdays. This is the first year I have had to do this, but it worked out alright. A couple late nights & preparations during nap-times & I got it all done. It felt like forever since I had done any cakes (probably because it had been well over a year since I really did anything fancy) but, like riding a bike, everything you learned comes back to you & you figure it out.
When I first decided what cakes to do, I know I didn't want two large cakes. That would be completely overwhelming, so I decided to do cupcakes for my boy & a regular cake for my girl.
My boy turned 3 & he loves turtles so I found the cutest turtle cupcakes from pinterest via Sweetopia & knew I had to try them. I actually have never done royal icing before, EVER! Can you believe that? I guess it was something they didn't deem necessary at the college I went to. I read up about how to make & use royal icing. I was a bit nervous of everything drying out & what consistency to make it, but having no previous experience, I think I did alright. I definitely could have kept the icing a little bit stiffer, & I forgot to shake out the bubbles on a few of them, but these were so FUN to make! I really think I could enjoy royal icing...a lot! I might just dabble in some cutout sugar cookies & try the royal icing again. After all, practice makes perfect & I love how neat & clean royal icing makes things look. If you want more information about royal icing here are some links I used when I was doing my research:
After getting your items ready, things go so smoothly & you don't have to worry about anything drying out or running around the kitchen like a crazy person forgetting where you put something you needed.
So a lot of people already know about this, but you can make your own fondant out of marshmallows. I learned that in school & it is awesome & cheap. Here is the recipe I use:
Making my kids' birthday cakes is something I look forward to doing their whole lives. It's something I enjoy doing & I get to use my talent at the same time. Plus, I think it's something easy enough for others to do if they want to. Anyone can do this stuff, just practice & have fun with it!!!
When I first decided what cakes to do, I know I didn't want two large cakes. That would be completely overwhelming, so I decided to do cupcakes for my boy & a regular cake for my girl.
My boy turned 3 & he loves turtles so I found the cutest turtle cupcakes from pinterest via Sweetopia & knew I had to try them. I actually have never done royal icing before, EVER! Can you believe that? I guess it was something they didn't deem necessary at the college I went to. I read up about how to make & use royal icing. I was a bit nervous of everything drying out & what consistency to make it, but having no previous experience, I think I did alright. I definitely could have kept the icing a little bit stiffer, & I forgot to shake out the bubbles on a few of them, but these were so FUN to make! I really think I could enjoy royal icing...a lot! I might just dabble in some cutout sugar cookies & try the royal icing again. After all, practice makes perfect & I love how neat & clean royal icing makes things look. If you want more information about royal icing here are some links I used when I was doing my research:
- The Basics of Sugar Cookies & Royal Icing
- Cookie Decorating Tutorial
- The recipe that I used for Royal Icing is in this tutorial. It made probably 4-5 cups of icing. I wish I had known that b/c I had to throw a lot out. After all I only made like 30 turtles as cupcake toppers.
- How do you store Royal Icing & how long can you keep it?
A few tips that I want to remember for myself in the future & share with you from my Royal Icing experience:
- Mise en place (everything in it's place) is so important!
- You want to have everything ready to mix separate colors (bowls, spatulas, colors, etc)
- Bags & tips ready to fill (I liked using disposable clear bags to see what color was inside the bag)
- Rubber bands to keep the icing in the bag moist
- Glasses(cups) with damp paper towels in the bottom of the glass to keep your icing from hardening in the tip while you decorate (I liked my tall clear glass cups, again to see what icing was where)
- Small parchment squares lightly greased with shortening using a paper towel to put the royal icing decoration on (I used the Reynold's Parchment on a roll, but I would rather get the flat sheets at a specialty store in the future b/c it was hard to get the paper to lay flat; decorating on the curve of the paper was difficult)
- Mixer ready & damp towel to cover the bowl of icing while you mix each color & get it bagged up
- Picture to mimic or drawn up design of your own
- *24-hours to dry completely before using a food color pen for any additional designs
- *One very important thing to know: If you are making toppers for cupcakes like I did, do NOT put them on the cupcakes until JUST BEFORE SERVING. They will absorb the moisture from the icing, go soft (can break), & possibly make the colors run into each other. I am glad I knew this before-hand, b/c even 2 hours after placing mine on they started to go soft & my black eyes started to run into the green of the turtles head.
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| I was super worried about my icing drying out in the tips that my paper towels in the bottom of the glass were too moist at first. Wring them out enough that water doesn't pool in the bottom b/c that makes the icing get watery & will effect your design. |
My baby girl turned 1 and I knew I wanted to do a ladybug cake. I found LOTS of lady bug cakes. I like the color purple for my baby girl more than I like pink or red, so I made a purple ladybug cake. This is the cake that I found that I wanted my lady bug to resemble:
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| Photo Source |
Mine turned out all right. I made a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting for the filling & outside. It was kind of plain, just using white, but it made all the fondant decorations stick so easily. My daughter's name was on the cake, but I photoshopped it out to protect my child's privacy, so that big white blank spot on the cake was filled with cute purple letters of her name.
A few things that I did:
- The leaf was on a separate cardboard cutout so I could remove it easily for my daughter to eat the lady bug as her "smash" cake.
- The antenna's are molded around toothpicks.
- The head & body are both cupcakes.
- The head is a mini cupcake
- The body was 1 1/2 regular cupcakes pieced together (like a layered cake.)
- I attached the head using a toothpick & had a ball of green fondant under the chin to help hold up the head.
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| You can tell I was up late working on this b/c the lighting is awful. |
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| I think it turned out cute! |
Marshmallow Fondant
Recipe by: Amber (Dessert Now, Dinner Later!)
- 16 oz. white mini-marshmallows*
- 2 Tbsp. water
- Up to 2 lbs. confectioner's (powdered) sugar (approximately 8 cups)
- Crisco shortening, as needed
- Grease a large microwave bowl with a paper towel & some shortening, pack in marshmallows & add the water. Microwave on high for 20-30 seconds at a time, just long enough for the marshmallows to soften & puff up. With a greased plastic or wooden spoon stir the marshmallow mixture after each 20-30 seconds. Continue until you reach a soupy texture.
- Sift powdered sugar over the melted marshmallows, one or two cups at a time. Fold until all is incorporated & it is no longer sticky. (This can be done in a mixer with a bread-hook attachment, just grease bowl & hook before mixing.)
- Take mixture out of the bowl when it gets to the point where most of the sugar is incorporated & it balls up/comes together. Dust the countertop with a little powdered sugar & dust some on your hands & knead the fondant by hand until it becomes quite stiff. This takes approximately 5-7 minutes by hand. Don't use too much powdered sugar or it can dry out. Form into a ball keep covered until ready to use.
- Coat cake with a light coating of buttercream. Roll fondant on a powdered sugar dusted counter till about 1/8-inch thick & set over cake gently. Smooth surface with fondant smoother or your hands & cut below the cake board so when it shrinks, it will be the perfect length. To fix any tears, use a tiny bit of Crisco & rub with finger until it comes together. Be creative & have fun!
* To color the fondant, add drops of food coloring & knead the fondant until it is all worked in. You can try adding food coloring after you melt the marshmallows, before adding the powdered sugar, but it is a little tricky if you divide the colors. If you have any part of the marshmallow mixture sitting in a bowl while you fix the other color(s) you will need to heat it up again before you add the food coloring & powdered sugar. I think this method takes just as long as kneading it into the prepared white fondant, but it's up to you which way you want to do it. I hope that makes sense.
*You can make this ahead of time. Store the fondant in an airtight container (Lasts about 5-7 days if stored properly.) I like to saran wrap mine (as long as it is not sticky) & then put it in a container. When you go to use it, take it out of the container/saran wrap & you can heat it up in the microwave on a plate for 5 seconds to warm it up enough to knead it easily. Do NOT heat it more than 5-10 seconds (at a time) b/c it will melt & can BURN your hand; plus you will have to add extra powdered sugar to make it not runny again. (I say all this from personal experience.)
Every once in a while, you might get a glance of cakes that I do. Most likely in June. My two children were born 2 years & 3 days apart. So the first part of June is pretty crazy for us with their two birthdays. This is the first year I have had to do this, but it worked out alright. A couple late nights & preparations during nap-times & I got it all done. It felt like forever since I had done any cakes (probably because it had been well over a year since I really did anything fancy) but, like riding a bike, everything you learned comes back to you & you figure it out.
When I first decided what cakes to do, I know I didn't want two large cakes. That would be completely overwhelming, so I decided to do cupcakes for my boy & a regular cake for my girl.
My boy turned 3 & he loves turtles so I found the cutest turtle cupcakes from pinterest via Sweetopia & knew I had to try them. I actually have never done royal icing before, EVER! Can you believe that? I guess it was something they didn't deem necessary at the college I went to. I read up about how to make & use royal icing. I was a bit nervous of everything drying out & what consistency to make it, but having no previous experience, I think I did alright. I definitely could have kept the icing a little bit stiffer, & I forgot to shake out the bubbles on a few of them, but these were so FUN to make! I really think I could enjoy royal icing...a lot! I might just dabble in some cutout sugar cookies & try the royal icing again. After all, practice makes perfect & I love how neat & clean royal icing makes things look. If you want more information about royal icing here are some links I used when I was doing my research:
After getting your items ready, things go so smoothly & you don't have to worry about anything drying out or running around the kitchen like a crazy person forgetting where you put something you needed.
So a lot of people already know about this, but you can make your own fondant out of marshmallows. I learned that in school & it is awesome & cheap. Here is the recipe I use:
Making my kids' birthday cakes is something I look forward to doing their whole lives. It's something I enjoy doing & I get to use my talent at the same time. Plus, I think it's something easy enough for others to do if they want to. Anyone can do this stuff, just practice & have fun with it!!!
reade more...
When I first decided what cakes to do, I know I didn't want two large cakes. That would be completely overwhelming, so I decided to do cupcakes for my boy & a regular cake for my girl.
My boy turned 3 & he loves turtles so I found the cutest turtle cupcakes from pinterest via Sweetopia & knew I had to try them. I actually have never done royal icing before, EVER! Can you believe that? I guess it was something they didn't deem necessary at the college I went to. I read up about how to make & use royal icing. I was a bit nervous of everything drying out & what consistency to make it, but having no previous experience, I think I did alright. I definitely could have kept the icing a little bit stiffer, & I forgot to shake out the bubbles on a few of them, but these were so FUN to make! I really think I could enjoy royal icing...a lot! I might just dabble in some cutout sugar cookies & try the royal icing again. After all, practice makes perfect & I love how neat & clean royal icing makes things look. If you want more information about royal icing here are some links I used when I was doing my research:
- The Basics of Sugar Cookies & Royal Icing
- Cookie Decorating Tutorial
- The recipe that I used for Royal Icing is in this tutorial. It made probably 4-5 cups of icing. I wish I had known that b/c I had to throw a lot out. After all I only made like 30 turtles as cupcake toppers.
- How do you store Royal Icing & how long can you keep it?
A few tips that I want to remember for myself in the future & share with you from my Royal Icing experience:
- Mise en place (everything in it's place) is so important!
- You want to have everything ready to mix separate colors (bowls, spatulas, colors, etc)
- Bags & tips ready to fill (I liked using disposable clear bags to see what color was inside the bag)
- Rubber bands to keep the icing in the bag moist
- Glasses(cups) with damp paper towels in the bottom of the glass to keep your icing from hardening in the tip while you decorate (I liked my tall clear glass cups, again to see what icing was where)
- Small parchment squares lightly greased with shortening using a paper towel to put the royal icing decoration on (I used the Reynold's Parchment on a roll, but I would rather get the flat sheets at a specialty store in the future b/c it was hard to get the paper to lay flat; decorating on the curve of the paper was difficult)
- Mixer ready & damp towel to cover the bowl of icing while you mix each color & get it bagged up
- Picture to mimic or drawn up design of your own
- *24-hours to dry completely before using a food color pen for any additional designs
- *One very important thing to know: If you are making toppers for cupcakes like I did, do NOT put them on the cupcakes until JUST BEFORE SERVING. They will absorb the moisture from the icing, go soft (can break), & possibly make the colors run into each other. I am glad I knew this before-hand, b/c even 2 hours after placing mine on they started to go soft & my black eyes started to run into the green of the turtles head.
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| I was super worried about my icing drying out in the tips that my paper towels in the bottom of the glass were too moist at first. Wring them out enough that water doesn't pool in the bottom b/c that makes the icing get watery & will effect your design. |
My baby girl turned 1 and I knew I wanted to do a ladybug cake. I found LOTS of lady bug cakes. I like the color purple for my baby girl more than I like pink or red, so I made a purple ladybug cake. This is the cake that I found that I wanted my lady bug to resemble:
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| Photo Source |
Mine turned out all right. I made a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting for the filling & outside. It was kind of plain, just using white, but it made all the fondant decorations stick so easily. My daughter's name was on the cake, but I photoshopped it out to protect my child's privacy, so that big white blank spot on the cake was filled with cute purple letters of her name.
A few things that I did:
- The leaf was on a separate cardboard cutout so I could remove it easily for my daughter to eat the lady bug as her "smash" cake.
- The antenna's are molded around toothpicks.
- The head & body are both cupcakes.
- The head is a mini cupcake
- The body was 1 1/2 regular cupcakes pieced together (like a layered cake.)
- I attached the head using a toothpick & had a ball of green fondant under the chin to help hold up the head.
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| You can tell I was up late working on this b/c the lighting is awful. |
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| I think it turned out cute! |
Marshmallow Fondant
Recipe by: Amber (Dessert Now, Dinner Later!)
- 16 oz. white mini-marshmallows*
- 2 Tbsp. water
- Up to 2 lbs. confectioner's (powdered) sugar (approximately 8 cups)
- Crisco shortening, as needed
- Grease a large microwave bowl with a paper towel & some shortening, pack in marshmallows & add the water. Microwave on high for 20-30 seconds at a time, just long enough for the marshmallows to soften & puff up. With a greased plastic or wooden spoon stir the marshmallow mixture after each 20-30 seconds. Continue until you reach a soupy texture.
- Sift powdered sugar over the melted marshmallows, one or two cups at a time. Fold until all is incorporated & it is no longer sticky. (This can be done in a mixer with a bread-hook attachment, just grease bowl & hook before mixing.)
- Take mixture out of the bowl when it gets to the point where most of the sugar is incorporated & it balls up/comes together. Dust the countertop with a little powdered sugar & dust some on your hands & knead the fondant by hand until it becomes quite stiff. This takes approximately 5-7 minutes by hand. Don't use too much powdered sugar or it can dry out. Form into a ball keep covered until ready to use.
- Coat cake with a light coating of buttercream. Roll fondant on a powdered sugar dusted counter till about 1/8-inch thick & set over cake gently. Smooth surface with fondant smoother or your hands & cut below the cake board so when it shrinks, it will be the perfect length. To fix any tears, use a tiny bit of Crisco & rub with finger until it comes together. Be creative & have fun!
* To color the fondant, add drops of food coloring & knead the fondant until it is all worked in. You can try adding food coloring after you melt the marshmallows, before adding the powdered sugar, but it is a little tricky if you divide the colors. If you have any part of the marshmallow mixture sitting in a bowl while you fix the other color(s) you will need to heat it up again before you add the food coloring & powdered sugar. I think this method takes just as long as kneading it into the prepared white fondant, but it's up to you which way you want to do it. I hope that makes sense.
*You can make this ahead of time. Store the fondant in an airtight container (Lasts about 5-7 days if stored properly.) I like to saran wrap mine (as long as it is not sticky) & then put it in a container. When you go to use it, take it out of the container/saran wrap & you can heat it up in the microwave on a plate for 5 seconds to warm it up enough to knead it easily. Do NOT heat it more than 5-10 seconds (at a time) b/c it will melt & can BURN your hand; plus you will have to add extra powdered sugar to make it not runny again. (I say all this from personal experience.)