Brownie Bunny Eggs

My house smelled like chocolate last night! It was heavenly indeed! I made brownies, a Martha Stewart recipe that is out of this world. I take it a step further and cover them with a dark chocolate glaze. Since these are for Easter, I used an egg shaped cookie cutter and then decorated them with another glaze to give them that Easter egg like look. I took pictures, then quickly packed them up to send to my daughter Jess who will not be home for Easter this year :-(
I do hope they arrive intact.
The cute little characters in the picture are the M&M people that I used to give my girls on every holiday until they finally said "enough mom". I saved them and bring them out for the holidays. They make me smile!

Hippity Hoppity......

Yay, bunnies and chicks and eggs, oh my! It is that time of year when all the Bunny Beanie Babies come out of hiding and all the beautiful eggs I made with my girls when they were little get put on display. I was inspired by that memory to decorate sugar cookies. So, my girls, these are for you!

Butter Cream Roses

I usually make my flowers out of royal icing. Two reasons: they are so much easier to place on the cake and sometime I like to paint them. I have been shying away from butter cream roses, I find them so temperamental. Sometimes they fall over before I get to finish them, sometimes they are too soft and just lose their shape and lastly, they are hard to place on the cake(for me anyway). Tonight I figured out that if I put them in the refrigerator for a little while they are much easier to handle. Maybe I've gotten over my fear of them. I also kind of suck at lettering. (That may be a little harsh, perhaps I should say that I struggle with it) I can do beautiful lettering on paper, but with frosting; my hand shakes. I guess I am afraid of making a mistake and it is a very hard mistake to fix. I'll have to practice until I get over it.
Anyway, this cake is an 8" yellow layer cake with.....butter cream frosting. It was made for a woman who wanted to surprise her husband at work. Donald will be bringing it in for me tomorrow. I hope they love it!

more marshmallow

Last time I made marshmallow I regretted not taking pictures of it while it was still gooey in the bowl. So this time I did. I think it is so pretty although a bit messy.

Thank You Pvt. Piren

Pvt. Jimmy Piren is going to Afghanistan to serve our country. His wonderful sister gave him a going away party and asked me to make a cake for the occasion. It was my honor and privilege to do so. The theme of the party was, of course, red, white and blue. The cake was a 1/2 sheet, one side vanilla, the other chocolate. It is filled and frosted with butter cream. The American Flag was made from fondant as were the stars. I wanted the flag to look like it was waving so, I draped it over the handles of two wooden spoons to give it shape. I made the flag to scale, having taken the dimension from an official flag website. For me, it was pretty labor intensive. I don't work too often with fondant, but it is a medium I would like to familiarize myself with.
To Pvt. Piren, I wish you all the best and will pray for your safe return. thank you for your service to our country.

For Donald on his birthday

My husband does not eat cake, but I needed to make one anyway. I took it to church because everyone loves cake (except Donald). This is a vanilla cake with white chocolate morsels in it. The morsels sunk to the bottom but it ended up to be a good thing. They added a nice sweet layer of crunchiness to the cake. A good idea that I will try again. The frosting is cream cheese which I could not stop piping on. It really was a tasty cake and quite pretty too.

Mountain of Marshmallow

My daughter Emily and her girlfriend Kate recently came home for a visit. Kate is a very energetic and creative individual. You can see her work at www.themidnightbaker.blogspot.com. Anyway, when we get together we love to get into the kitchen and get messy. This time we made marshmallows. I had never made them before but had the pleasure of eating them last Easter. Mind you, the car is packed and the keys are in Emily's hand, she wants to leave now. Kate has other ideas, like making marshmallows. It was fun and not to difficult. I wish I had taken a picture of the marshmallow dripping off the beater, it was so pretty! So, we got the marshmallows in the pan and said our goodbyes. Our visits are always too short.
The next day I took the marshmallows out of the pan and cut them up, dusted them with powdered sugar and then... the CHOCOLATE!!!!

For the bit of Irish in us all

As you know, St. Patrick's day is around the corner so I was inspired to make these wonderful sugar cookies. I got the recipe from my sister-in-law Joanne. I have always been a great fan of her cookie skills and a little jealous too. Every Christmas she would bake the most beautiful and delicious cookies and I always wondered how she managed it all. She was a regular Martha Stewart, I was not. I am happy to say that my cookie skills have greatly improved. Decorating them is what I really love.
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