Holiday Goodies

SO IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE but I baked these goodies about a week ago. I was meeting up with friends to hang out and go to a school concert and wanted to bake something nice to give them - just like old times!!!!! I baked two thingsssss as you'll see here. The first would be PEPPERMINT BROWNIES =0

I looooooove peppermint and chocolate I think the two flavors go great with each other and because Christmas is season  for those peppermint candy canes I couldn't help but include them in my goodies. The brownie batter was no special kind of brownie batter I just used my usual recipe buuuuut added some pieces of crushed York Peppermint Patties because I loooooove peppermint and chocolate!!

I made white chocolate ganache and spread it over the tops of my cooled brownies and sprinkled crushed peppermint candy canes over the ganache before cutting into the brownies. The brownies were chewy and delicious and the candy cane pieces were a nice sweet crunchy topping!



The next thing I made were CHRISTMAS SUGAR COOKIES nothing super fancy but eh oh well. I used my roll out sugar cookie recipe for this and used star shaped cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. the stars were kinda small but I liked them that way =). I baked for 8 minutes and once they were cooled I dipped them into dark chocolate ganache that I made. I didn't have dark chocolate so I used dark cocoa candy melt and it was WONDERFUL I like using that more than baking chocolate or chocolate morsels for my ganache.

After dipping in the tops of the cookies I threw on some confetti sprinkles before the ganache dried. On some of the cookies I took some left over crushed peppermint candy cane pieces for some variety.

That's just a close up of the cookies with the flash turned on. Since i was giving the cookies and brownies out to people i wrapped them in cool festive holiday treat bags.

Baked goods make cool gifts alone or paired with jewelry, perfume, etc. 





MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL !!! =)

SO HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN Y'ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know it was almost a month ago but I haven't had time to add Halloween themed treats to the blog until now. I baked them on Halloween but now I can finally sit down and share them =)

These cupcakes are super fun looking. Definitely a lot going on on them. The cake itself is a marble cupcake. There's plain vanilla cake on part and then a smooth moist chocolate. It was seriously good!!!!!!!!!!!!

DECORATIONS:

• GREEN CANDY MELT MADE INTO SKELETONS AND BONES USING A CHOCOLATE MOLD
• HALLOWEEN THEMED SPRINKLES
• DAY OF THE DEAD SUGAR SKULL GUMMIES
• MELLOWCREME PUMPKINS 

 These cupcakes were super fun to make and tasted great. My favorite to eat were the day of the dead gummies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3

HAPPY BELATED 4TH GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =) I baked this RED VELVET, WHITE, AND BLUE cake for Independence day. I know some people don't really bake from scratch or maybe they jut don't have the time to do it so they grab cake mix and pre-made frosting. Here's how I turned a box of regular cake mix into a cake for America. =)

This is what I used: Pillsbury red velvet cake mix, cream cheese frosting, and vanilla frosting tinted blue (as you can see everything is Pillsbury brand). That....turned into THIS..........

 

 We have red, white, and blue =) Baking from scratch and using boxed mix are both super easy I did this as inspiration for those who like to use the boxed mixes. <3
DECORATIONS:

• I crushed up baked red velvet cake and took the crumbs and patted them along the sides of the cake.
• using the Wilton 1M tip I piped a swirly border around the circumference of the cake.

 This picture is yellow thanks to the lighting -_-

I baked these WHITE CHOCOLATE EXTREME WHITE CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES for this past Christmas, as I am a HUGE fan of white chocolate. Basically.....EVERYTHING IS WHITE CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =) In case you weren't clear, the cake is white chocolate cake, the buttercream is white chocolate buttercream, and I used white chocolate chips to decorate.

DECORATIONS:

• White chocolate chips
• In case you were looking at the cupcakes and going "dude what's that yellow stuff if this is a white chocolate cupcake?" then that yellow stuff is edible gold glitter. Just wanted to shake things up a bit for the holiday season =) 

Well, I could have really gone crazy and made white chocolate ganache for filling or something but that would've been like white chocolate overload x.x

So these are RED VELVET COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)
I used a star shaped cookie cutter (as you can tell) just to make them seem a little bit cooler. The icing on top is homemade cream cheese frosting and I will be putting up a how-to on cream cheese frosting soon. These cookies are great for Christmas - you can serve them at a holiday party or give them to someone as a gift...or make them for yourself as an early Christmas present!

DECORATIONS:

• other than cream cheese frosting I just sprinkled some red sugar crystal sprinkles on top of each cookie - not much =/

Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday!!!! I just really like scary things and I like the decorations that come out around this time. In honor of Halloween I made these HALLOWEEN CUPCAKES. They are a simple vanilla cake with simple vanilla buttercream.

DECORATIONS:

1. BOTTOM LEFT CUPCAKE:

• I tinted the buttercream orange with a little bit of Wilton food coloring gel in COPPER. (I found it difficult to get the shade I wanted so I'd say use this color - and others - sparingly at first: you can always add more if you need it but you can't take it away if you add too much)
• On top of the buttercream I placed an oval shaped piece of homemade marshmallow fondant and with black icing gel I piped the word 'BOO' on top.

2. TOP LEFT CUPCAKE:

• I tinted some buttercream green using Wilton food coloring gel in LEAF and piped it on top of the plain buttercream. I "garnished" with one spider shaped sprinkle.

3. TOP RIGHT CUPCAKE:

• After piping on some buttercream with the Wilton 1M decorating tip I just added some Halloween themed cake sprinkles.

4. BOTTOM RIGHT CUPCAKE:

• I piped some of the green buttercream on to of the plain buttercream.
• I shaped my marshmallow fondant to look like a little ghost and you can't really see his face but I used black icing gel to pipe eyes and a mouth. 

These Halloween cupcakes didn't look very scary but they were devilishly good!! (excuse the failed attempt at a joke x.x)