Sunday, April 12, 2009
My Favorite Cookies Ever
I know that I say this every time (remember these? and these? and these?), but these cookies are my favorites. They're so happy and springy and festive and colorful and...
Well, you get the point.
Since they are so darn cute, I'll let the pictures speak for me. Sorry you can't taste them, but they're as good as they look! :)
Have a blessed and happy Easter, everyone!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Shopping + Baking = Love
I had the fantastic opportunity today to go shopping, not once, not even twice, but three times.
I confess: I am a shopaholic.
And, surprisingly enough, all three shopping trips were to different locations, with different people, and for different reasons. So, what do they all have in common? Baking, of course!
The day got started when my best friend and I went to the mall together. We looked at prom dresses, and found our favorite lotions in Bath & Body Works, and all of that typical teenage girl/shopping stuff. While we were at Borders, though, (because, being the nerdy teenage girls that we are, we just had to stop in the bookstore! Not that there's anything wrong with that), I did see a copy of Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss. She is absolutely amazing! I didn't buy the book, though, but I do own a copy of Confetti Cake for Kids (more on that later on).
Do I even need to mention how Publix and baking are connected? That's where Mom and I went to pick up some ingredients for dinner, and also lots and lots of eggs. Lots.
Finally, when my dad came home from work today, he announced that if I finished that scholarship application that I've been putting off all week, he would take me to Michael's. (Yay!)
And, so, for my final baking-related shopping trip of the day, Dad and I went to Michael's, where I bought:
Ta-Da! A Wilton Gumpaste/Fondant tool set that I've really wanted for the longest time. I did have a coupon, so I snatched it up! I also got a couple more #2 tips for cookie decorating, which is what I've been doing tonight ever since I got home.
I can't talk about shopping without at least mentioned all the really cool stuff that I wish I could buy, i.e. "The Wishlist." So here's mine:
That's it for tonight. I've got some Easter cookies that are drying right now, ready to be decorated tomorrow. And I also (yikes!) need to make Katie's birthday cake...which is almost a month late. :( But better late than never, I suppose.
I confess: I am a shopaholic.
And, surprisingly enough, all three shopping trips were to different locations, with different people, and for different reasons. So, what do they all have in common? Baking, of course!
The day got started when my best friend and I went to the mall together. We looked at prom dresses, and found our favorite lotions in Bath & Body Works, and all of that typical teenage girl/shopping stuff. While we were at Borders, though, (because, being the nerdy teenage girls that we are, we just had to stop in the bookstore! Not that there's anything wrong with that), I did see a copy of Confetti Cakes by Elisa Strauss. She is absolutely amazing! I didn't buy the book, though, but I do own a copy of Confetti Cake for Kids (more on that later on).
Do I even need to mention how Publix and baking are connected? That's where Mom and I went to pick up some ingredients for dinner, and also lots and lots of eggs. Lots.
Finally, when my dad came home from work today, he announced that if I finished that scholarship application that I've been putting off all week, he would take me to Michael's. (Yay!)
And, so, for my final baking-related shopping trip of the day, Dad and I went to Michael's, where I bought:
Ta-Da! A Wilton Gumpaste/Fondant tool set that I've really wanted for the longest time. I did have a coupon, so I snatched it up! I also got a couple more #2 tips for cookie decorating, which is what I've been doing tonight ever since I got home.
I can't talk about shopping without at least mentioned all the really cool stuff that I wish I could buy, i.e. "The Wishlist." So here's mine:
That's it for tonight. I've got some Easter cookies that are drying right now, ready to be decorated tomorrow. And I also (yikes!) need to make Katie's birthday cake...which is almost a month late. :( But better late than never, I suppose.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Golf Cake: Gone to the Dogs
I am crazy.
My father says that I have the "entrepreneurial spirit" but I think I just have a touch of insanity.
Allow me to explain.
My Spanish teacher (mi maestra de la clase de espanol) asked me if I wanted to make a cake for her husband's birthday (and she got a taste of my cakes, if you don't recall, at the Spanish Honor Society induction), and I said yes.
That was about a week ago, and I put it out of my mind because some extraneous things came up that I focused my time on. Well, Wednesday night, I realized that I had a cake that needed to be baked.
Wednesday was a long day, if you didn't know. Wednesdays are often referred to as "hump day" because its in the middle of the week, and I generally like Wednesdays. It's all down hill from there. But Wednesdays are also busy because my sister and I go to church, and we eat pizza, pray, and play volleyball with our fellow Catholic teens. :) It's a lot of fun. But I'm getting off subject, we're talking about cake here not pizza...
OK. So. Wednesday. I get home from church around 8:30 and I start to (finally) make this cake. I got out all of the ingredients-- the big seven pound bag of powdered sugar, the four pounds of butter, the commeical sized bottle of vanilla extract... yes, we went to Costco last week. And I proceeded to bake a cake, mix up a batch of buttercream, and make my own gumpaste (with some gum-tex and really sticky glucose).
And then our oven dies. So two 9" cake layers, which normally take about 20 minutes to bake at 350 degrees, took almost an hour (if I'm exaggerating, it's really only a little bit), because the oven kept shutting off. Sometimes the -F2- or -F3- alarm would sound, and sometimes it would just quietly shut off and I wouldn't even notice. Argh.
Needless to say, I was quite annoyed at our oven (which you may have noticed if you ever check out my Tweets), but it gets worse. Because when the cake finally came out of the oven, I got burned. That's right: the oven gave me a second-degree burn. It's not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. What's different is that this time, it was on my finger, when normal it's my forearm that gets scorched. I currently have at least four noticable burn scars on my right arm from baking.
Thursday was not much better, as far as being busy goes. I had a fieldtrip that day (to see Don Quijote and eat some tacos), and I was supposed to have a golf game, but it rained. So I made a cake instead, or rather, I decorated it.
The little doggie, a Jack Russell Terrier, is all made from gumpaste. Which, by the way, I think is a lot of fun to play with, if not a little sticky. (And now I really want this gumpaste tool set so I can have even more fun!) The cake really didn't take that long to decorate, but I'm slow and lazy, so it took all afternoon and evening. (And I had to take a break to eat Chinese food, too, of course!) I did go to bed earlier last night than I did on Wednesday.
Finally, today, I delievered the cake. And you would think, well that's that. But no, I still had a busy day today: a test in anatomy, a quiz in Spanish, a make-up test in English... and tonight I went to see my best friend in the play A Midsummer's Night Dream, which was amazing.
But this week is Spring Break (YAY!) so the plan is to sleep as much as possible so I can start all over again with my hectic life in 9 days. ;-) I told you I'm crazy.
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