Zombie Gingerbread Men Take Over the World

Yeah, I went a little crazy with this one. But to be fair, it wasn't just me. My brother helped, and my dad bought what I'm pretty sure was the entire stock of candy at Kroger. So. Much. Chocolate!

The funny thing is that I finally bought that awesome gingerbread house book to make professional, architecturally sound houses this season, and I ended up using those Wilton cutters like I always do. (I've definitely gotten my money's worth from them!) It probably has something to do with the fact that you've got to enlarge the "blueprints" that come in the book, and I don't have a blueprint enlarger just laying around my house, and I was much too lazy to go to a store that does that kind of thing. Also it was New Year's Eve and I didn't feel like leaving the house especially if everything was closed anyway.

But anyway: Zombies! Even if I was using a standard cookie cutter house (eh, eh, see what I did there??) I wanted to make something fun and creative. So just a few gingerbread men with crazy eyes and a lot of blood-red royal icing later, I had a zombie battle straight out of The Walking Dead. ...Maybe not that intense, but there were a lot of zombies climbing over that Hershey's bar fence!

Visions of sugar cookies dance in my head...

I wrote this right before Christmas but I didn't get around to uploading the pics from my camera until this week. Anyway, enjoy some belated Christmas goodies!

Just like last year, I had to make some tasty, festive sugar cookies. Unlike last year, I didn't set aside enough time to decorate them with Royal Icing. Because, as well all know, RI takes about 24 hours to dry. And I only had a few!

So I kinda cheated. I used canned icing. I know, I know. If you're going to go the cake mix way, you still gotta use homemade icing. And normally, I'm all for that. But canned icing doesn't take that long to harden and "crust" and it's still soft when you bite into it. And unlike some recipes that I've used in the past, it doesn't need egg white powder. Something I have, but left in Florida in my apartment.

Anyway, if you melt canned icing in the microwave--but not overheat!!!!!!-- then it thins enough for you to "flood" the cookies-- just like royal icing. Beware, though, that the icing only needs to be heated 5-15 seconds, depending on how much you're melting at one time. If you over heat, it'll spill out of the piping bag too quickly, and it will separate, so you have to wait until it cools so you can stir it all back together. So be careful!!! And of course, use it at room temp for the outlines and details.

These may not be the prettiest cookies ever, but I will tell you that non-professional looking cookies can still taste delicious and professional. And I'll save all of my decorating juices for when I decorate the gingerbread house and make the red velvet cupcakes!

Holiday Baking Ideas

It's 3 days before Christmas (!!!!) and aside from the Christmas cookie tins that I made with my roomie, I haven't made any of my standard Christmas desserts. No sugar cookies, no gingerbread house, no Advent cake, no cute cupcakes!

I'm falling behind!!

So today I'm making some sugar cookies, which I'll more than likely take to a Christmas party tonight, if I have time to decorate them this afternoon. At some point, I'd like to go to the grocery store to get gingerbread house and red velvet cupcake ingredients. I don't know how I'll have time for all this before Christmas, so maybe I'll just wait until after, if I must.

Wish me luck with all my last-minute baking plans!! :)

And I HAVE to show you the Christmas ornament my aunt Jessica made for me. It is the cutest thing ever!

Christmas Cookies

As you can tell, I made a lot of cookies this year for Christmas. Joy and I estimate that we baked over 300. And by we baked, I mean, I baked. Although, don't get me wrong, she totally helped. She just didn't actually put anything in the oven. =P

We make all these cookies (and cake balls) solely to give away to people as Christmas gifts. I think it's a brilliant idea because 1) I love baking and 2) I love giving gifts. I love how excited and happy people are when they receive a tin of homemade goodies. Delivering them is seriously the best part (and eating the extras is pretty awesome too).

We ran out of room to put them all, too. Our apartment has been a little crowded (messy) lately, because we've all been stressed and busy with exams...some things (like doing laundry), get pushed to the side. Oh, the life of college students.

Nifty trick: the sugar cookies are just dipped in canned icing. I melted it in the microwave so it would get runny and added regular ol' food coloring (all my awesome gel pastes are at home) to make it redish and greenish. After you let them sit for a couple of hours (or over night), they get hard enough to package, but the icing is still soft when you bit into it. So simple, so brilliant. :)

The cake balls are strawberry/chocolate and carrot cake/white chocolate. I LOVE the strawberry. Once again, I went with the convenience of box mixes and canned icing. But with all the hard work that went into them, I'm sure nobody minded.

All in all, it was about a 3 day process. Joy and I did this last year too, and I love that we make a yearly tradition out of it (although she's been doing this for years before she even met me). One of our friends said our apartment looked like a bakery and our roommates and everyone who came by loved that we had extra cookies sitting around to snack on. Merry Christmas everyone!

(Just a quick reminder to let you know that you can vote every 24 hours for the "Show Your Duff" contest, so if you voted yesterday, don't forget to do it again today! I noticed that my entry is on the 2nd page-- there are 10 pages right now-- of cakes with the most votes, so let's see if we can move on up to page #1! And to everyone who's already voted: Thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me! I wish I could give a Christmas tin full of cookies to every one of you, for voting, for telling your friends to vote, for liking me on Facebook, for reading my blog, for encouraging me to go after my dreams. I love you all! <3)

More Christmas Goodies

I am well behind on my blogging, as I am quite aware.  I made these treats a whole year ago!

The cake was for my brother's class party; I made it the same week that I made the cookies, blueberry muffins, and the mentioned-later-on cupcakes. It was a busy week for me, to say the least, especially considering it was my first week on holiday.

Unfortunately, I waited until the night before to decorate or even come up with a design plan, so this is the best I could come up with on the spot. It's not bad, though.

Oh, and I LOVE the super red icing gel that I bought a few months back- making red icing is way easier now. :D

And with the leftover red and green icing, I made these cute little cupcakes, originally for another class party, but my brother didn't know I made them for him, and since I slept in that morning, we just had a miscommunication. However, I did give them to the office staff at Woodland Elementary, and I'm told they were delicious. :-)

I'm not so good at the 2-color swirl deal, but hopefully that will change with more practice. Some of the cupcakes really popped with the color and I like that effect a lot.

Also, I should probably make these goodies more photogenic-- you can totally see the mess I made in the background. Not very professional with sprinkles and cooing racks in the background. Just something else to improve on in the future!

Ah, the Annual Gingerbread House

I need to get better at time management.  I waited until two days before Christmas to bake the gingerbread house AND I ran out of butter.  To be fair, though, it's been a busy holiday season for me, catching up with family and friends, in addition to all the baking and Christmas shopping and being lazy that I've done.

Anyway, despite my lack of time, I think I made a pretty cute little house... and it's actually bigger than the houses I normally make (but smaller than last year's castle). One day I still wanna make a gingerbread Hogwarts, but I have to convince my sister (who's taking an architectural class in school) to make some blueprints with me.

The best pictures I have though are of the house being eaten/destroyed. I think that was more fun than putting it together (especially considering that I was terrified that it wouldn't make it through the night while the royal icing dried).

Christmas Cookies! (Part I)

I spent Sunday and Monday baking and decorating the following sugar cookies. I then proceeded to gift them to the math department of my high school (and then I visited with all my old teachers), and I'm told that they were delicious and cute, which is always a plus!

Some nifty little tips & ideas:

• Wilton Sprinkles
• Candy Cane Ideas
• Bell Ideas
• Snowflakes

The pictures:

(look familiar?)

These are the "rejects" but they don't look too bad.

Then last night I made cupcakes and today I'm decorating a cake for my little brother's Christmas party. But first I've got some Christmas shopping to do, so I'll be back later!! :D

Adam’s Birthday

Well, guys, I'm sure my blog is totally boring you to death now that I'm not baking anymore (insert dramatic sigh here), and frankly, I feel like an immensely more boring person. Baking is a part of me, and I feel like that part is missing.

And speaking of missing, know what else I miss? Adam. Yessiree, my baby brother. Except he's not a baby anymore- he's 6, and his birthday was last Friday. I didn't get to make him a cake, unfortunately, although Katie baked him some cupcakes (and called me that morning- woke me up!- to ask for some advice. I guess it wasn't really morning, though, it was around 1:00pm…). I did call him, though, and sing to him, and sent him a card. But it's not the same, ya know?



In honor of Adam's birthday, this post is dedicated to a cake I'm sure you've never seen before (unless you've check out my Flickr account recently): Spongebob Squarepants!

The prequel to the Patrick Star cake, and inspired by one of Adam's favorite cartoons, this cake is definitely a favorite of mine- and Adam's. The limbs are sugar cookies, and that lovely sponge shape comes from a 9 x 13" baking pan. What I remember having trouble with on this cake is the eyes- I used blue piping gel, and it had melted or something, because it was really runny. The picture is a little grainy, but if you look closely, the pupils are a little wacky. Not that Adam cared.

I actually made a Spongebob cake for Adam's second birthday too, but unfortunately there's no evidence of that cake. We were on vacation at the beach, and I had very limited supplies: a disposable cake pan, a box mix, a can of icing, some piping colors, aaaaaand… that's it. I didn't even have chocolate icing for his pants, so Mom & I (she's so smart) crunched up some chocolate cereal to use for his pants. Talk about limited resources, eh?

Not only do I love baking for Adam, but I love baking with Adam, too. Exhibit A: The gingerbread cupcakes:

I made these for James' first grade class' Christmas party. Let's see, he's in 5^th grade now, so that was 4 years ago, just when I started really getting into this whole baking thing. The little gingerbread men are actually chocolate. (If you didn't know, chocolate candy was actually my gateway into the cake decorating world. I'll have to tell you the story sometime!) And the buttercream is covered in cake sparkles (it's supposed to look like sparkly snow). I think the cupcakes went over well with the class… Ok, ok, they're first grades presented with a dessert, of course it went over well!

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be talking about Adam, not James. He'll have to wait until October for his time in the limelight. So, Adam:

Ain't he sweet? I love this picture! First of all, I can't believe we still have those aprons. They're all torn up and worn from years of use now, but I'm pretty sure they're still sitting in the same drawer just waiting to be put on and covered with flour. I do wish I had a new apron, though. However, Adam's apron, which Grandma made (I got my artsy/craft gene from her. She's amazing with a sewing machine.) out of a tea towel and some string, no longer fits him. I remember every time I pulled out my handy dandy Kitchen Aid, he would run over to the drawer and hand it over for me to put it on him. And he always wanted to help, once he got over his fear of the loud noise the mixer made, that is. Oh, and that orange/pink thing hanging on his neck is a toy monkey. Actually, I think it's James' toy monkey.

Back to the present, I'm working on my job application at the cafeteria right now. I'm really hoping and praying that I can get this job… even part-time, once a week would be better than nothing. I haven't made anything since those cakeballs right before I left home. I'm having withdrawals like mad. If worst comes to worst, I'll beg one of my friends to take me home one weekend and steal their kitchen for a few hours. J

Holiday Cookies

 Finally, four days after Christmas, I got around to making my gingerbread cookies.  Not just men, mind you, but women and trees and candy canes and stockings, too!

I wanted to make them before Christmas, but with exams and other stressors the week before, and then the sleepover with my friends and the last minute shopping right before Christmas, I just ran out of time!  Luckly, though, Christmas doesn't technically end until January 6th, although all the clearance sales at Wal-Mart would tell you otherwise. =/

And not only did I make some delicious/adorable gingerbread cookies, but I also had enough extra royal icing to making some sugar cookies to ring in the new year.  These guys I made in time, since 2009 doesn't start until Thursday!

I used the #1, #3, and #5 tips.  I think #3 is my favorite to use to ice cookies, but I only have 2 of those and I had a lot more colors and piping bags than just 2.  I didn't use the #2 tip because Adam decided that he should wear it as a hat, but now I can't find it...  The royal icing (used with Wilton's meringue powder) was thinned to just the right consistency; I don't think I used all 6 tablespoons.  That's something you just have to eyeball, though.  Smooth, but not too runny, so it doesn't get all over the sides of the cookies.  Don't let it be too thick, though, either!

(Don't forget to vote for the Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge!)

Gingerbread Recipe

I've still got some leftover dough from making the Gingerbread Castle, and I plan to put it to good use by making some cute little gingerbread men and women.  Sure, Christmas is technically over, but that won't stop me from still getting into the spirit!

While I'm at work baking and decorating, I thought I'd share my gingerbread recipe, which has served me well for the past three years.  I got it from the Food Network's website:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup light molasses or dark corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons water

For assemblage and decoration:

• Melted white chocolate or Royal Icing (recipe follows)
• Gumdrops, licorice and peppermint, as desired

Directions

Gingerbread House:
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and baking soda together until the mixture is smooth. Blend in the flour and water to make a stiff dough. Chill at least 30 minutes or until firm.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Cut paper patterns for the gingerbread house:
Two rectangles (figs. A and B), 3 by 5 inches, to make the front and back of the house. Two rectangles (figs. C and D), 3 by 5 1/2 inches for the roof. Two pieces for the ends of the house (figs. E and F), 3 inches wide at the base, 3 inches to the roof line, and slanted to a peak 5 1/2 inches from the bottom. Four smaller rectangles (figs. G, H, I, and J), 1 1/2 by 1 inch for the roof and sides of the entryway. And one piece (fig. K), 2 inches wide at the base, 1 1/2 inches to the roof line, and slanted to a peak 2 1/2 inches from the bottom for the front of the entryway.
Roll gingerbread dough out to edges on a large, rimless cookie sheet. Place paper patterns onto the rolled out dough. With a sharp, straight edged knife, cut around each of the pieces, but leave pieces in place.
Bake at 375 degrees F for about 15 minutes until dough feels firm.
Place patterns on top of the gingerbread again and trim shapes, cutting edges with a straight-edged sharp knife. Leave to cool on baking sheet.
Place royal icing into pastry bag with a writing tip and press out to decorate individual parts of house, piping on decorations, windows, door, etc., as desired. Let dry until hardened.
Glue sides, front and back of house together at corners using royal icing. Place an object against the pieces to prop up until icing is dry (it only takes a few minutes).
Glue the two roof pieces to the pitched roofline of the house. Then, similarly, glue the sides and roof of the entryway together with icing. Attach the entryway to the front of the house.
Continue decorating the house, glueing on gumdrops, licorice and peppermint, as desired.

Royal Icing:

• 1 pound (3-3/4 cups) powdered sugar, sifted if lumpy
• 1 to 2 large egg whites, or substitute 4 teaspoons packaged egg whites and 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon almond extract, vanilla or lemon juice

Mix all of the ingredients together using an electric hand mixer, until the icing is smooth and thin enough to be pressed through a pastry bag with a writing tip. Add more lemon juice, if necessary.
(**I use Wilton's egg white powder and their royal icing recipe, but this gives you an alternative**)

The Gingerbread Castle

 

  

  

  

 

It's based loosely off of the Illuminated Gingerbread Castle, but I decorated it my own way.  I was going to make Hogwarts, but I didn't have the time to be architectual about it, so I just made this awesome castle that should belong in Candy Land or something. :-)

Fondant Festivities

 

The title might be a little misleading.  The only fondant on this cake is the 4 candles and their "flames."  But I couldn't really come up with a better title since I used "Happy Liturgical New Year" for last year's Advent cake.

And, if you're a long-time blog reader, you might remember something else from that cake which I made one year ago:  I had some crazy cake ideas.

A year ago, I didn't really think what I would be doing in 2008.  I was a bit too preoccupied with 2007, although the promise of my last year in high school did excite me.  But I'm talking about cake.  Last year, when I said that I wanted poinsettias and fondant candles, I didn't think that a year later, I would make the perfect cake.  I just thought, oh well, this cake is nice.  And if you're not a long time blog reader, then I'll show you what I mean:

Yeah, I know.  It's a far cry from what I made this year.  Wow, when you look back like that, you discover how much of an amazing difference a year really makes.  Okay, I'm done reminicing.  It's time to talk about the Cake of the Moment...

 

This cake has got to be the best one I've made.  (I say that a lot don't I?  About the purple cake, and the Patrick cake, and the penguin castle cake...  But I mean it this time!)  First of all, the cake mix was great.  Such a deliciously moist chocolate cake!  And then, the oven cooperated.  It had some help, of course.  Halfway through the baking process, I turned the cake pans around so that it would cook evenly on both sides.  And it helps that I have the nifty new cake pans, too.

The icing was very nice to me.  I actually posted a recipe over here, if you want it.  The green wasn't quite as friendly as the white, but much less of a grouch than the red.  I need to get some dark green icing paste (kelly green? moss green?).  The red, I have to admit, came from a Betty Crocker tube.  I was lazy, and I had a coupon, so I bought some red icing.  That came back to bite me, though.  The red icing bled some because of the cake's high moisture content.  I suppose I should have let the icing crust over a bit before putting the cover over it.

The bleeding cake really would have been a problem, because I didn't take the final pictures until the day after I made the cake, when I finally added the candles.  Thankfully, the bleeding was only on that side of the cake, so I just turned the cake around for the photo shoot. :-)

Speaking of fondant, I have a word or two to say about that.  I don't know how Duff does it.  When I watch Ace of Cakes (I kind of had a tivo maraton of the show on Sunday, before eating the cake), I watch with amazement as the artists deftly put smooth fondant all over the cake.  My fondant is never that smooth, which I just can't understand.  Maybe it's because (this time at least) I used some old gumpaste mixed with the fondant in order for the candles to dry and stand up straight.  (I made the cake and the candles on Saturday and served the cake on Sunday.)  I'm really not sure what the problem is, but it's frusterating.

Finally, the cupcakes:

 Yes!  I finally got to make my poinsettias!  They were a little droopy, and before I added the leaves and center dots, my mom thought they were octopi, but for my first time, I think I did really well.  Some of the cupcakes are also holly leaves, because I was running out of red.  Actually, they aren't really holly, because they don't look like the traditional holly leaves.  I just took the leaf tip (I can't remember what it's called, but it looks like a bird's beak) and squeezed out a bunch.  That's basically how I did all the leaves on the cake/cupcakes.

Wow.  I was really talkative today.  Sorry about that, but I guess I was just excited about finally making this dream cake. :-)  I'll stop raving and tooting my own horn about how wonderful this cake was.  I'm looking forward to whatever is next in my baking future, though!

It's the Holiday Season

Has anyone else noticed that on November 1st (and in some places, earlier), everyone has begun to advertise Christmas?  And by everyone, I mean all the stores and businesses, like Wal-Mart, Coke, Sears, etc.  Everywhere is red and green.  I went to Wal-Mart last week and realized that I was humming along to Christmas tunes not just because of the festive decorations but because they were playing music on the loudspeakers!

Now, I love Christmas; it's my favorite time of year.  Despite the absolutely freezing temperatures, Christmas time makes me happy.  But not for the same reasons that Wal-Mart would want me to think.  It's not buying out their entire store that I love, but the atmosphere: the music, the love, the happy little kids, not being in school, etc.  So even though I'm loving all the little holiday reminders, it's really starting to annoy me when Christmas is associated with shopping.  Because that's just not right.

What I will associate Christmas-- and most holidays-- with is baking!  However, I'm going to reign in my urge to make little fondant Santas and snowmen for just a little while longer.  Right now, I have Thanksgiving to worry about.  Talk about some baking...

So as I'm planning my dessert scheming, I remember Iron Cupcake.  Last month I didn't participate in ICE because, well, I forgot.  I was sick, remember.  This month, though, I plan on making something good, and making something within the next 2 weeks.  I'm just not sure what yet.  The theme for November is Cranberries!

I do have a list of possible ingredients...

• pecans
• walnuts
• macadamia nuts
• almonds
  
• caramel
• marshmallows
• butter cream sauce
• orange juice glaze
• molasses
• pears
• zucchini
• coconut
• pumpkin
• apple
• white chocolate
• peaches
• ginger
• cheesecake
• lemon
• strawberries
• orange
• cream cheese icing
• chocolate
• chocolate chips
• white chocolate icing
• pineapple

So, based on that list, I'm going to make some cupcakes including one or more of those ingredients.  But not all of them.  That would be a little... excessive. ;-)

While I'm thinking and baking and humming along to "Let It Snow" (even as I wish that it doesn't get anywhere near cold enough to snow), I hope that all of you are getting into the holiday season as well.  Because we have a lot of fun baking ahead of us! :-)

King's Cake

Today, as you may or may not know, is Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Carnival. The last day before Lent starts and a big, happy feast in places such as New Orleans.

Accompanying this tradition of pre-Lenten partying is a delicious treat called a King's Cake. I have no idea what's in it, because I've never made one, but Publix makes an excellent one which we've eaten the past two years. I'm sure the cake is not as good as what you could get at New Orleans, but it is tasty enough for me.

Next year, however, Mom wants me to make one. I found a couple of good recipes at CakeCentral.com

• Recipe One
• Recipe Two

King's Cake, however, is not the only pastry news I have to share. I made adorable football-shaped cookies for the Superbowl. They were a big hit at the party I went to, although we did have some leftovers (which I will attribute to the other delicious desserts, like the really super chocolate cake). I don't have any pictures from my digital camera, but I'll try to snag one before we finish eating them all.

The Webkinz cookies that I'm making for my brother's fund raiser are going well. I'm pretty much done with them, but I'll add the FINAL touches tomorrow, so that I can send them in on Thursday. The sample cookie I sent to his teacher was met with much approval and praise (she said they were "a wonderfully creative idea").

Next week, the Beta Club at school will be having a Sweetheart's Dance at the local assisted living home. I signed up for the snack/food committee, and I'm hoping that I can bake cookies, or cupcakes, or (hopefully) a cake. I'll find out Thursday what the plan is.

Now you know what's been going on in my baking world as of late. I hope to have something interesting to take pictures of soon... Katie's birthday is in seven weeks, and I'll definitely take pictures of her penguin princess cake. No cake for Easter, because that's two days after Kate's birthday, so we'll still have leftovers. I'm not sure about other cake opportunities, but we'll find out together! =)

The Gingerbread House

This house was a lot of fun to make. First of all, my sister really baked it and did most of the prep work, I was just there to help her along. I had to watch "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" of course! She did a fantastic job, by the way.

We did all of the decorating together. If you're wondering why some of the house looks a little... odd, that's because five kids ranging from four to sixteen years old all got together and threw candy and icing on gingerbread. (Literally. There was some sprinkle throwing going on... and not from the four-year-old.

Not only was this house fun to make, but also to eat! As we used a homemade recipe, the cookie house was delicious!

Oh, and in my house, they're called Kissies, not Kissables. Don't know why, that's just what Adam calls them. =)