Ashley of Strawberry Sprinkles

Ashley gets to spend $20 in credit at CupKatesEventDesign online store. Ashley has lots of yummy dessert recipes on her blog, so I’m betting she will be posting a push-up pop recipe soon!

Thanks to everyone who played along!

Below are just a few of the great ideas readers left in the comments.  These all sound fabulous.

I think a s’mores  push-pop is in my near future!

Also, a big thanks to  Kate of CupKatesEventDesign for letting me share this with my readers.

We all know where to go to get our push-pops!!

I’ve developed quite an obsession for these cake push-up pops lately. Not only are they adorable, but they make dessert on the go simple. The last few times I made these, I put them in a Ziploc bag, stuck them in my cooler and took them to the beach and pool to share with friends. Here’s what I discovered over the past few weeks… these are a HUGE hit with the kids, they transport nicely, and there are a ton of ways to fill these ~ cake, brownies, frosting, ice cream, chocolate mousse, sprinkles…endless possibilities!

Our most recent cake push-up creation were these Cookies and Cream brownie pops for our final celebration with our neighbors before their big move. This is one of my favorite frostings and it goes perfect with the brownie bites (see recipe below). The kids bombarded me afterward begging for seconds.

A few weeks back, Kate from CupKates Event Design and I were chatting about putting together a give-away. The only problem was she was wiped out of her stock. These push-up pop containers can be hard to get your hands on. Kate is now totally restocked, and just launched the new CupKatesEventDesign website. Not only will you find these awesome push-up pop containers, but a bunch of other fabulous party items.

Here’s the great news…

Kate is giving one lucky Grin and Bake It reader $20.00 in credit to spend at her online store.

I’m guessing you love these push-up pops as much as I do… 

Hooray for push-up pops!

These are a few of my other favorites from CupKatesEvent Design…

I LOVE these cake sparklers!

These candy tubes are perfect party favors!

Frosting shots anyone?

Be sure to check out CupKatesEventDesign to find your favorites!

You have three chances to enter to win… 

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me what you think of these cake push-ups? What event would you use them for? Any creative ideas on what to layer these with? You get the idea…

2. You can earn a second entry by following Grin and Bake it on Facebook. Leave a comment stating that you do.

3. Like Cupkate’s Event Design on Facebook and leave a comment here stating that you do.

Make sure you have a separate blog comment for each entry (up to three comments for three chances).

A winner will be selected from Random.org on Tuesday, August 2nd.

GOOD LUCK!!

Oreo Cake Push-ups

Make a batch of brownies in a 9″X9″ Pyrex pan. Let cool completely. Make a batch of Oreo Cookies and Cream frosting (recipe below). Use the top circular part of an empty push-up pop, to cut out brownie circles. The left-over brownies pieces can be used to make brownie pops. You can shape them into balls and freeze them in an airtight container.  Option 2 ~ Eat what remains, you know you deserve it! Layer push-up pop alternating with brownies and piping frosting until filled.  For a photo tutorial, go to this cake push-up post.

Oreo Whipped Cream Frosting  (Adapted from Bakespace.com)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 1/4  cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

a pinch of salt

1/3 cup whipping cream

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup crushed Oreos

Mix together butter, confectioner’s sugar, and a pinch of salt until it’s creamy. Increase your mixer speed to high and beat until its light and fluffy. Add whipping cream and vanilla. Beat until it’s smooth. Fold in crushed Oreos. Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes.

There are 116 shopping days or baking days until Christmas, depending on how you want to look at it. I have gone without a paycheck since June, and am officially poor. (It’s not easy being a teacher!) The word “shopping” has been banned from my vocabulary, so I prefer to think in terms of baking days. I know it seems like there’s plenty of time before the holiday madness starts, but it always seems to sneak up on us.

These peppermint candy cookies are festive for the holiday, but you can use any colors to coordinate with your party theme, and they’d make cute cookie favors.  I tried two different decorating techniques for two different effects.

 OR

The fabulous people at Wilton are letting me give away one of my most used baking items… this 50 Piece Tool Caddy Decorating Set. This kit will keep your baking tools totally organized, so you’re not always searching for what you need. I keep my caddy in a kitchen cabinet right above my Kitchen Aid, and pull it out whenever I’m decorating.

Here’s what’s inside this 50 piece set:

• A bunch of decorating tips organized in a removable tray

• Flower nail

• Disposable bags and a reusable soft touch bag

• Tip brush for cleaning decorating tips

• Couplers

• Spatula

• 4 of the most popular Wilton gel icing colors

• Beginner’s guide to decorating

This kit is perfect for both beginning and advanced bakers. If you already have a baking tool caddy, this would make a fabulous Christmas present, and you’d be able to check someone off your gift-giving list.

But this is a holiday give-away, right? To get you inspired for all of your holiday cookie baking, Wilton is also including a copy of the Wilton book, Cookie Exchange. It is full of original cookie ideas, and step by step photo instructions.

Here’s how to enter*:

You have a total of 4 chances to win:

(Be sure to leave a separate comment for each.)

We have a winner! Random.org selected comment #105, Miss Jillian. Check out her adorable blog if you have a chance www.missjilliandesigns.blogspot.com . Thanks for playing along everyone. Grin and Bake it will be hosting a fall give-away soon, so stay tuned!

1. Leave a comment telling me what your favorite Wilton product is. Here’s the link  if you want to shop!

2. Follow Grin and Bake it ~ Join the Grin and Bake it Facebook group, follow me on Twitter, or sign up for the RSS feed. Scroll down on the sidebar and click under “Follow Me”. (If you’re already a follower, let me know in a comment how you follow the blog.)

3. Subscribe to Grin and Bake It and receive emails when new posts are published. To subscribe, scroll down on the sidebar to “subscribe” and enter your email address. I promise this is totally safe! Post a comment letting me know you subscribed.

4. Tweet this give-away “Christmas comes early… Enter to win Wilton’s holiday giveaway @grinandbakeit http://wp.me/pnls6-2O1

Contest ends on Friday, September 3rd at 9 P.M. Pacific Standard Time. The winner will be selected randomly at random.org, and will be posted on this post. I will send the winner an email letting him/her know that he/she has won. The winner will have 24 hours to respond to the email, otherwise, a second winner will be selected.

*This contest is only open to people living in the U.S. (I do apologize to my Canadian blogging friends.)

Hope everyone had a great, long weekend! The end of Memorial Day weekend always marks the beginning of summer for me, even though we still have a few more weeks of school and work before summer vacation officially starts. I thought we’d kick off summer with a give-away, and  I’ve been screaming with excitement putting this ice cream give-away together.

One of my favorite appliances is my Cuisinart ice cream maker. I’ve had it for more years than I can remember, and it has been worth every penny. The machine is made to last! Years back, I bought it from Sur La Table, my favorite cooking store. We’re lucky in Southern California to have several stores in the area. Not to worry if you don’t live nearby one of their stores, you can shop from their website. Not only does Sur La Table offer the essentials that every chef or baker needs, but they also offer unique products. You know the ones that you see and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”.

For the past few months, I’ve been drooling over Sur La Table’s exclusive bright colored Cuisinart ice cream makers. You won’t find these pretty colors at Williams Sonoma or Crate and Barrel. These bright hues are exclusive to Sur La Table. Don’t they just scream summer? With all due respect to my plain, old-school, white ice cream maker, which by the way still runs beautifully,  I would LOVE one of these bright and cheerful ice cream makers. How can a single-mother, teacher, with a high-maintenance dachshund, who just took a huge pay-cut justify one of these brightly hued ice cream makers? She can’t! But you know what’s more fun than buying one of these ice cream makers? Giving one away! I’m thrilled that Sur La Table is going to give away one of these ice cream makers to one lucky reader in the color of his or her choice.

But I couldn’t stop there, because once you have your ice cream maker, you’re going to need a little inspiration to go with it. Do you remember going to Baskin Robbin’s 31 Flavors when you were a kid? The novelty was that they actually had 31 different flavor options to choose from. Not long ago, ice cream manufacturers began to realize that anything goes when it comes to ice cream flavors. Just when I thought every possible flavor had been created, along came a newly released cookbook called Spice Dreams. Sara Engram and Katie Luber are the real “Spice Girls”. They know their stuff when it comes to enhancing recipes with herbs and spices. Their latest cookbook has more than 50 ice cream recipes that incorporate spices and herbs. These ladies know how to take an ordinary flavored ice cream, add a dash of this and that, and create something extraordinary. This past weekend I made their Apple Spice Ice Cream. It is without question the best ice cream that I have ever made. I’ll post my adapted recipe and the details tomorrow. Some of their other flavors include, cinnamon-raspberry cheesecake ice cream, cardamom-mint ice cream, and a chile-lemongrass ice cream. In addition to the ice cream maker from Sur La Table, Andrews McMeel Publishing is giving a copy of Spice Dreams away to our lucky winner. Check out the book on Amazon to preview a few of their recipes, and to order your copy.

Hmmmm….. but then I got to thinking, what if the person who wins isn’t a spice girl, with a fully stocked kitchen? That’s where The Spice House comes in. The Spice House has locations in Illnois and Wisconsin, but also has a fabulous online store with a huge selection of spices. They offer great gift sets and accessories for bakers and cooks, in addition to ever spice and herb imaginable. They ground their spices weekly, so that their customers get the freshest possible spices. And if you bake or cook, you know what a difference fresh spices make in whatever you’re dishing up. The Spice House is going to include their Deluxe Baker’s spice set in our give-away. The set includes, cinnamon, all-spice, nutmeg, double strength vanilla, dehydrated lemon peel, and more. All of the ones I mentioned are included in the apple spice ice cream that you’re going to want to make, trust me on this.  

So what’s left? The perfect ice cream scoop, of course. Have you seen the Zyliss ice cream scoop? This is the award-winning, end all, be all ice cream scoop. If you’re an ice cream connoisseur, you know that ice cream scoops are not created equally. This scoop puts the rest to shame, and scoops even the hardest ice cream with no problem. When you’re visiting Sur La Table, you can pick up an exclusive colored Zyliss, but these scoops are available all over the U.S. in pretty colors, including Amazon. We’re giving away a white scoop, so that it will coordinate with whichever ice cream maker you pick.  

If you win the ice cream maker, here’s the deal… you’re going to have to pay it forward by sharing your homemade ice cream with loved ones. Trust me, your thighs will thank me! The only reason I have not gained weight since starting the blog, almost two years ago, is that I give at least half of everything I make away. I bake something, pack it up, and get it out of my kitchen! If you have ever looked for disposable ice cream bowls, it is like a wild goose chase. You either find what you want and it’s over-priced, or you have to settle for soup containers with a hole in the top, or some sort of other container that wasn’t meant to hold ice cream. When I found out about Sweet Bliss Containers, my never-ending search for ice cream containers was over. These containers are inexpensive and made for ice cream. Wrap them up with a bow, add a label to personalize it, and you’ve got yourself a great hostess gift. Sweet Bliss Containers is going to include a sleeve of these pint-sized containers, so that you can give away your homemade ice cream all summer long.

Contest is now closed. Holly from Tennessee had the lucky number comment generated by random.org. She’s picking the green ice cream maker. Congrats Holly! Thanks to everyone else for playing along. I’ve got more give-aways planned, so keep checking back!

So here’s how to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me what your favorite ice cream flavor is, and which color Cuisinart ice cream maker you would pick if you’re the lucky winner, orange, red, yellow, blue, or green.
2. For an extra entry tweet the following, “Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Give-away from Sur La Table @grinandbakeit : http://wp.me/pnls6-2h4 ”   Don’t forget to leave another comment letting me know that you tweeted.
3. For an additional entry join Grin and Bake it on Facebook. If you’re already a member, be sure to fill out another comment letting me know.
4. Contest ends on Sunday, June 6^th at 8 PM pacific standard time. The winner will be announced on Monday, June 7^th.
5. Winner will be selected by random.org.
6. Winner will be posted at grinandbakeit.com, and will be notified through email. The winner has 24 hours to respond by email if selected, otherwise, a second winner will be selected.

Good Luck and have a fabulous first week of June!

                                                                                                                                                       Now, they’ve added Book 2 to their cupcake anthology.  It’s put together in a similar format ~ gorgeous photos, easy how-to’s, holiday ideas, a slew of original cupcake ideas, and several easy recipes. This is a great follow-up to the first book.

 This month  for Cupcake Hero Clara asked her fellow baking bloggers to post creations they had made from one of these cupcake books. Since this was a monthly homework assignment, I had to get the new book!

And here’s the cool part… Houghton-Mifflin, the publisher is letting me give one copy of What’s New Cupcake? away! So here’s the deal, you have up to three chances to win…

1. Just leave a comment telling me your favorite kind of cupcake~ chocolate, red velvet, classic white, Diet Coke, etc.  Don’t forget to leave me your email, so I can be in touch if you win. Your email will not be posted in the comments.                                                                                                                                                           
2. Tweet this give-away and leave a second comment letting me know.         
3. Join the Grin and Bake it Facebook group (which I will be updating regularly) and leave another comment letting me know you joined. If you’re already part of the group, that counts too. 

The winner will be selected by Random.org and announced on Monday, May 3rd.

Good Luck!!

UPDATE:  Random.org picked #44

Heather from multiplydelicious.comis the winner!  (Check out her blog, it’s super cute!)

Congrats Heather!

Thanks for playing along everyone!!