Written on
November 11, 2011 by
Kate
Happy Friday everyone! I can’t believe how fast this month is flying by. Thanksgiving will be here before we know it, so it’s time to start thinking about turkey treats. My parents are heading out on their first road since becoming homeless, and they will be gone for Thanksgiving. I know what you’re thinking, how dare they leave me on a major holiday (okay, that’s what I was thinking). I might have been a little bitter, but my sister and her family are driving here from Texas to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. The boy and I are SO excited to have them with us. Usually, they stay at my mom’s and we have to share them, but now that my parents are drifters, we get them all to ourselves. My sister and I are excited to make Thanksgiving dinner together. We’re of course making the traditional Thanksgiving pie, but we also need something festive and sweet for the non-pie lovers. I went in search of some adorable turkey treats created by other food bloggers and here’s what I found. Now comes the tricky part… figuring out the cutest.
Two Oreos, a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and a Whopper disguised as a turkey? This is my kind of dessert posted at ourbestbites.com .
Martha Stewart has a turkey cupcake how-to posted on her site.
I love these M&M turkey favors posted at the Party Animal blog. Wouldn’t they look cute at each place setting at the kiddie table?
How simple and yummy does this turkey rice krispie treat look that Ali from Gimme Some Oven created.
This turkey cake pop posted by Maria on Martha Stewart’s Dreamers into Doers page is the cutest one I’ve seen for Thanksgiving.
Turn a chocolate cupcake on its side, get some Nutter Butters and a few other goodies and you can make these turkey cupcakes (created by Jeanne Benedict)
I love this turkey cupcake cake for a big group posted at Atomic Cupcakes.
Why did I just buy the giant turkey cookie cutter when this cookie made using a circle and heart cookie cutter looks so much cuter. Bee in our Bonnet posted a step-by-step photo tutorial on how to make these.
Happy Weekend Everyone!!
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Written on
November 9, 2011 by
Kate
If you read my blog, you probably know how badly I wanted a baby girl. I love and adore the boy and wouldn’t trade him for anything, but getting him to play Barbies or be excited to go to the mall with me just isn’t going to happen. Since the mall and Barbies are out, I do get excited to make girly cookies and cupcakes Last week these were made to celebrate a newborn baby girl. Bridget at Bakeat350 made “cute as a button cookies” awhile back that I loved, and I thought the idea was a perfect one for this “Sip and See” party.
The only additional step with these cookies was making the fondant buttons. It was really pretty simple with Wilton’s pre-made fondant on hand. Bridget made the process even easier by posting a step by step photo tutorial on how to make them. The words were written on the royal icing using my new Americolor food writer markers. These markers are now my favorite of any of the food-safe markers I’ve tried. LOVE THEM!
I wanted the cupcakes to coordinate with the cookies, so I carried over the flower and button theme. Don’t you just love how the buttons look in the center of the flowers… so adorable and girly I can hardly stand it.
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Written on
November 6, 2011 by
Kate
My new roommates moved in last Sunday, so it’s been quite a week. I never planned on having roommates. In fact, when I got divorced there was even a discussion about not having roommates in the best interest of our boy. For six years, I’ve kept good on that promise, and in doing so, our house has become the boy’s safe haven.
So I’ve broken a promise… sort of, but I really did find the best roommates possible. Roommates who cook dinner and do my laundry. Roommates who pick up my groceries and watch the boy when I need them to. They’re also roommates who plan on traveling the world and staying here in between vacations. Most importantly, the Naughty One approves, and is in fact in her glory with them here. Our roommates are named Grandma and Grandpa. My parents have given up their huge party house and are moving on to the next chapter in their lives, destination unknown. We are excited to be their home base when they need a break from traveling. They’re here for ten more days before heading out on a 30 day road trip.
Prior to the move-in, we hosted our annual pumpkin carving party. I’ve decided there are two types of food/party bloggers… those who pretend to have parties and blog about them, and those who actually do have parties, forget to take pictures at their parties, and when they actually remember to take pictures, the pictures turn out pretty crappy. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have a fabulous party with crappy pictures than vice-versa.
Wishing you all a fabulous week ahead. I’ll be back this week to share photos of the baking orders I somehow found time to cram in during moving week.
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Written on
October 25, 2011 by
Kate
Our pumpkin carving party is this Friday night. It’s one of my favorite celebrations that we have all year. Good friends, good food, martinis, desserts, and prizes… it doesn’t get much better than that. I have some grand party plans, but seeing how it’s only a few days away, we’ll see how much I can pull off.
I’m serving Mexican food, a crowd favorite around here. It also happens to be the easiest dinner for me to put together for fifty or more people. But as much as I love Mexican food, cocktails and dessert are still what it’s all about.
The boy and I have been on a cake push-up pop kick for awhile, so we decided to create Halloween cake push-up pops for the party. The boy came up with the idea of a push-up pop graveyard, so this is what I’ve come up with… now to make a bunch more and a graveyard!
The push-up containers can be purchased from a variety of vendors. They can be purchased in bulk, but if you’re not in the market for more than 100, go visit Cupkate’s Event Design online storefront and buy them from Kate. She has them in stock. The goal of these was to keep it simple. The biggest time investment was making a Duncan Hines chocolate cake, pretty simple. I am of the belief that some occasions require homemade buttercream, birthdays, showers, and Valentine’s Day to name a few. However, there are other occasions where taking the shortcut is your best bet. This is where the pre-made icing comes in. Milano cookies were used to make the tombstones. I had black royal icing on hand to pipe on the cookies. As an alternative, the Food Writers made by Wilton, or melted chocolate chips or candy wafers could also be used for the design. The little candy bones are also from Wilton. We buried them in the layers of chocolate. Finally, we topped them off with chocolate candy rocks that we found from the candy store.
Want some more Halloween Push-up Pop inspiration? See what Christi of Love From the Oven created. I love the candy corn colored push-up pop! I might need to make some of those too.
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Written on
October 18, 2011 by
Kate
This was my weekend project. I LOVE pink, and happen to think the more ruffles the better, so I do get a bit excited when someone orders something to celebrate a little girl. These were for a baby shower, and the only request was that the cupcakes be pink. I piped the cupcakes in a ruffly swirl using Wilton’s 1M tip. I made monograms
and flowers out of fondant, which is a simple way to make a cupcake fancy. If you can roll out Play Dough, you can make these. When making fondant decorations, I buy Wilton’s premade fondant and use Americolor gels to dye the fondant the colors I want. If I’m making a fondant cake though, I prefer the taste of marshmallow fondant, so making a batch is worth the extra time and mess for cakes.
The shower was taking place at a restaurant, so I knew passing out cupcakes could be a little messy. Plus, in my experience, a lot of women pass on the dessert at showers. ( I’m not one of those women!) I went ahead and packaged these as cupcake favors and tied them with coordinating ribbon. I love how they turned out. The boxes also gave people who were full, or had to leave early a way to bring a cupcake with them to enjoy later.
These plastic boxes open up at 
the top, which makes getting the cupcake in the box without messing up the cupcake or the box an extra challenge. I discovered that tongs solve that problem. Boxes that open on the side are available for a little more money if you search the web. These plastic boxes from Papermart come in packs of fifty. They are reasonably priced, easily to assemble, and the perfect size for cupcakes and cookies.
These were so adorable I was sad to see them go!
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Written on
October 13, 2011 by
Kate
This is my excuse for failing to post this week…
200 monogrammed cookies.
These cookies are for a wedding reception this Saturday, all boxed and ready to go. Hooray! This monogrammed cookie design is similar to the monogrammed logo that the bride and groom put on their invitation. I am a huge fan of monograms. They never go out of style and add a personal touch to your event. Dara and Danny (love that they have the same first initial!) got married last weekend near Malibu. Their guests were treated to a weekend at the Four Seasons resort. From what I’ve been told, everything about it was amazing! Tomorrow is reception number two. How cool is that? If I ever get married again, I want two parties (and yes dad, I know… you will not be paying for either one of them).
It seems a bit overwhelming to plan not one, but two wedding weekends back to back… but oh so much fun at the same time! As far as these cookies go, organization is really the key to filling large orders. 200 hundred cookies requires a lot of dough, a lot of rolling and baking, and a whole bunch of royal icing and piping. Oh, and then there is the bagging and tying of ribbon task which adds even more hours. You know what else big orders involve… a lot of taste testing. It’s a requirement that I have to sample each batch to make sure it lives up to the standard. I swear I think I gained five pounds making this order, but I can say without a e doubt, that they taste really good! For these cookies, I made several hundred coral colored royal icing flowers (which can be done a few weeks ahead of time). I like the dimension that the flowers and 
borders add to the cookie.
It’s back to my KitchenAid this weekend for an order of two dozen
cupcakes. Two dozen cupcakes sounds so much easier than 200 cookies, don’t you think.
Congratulations Dara & Danny! Celebrate your marriage not just this weekend, but indefinitely!
Have a great weekend everyone!
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Written on
October 6, 2011 by
Kate
I’m constantly giving away my sweet creations to friends and family… Spread the love, spread the calories, that’s my mantra. I like the treats I give away to be wrapped up and looking cute… it’s all about presentation (I learned that from my mom!). Lucky for me, I’ve discovered a few graphic design bloggers, who create awesome printables and allow the rest of us download their artwork for free.
Here are some of my favorites for Halloween…
Amy at Living Locurto
The Shy Socialites
Posted at Catch My Party, created by Lindi of Love the Day
Here’s a free tag you can download from Anders Ruff
or you can buy their entire collection in the Anders Ruff Etsy shop
Download this from Kim at The TomKat Studio
A colorful collection from Traci Reed Design
I love this polka-dot tag posted at Lil’ Luna, created by Amanda at Shindig Parties to Go
I love how these Hershey Kisses double as witch’s hats. The candy topper was created Beth at It is What it is
Happy Weekend Everyone!!
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Written on
August 12, 2011 by
Kate
Be careful what you wish for… that whole thing about being excited to get back to work and routine last week, what was I thinking? Clearly, a moment of insanity. The boy has a few more weeks of summer, but I’m back training teachers and sitting through all-day trainings. Thank goodness for friends and family who are willing to keep the boy entertained while I’m gone. In addition to being back to my “real” job, I’ve also taken on a bunch of orders, completely self-inflicted pain so don’t feel bad for me. The cookie orders are actually a stress-reliever when I don’t over-book myself. I was thrilled to do these two orders this past week.
The first order was for my girlfriend, Nicole’s, daughter’s 10th birthday. These were my gift to, Kirsten, the birthday girl. I adore this child. If I had a girl, this is what I would hope for. She is such a sweet girl, plus she loves my cookies and cupcakes and makes me feel like I’m some celebrity chef. She really wants me to try out for Cupcake Wars, and asked me if I would be the official judge at the cupcake decorating contest at her birthday party. How can you say no to that? Her birthday was held at the beach club near our house and her theme was surfboards. The surfboard cookies were fun to make. We kept the same color scheme, but made each one a different design. The birthday girl and her guests enjoyed them!
The second order was for more wedding dress cookies. Every wedding shower order I have done this year has been for these wedding dress cookies. Like the surfboards, I like each cookie to be a little different. Here are a few of my creations below. Andrea, another girlfriend is hosting a bridal shower for her friend Juli this weekend. The theme is “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Don’t you love that? Tiffany blue happens to be my favorite color, so I’m in love with this shower. I’m also doing the cupcakes for the shower over the weekend, so I’ll share photos next week.
Happy Birthday Kirsten!
Congratulations Juli on your upcoming wedding!
Congratulations to Andrea for making it through another bridal shower! How many does this make this year?I know it’s in the double digits.
Have a great weekend everyone!
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