The doctor was concerned and scheduled the Boy to have an MRI of his brain on Wednesday… scariest few hours of our lives. We got through it together, and thankfully found out that that the scan was clear. The Boy is on day 8 of a fever and we’re still trying to get to the bottom of it (hoping it’s just the virus from hell!). Talk about putting your life into perspective in a matter of seconds. When it comes right down to it, the only thing that really matters are the special people in my life. Not only have I been blessed with an awesome family that keeps me grounded, but also a core group of friends who are there through life’s unpredictable twists and turns. What I hope the boy takes away from this is knowing that his dad and I will always be here for him. The bond that the three of us share is one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Okay… Now, on a much, much lighter note (I promise!), here are some of my favorite holidays recipes. Hope you’re baking up something sweet t!his weekend!

Peppermint Whoopie Pies

Snowflake Cookies

White Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes

Snowman Brownie Pops

Cranberry Bliss Bars

Peppermint Brownies

Chocolate Covered Oreos

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bark With a Secret Ingredient

Rice Krispie Cupcake Treats

Wishing you a weekend full of happiness!

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.

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.

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!

Last week, I shared a link on the Facebook page to a great post on Glorious Treats. Gloria has put together a tutorial on how to frost cupcakes in a series of posts on “Cupcake Basics”. The question I am asked most is how do you make the swirl on top of the cupcake. Check out Gloria’s link. She even has a YouTube clip so you can watch it in action. While reading through her recent posts on cupcake making, I came across her favorite buttercream recipe. Her secret is to add a little bit of cream cheese. I tried the recipe and liked it so much, I used it to frost these cupcakes. The cream cheese cuts out some of the over the top sweetness of a traditional buttercream. I’ve now added this to my list of buttercream frostings that I use. This one is perfect for people who don’t want a super-sweet frosting. My other two go-to frosting recipes are listed below.

Buttercream (and a hint of cream cheese) Frosting ~ (Recipe from Glorious Treats)

printable recipe

(I was able to pipe the swirl on 26 cupcakes with one batch of this)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter (salted, or unsalted)                                                                                                                4 oz. (half block) cream cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)

4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (best quality available)
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream, half and half or milk.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter (on medium speed) until completely smooth (30 seconds to a minute). Add cream cheese and beat until smooth.
Add salt (if needed). One cup at time, add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating after each addition. Add vanilla, or other flavorings and beat to combine.  Add about 1 tablespoon of cream, and continue beating. Add the remaining 2 cups powdered sugar, one at a time. Add an additional 1-2 tablespoons cream until desired consistency is reached.  If you want to pipe the frosting on cupcakes, the frosting should be nice and thick.  Continue to beat another minute or so.  The frosting should now be smooth and fluffy.

Birthday Cake Frosting (Grin and Bake it)

printable recipe

I like to use this frosting for kids’ birthday parties. I find it is most like what bakeries use. A lot of adults prefer this to traditional buttercream too.

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/3 Crisco, softened

pinch of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

4-6 tbsp. whipping cream (you can substitute milk or half and half)

4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer at medium speed, beat butter and Crisco. Add pinch of salt and vanilla and continue mixing until smooth. Add in sifted confectioner’s sugar one cup at a time, add a tablespoon of whipping cream in between each cup of sugar, scraping the sides of bowl down each time. Gradually beat on low-medium speed well until smooth and fluffy. (The lows speed keeps it from incorporating too much air into the frosting).  To reach the consistency you need, you may need to add more sugar or more whipping cream. Add food coloring and blend well. Remember, gel or paste coloring will darken over time.

Traditional Buttercream (Grin and Bake it)

printable recipe

2 pounds powdered sugar, sifted

1 stick butter, softened

½ cup whipping cream

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla

Beat butter and sifted powder sugar. Gradually add half of cream. Continue to beat. Add vanilla and; gradually add remaining cream.