*Second Helping* Pumpkin Dog Treats!

By: Christine

My first attempt at making homemade dog biscuits was a success and I wanted to try some more fun canine friendly recipes. I found a recipe for pumpkin dog treats and I knew that these would be a fun fall dog treat that I had to try! The recipe that I used for this dog treat included only a few basic ingredients: whole wheat flour, pumpkin, egg, peanut butter, salt and cinnamon.

I combined all of the ingredients and rolled out the dough.

I used a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter for these treats!

After baking for about 40 minutes, these cookies were done and ready to cool.

After cooling the treats, I decorated them with royal icing and orange colored sugar.

Dutchess was the first to give these treats a try and she loved them!

I packaged up a few of these treats to share with some other dogs who I knew would love these cookies. I also added a Frost It! tag (with a pink paw print) which listed the ingredients that were used for these cookies.

Pink Birthday Cupcakes!

By: Christine

Jill had been asked, by a co-worker, if we would be able to make cupcakes for her daughters 1st birthday party. Jill was going to be out of town and therefore could not work on this order, which meant that I was on my own! The order was for four dozen cupcakes, vanilla with pink frosting. I was really excited for this order because not only do I love cupcakes, but my favorite color is also pink!

I used Bakerella's recipe, for the cupcakes, adjusting it a little bit to create more of a vanilla taste.

I used the Wilton buttercream frosting recipe and tinted it baby pink. Using a 1M tip, I piped on a large swirl on the top of the cupcake.

I sprinkled white pearlized jimmies on top to complete the cupcakes.

I added a sticker to the plastic cupcake containers that listed all of the ingredients that were used in making the cupcakes & frosting.

 With a Frost It! sticker and bow, these packages full of beautiful pink cupcakes were ready to be delivered to the party!

*Second Helping* Apple Crisp!

By: Christine

I love so many fall desserts and, since we had been apple picking in early October, I knew that I had to create a delicious treat with these freshly picked juicy apples. Instead of making the traditional apple pie, I decided to make crunchy apple crisp. I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website and it received great reviews so I figured I'd give it a try!

I started out with 4 peeled apples. I cored them and cut them into small slices.

I combined flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and nutmeg in a separate bowl. I used a fork to combine these ingredients created a crumble topping mixture.

I placed the apple sliced in a greased glass pan and then I spooned on the crumble topping.

After baking for 30 minutes, the crisp was done!

And it was delicious!

TV Dinner!

By: Christine

My Dad's birthday was coming up and I wanted to bake him something really fun and yummy. I went straight to my favorite books, "Hello Cupcake" and "What's New Cupcake," for some ideas of what to make him. I had made my Dad "hamburgers" for Father's Day, and since they were such a huge hit, I wanted to do something similar to that idea. What I found in the "Hello Cupcake" book was an idea for a TV Dinner; complete with chicken drumsticks, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, and a cupcake for dessert (made with cupcakes, frosting, and some additional items.) I knew this was something that my dad would enjoy for his birthday!

I started with the peas and carrots cupcake. I frosted the entire cupcake with green buttercream. Then I added green Skittles candies for the peas. I cut up orange Starburst candies for the carrots and added them to the top of the cupcake in between where the "peas" were placed.

The next cupcake I worked on was the mashed potatoes cupcake. I frosted the the cupcake with white buttercream. I drizzled caramel sauce on top to resemble gravy and added a yellow Starburst on top for the "butter".

 The next part of this TV dinner that I worked on was the chicken drumsticks. I started out by frosting three of the cupcakes with white buttercream. I piled the frosting higher than normal to get a better shape. I rolled the frosted cupcake into graham cracker crumbs to create the drumstick breading.

Using melted white chocolate wafers, I created the drumstick "bones."

The final cupcake that completed the TV dinner was dessert. Instead of pudding, which was the recommended item in the "Hello Cupcake" book, I decided that, since it was my Dad's birthday, I should make a cupcake for the dessert portion of this TV dinner. I frosted the cupcake with deep blue buttercream and added some large pastel sprinkles.

 This TV dinner was complete. Happy Birthday Dad!!!
 

 

Bright Stars Birthday Cake!

We were asked to make a cake for someones friend who was celebrating a birthday. The only specific requests for this cake were the flavor (chocolate) and one of the colors (purple). We used The Pioneer Woman's chocolate cake recipe for this cake. We have used this recipe in the past and it's has become one of our favorites.

We used white buttercream frosting for the filling.

We also frosted the entire cake in the white buttercream frosting.

Now for the fun colors; we used a deep purple and lime green which complimented each other wonderfully.

We used a round tip to create large dots on the top and the bottom borders for the cake.

We created multiple sized fondant stars in purple and lime and added them to the sides of the cake.

By layering the different size stars on top of each other it created a 3 dimensional look and made the colors pop!

We stuck tooth pics into some of the smaller fondant stars and placed the stars on the sticks around the back part of the cake.

We wrote on the top "Happy Birthday Mike" which completed the cake!

This was a fun cake for us to make together. We were only given two simple requests for this cake (color and flavor) which gave us the opportunity to be creative in the design of this cake. It was also a lot of fun working with the fondant and creating 3D objects to give this cake a fun look!