Baby Girl Cookies

Here is another batch of baby shower cookies.  We have baby faces, carriages, rattles, bottles, onesies and other cookie shapes in flowers, hearts and circles.  All cookies were embellished with candy pearls and flowers made of royal icing.  I really love these cookies.

As per usual, i got my inspiration from Sugarbelle's site, however, i can't find the link right now.  However, that is ok.  Go look.  it is insane cookie porn!

Adorable Ducky Cookies

I was contacted not long ago about a cookie job.  The lady wanted some cookies and cupcakes that would go along with her theme which went with the above invitation.

Here is what I came up with. I stenciled the basic duck shape on all of  them, and then went through refining them with a few more colors.  I like painting on cookies with food coloring.  The customer was very happy and so was I.  What do you think about them?  

Hey remember when I bartered my Ninjago cookies?

Did I tell you about the time I bartered my cookies for delightful handcrafted jewelry?  Well, I think I did tell you.  It isn't my fault if you don't remember. Are you having a senior moment?  Anyhoo.  I made sweet Ninjago cookie favors, and my friend Jamie sent me these sweet Doctor Who inspired bracelets. Jamie has super cool stuff, and she will custom make stuff as well.  Not only that, but she is reasonably priced.  I would highly recommend her for custom gifts.  I am thinking Jennah may need some (more) custom jewelry from Jamie.  So, if you are not into looking at my old posts, (I linked to it in the first line of this post, how much easier do I need to make it?) here are her links.  Justahausweyef 's Facebook Page and Justahausweyef's Etsy Page.  Check her out and give her a like!

Wedding Gown Cookies

Here are some wedding gown cookie favors I made for a group of bridesmaids.  The design is pretty simple but I really think it works.  What do you think?  The wedding colors were rainbow, and the final result was bagged in cello bags and tied with rainbow ribbon, which I should have posted a picture of. #missedopportunity.

I have quite a few orders coming up at the end of the month!  No complaints here, people.  Today I had to sit down and figure out the number of cookies I need to bake on my "baking day".  It comes out to about 200.  Yikes.  Oh well, I love a cookie challenge!  What tips did I use here?  Wilton #1 in case you wanted to know.  Thanks for checking me out, feel free to comment!

Halloween Cookies 2012

Halloween is like, my favorite holiday.  I love dressing up, (although i dont so much anymore) and now making costumes for my children, and it is the eve of my birthday month.

With all of that in mind, how can I not make some adorable cookies? I made these guys last night.  I love them.  The bats especially.  They have purple sanding sugar "lining" to the wings, complete with little bloody fangs.  The spider web cookies are also pretty cool, with a hand painted spider.   Also we have a couple of ghosts as well as candy corns.  I made a pumpkin too, but i ate it. LOL!

Happy Halloween everybody!

Safari Baby Shower Cookies

I made these cookies using a Wilton set i picked up a couple years ago.  I had never made the lion before, but i am so happy with how he turned out!  I didnt want to paint the faces, so I went ahead and used my food coloring painting technique.  I really think they are adorable!

Ninjago Cookies

I made these cookies for my friend Jamie.  She made me super sweet Doctor Who inspired bracelets (pics to follow of those soon, but until then why not check out her Etsy shop or her Facebook page?) some cute earrings and a necklace and bracelets for my daughter.  In return, I made cookies for her son's birthday.  These cookies got bagged and bowed as cookie favors that look adorable.  For once I didn't go to Sweet Sugarbelles site to find inspiration.  I went instead to the internet and just checked out Ninjago stuff on Google.  I did however, use techniques I read on her blog, so there is that.  All in all, I have to say I am pretty happy with how they turned out.

Spiderman cookies and cookie favors

More cookies on my cookie making odyssey.  These are Spiderman cookies, and cookie favors that I made for a little boys birthday party.  I am really happy about how they turned out, even if the black icing gave me fits.  I have to give credit where credit is due, my go-to cookie resource blog, the Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle. She is very talented, and has been an outstanding resource for me, I really should think of thanking her for her awesome tutorials.

Winner winner, chicken dinner! UPDATED.

I am very excited to announce that my Chocolate Cherry Beauties cookie recipe won a blue ribbon from the Just a Pinch Recipe Club!  I am thinking I should take the time out to say that before I posted a recipe there I was using it like crazy for different cake recipes.  It was always popping up in my sidebar on Facebook with delicious creations that made me click.  So what did we learn today?  That I am a baking nerd, and that the Just a Pinch Recipe Club is a great website and resource.  Still haven't heard anything about my entry to the cookie contest, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!

UPDATE: The cookies were a finalist in the Just a Pinch Cookie Celebration contest, and was featured on the front page of the site during the week of July 10th, as well as featuring them in their Facebook ads..  They made me an Honorary Kitchen Member and sent me a Chefs hat.   So now I can ca call these cookies "Award Winning"!!! Woo Hoo!

Wine Themed Cookies

I made theses cookies for a rehearsal dinner for a wedding being held in Sonoma,  Ca with a wine country theme. I am pleased with the results.  A little bit of hand painting and voila!  Cookies.

Pirate Cookie Collection

 I made a pirate cookie collection for a three year old's  birthday party. The collection included pieces of eight, pirate ships, pirates, swords (or cutlasses?idk.) Treasure maps, and personalized scrolls. Here is a picture of all of them:

Below is a closer view of the scroll banner cookies.  I painted them with food coloring "paint" The pirate cutlass came from a palm tree cookie cutter because I was not able to find a cutlass cutter.  Improvisation!

This one is my favorite.  I used the "F" cutter, (the boy's name is Frankie) and flooded the cookies with an almost flesh toned frosting, then painted it to look like a treasure map, finishing it with a red royal icing "x" to mark the spot. I had no idea what that was going to look like when i started it and it just turned into a totally happy accident.

On the right, is what I am calling a pirate ship.  All I could find was a sailboat cutter so I used that and made some alterations to it to make it work.  I used little round cutters to make the pieces of eight, making several different ones.  Finally, there is this little pirate.  I got this cookie idea straight from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle, who is my cookie idol.

If you click on the first picture, you can kind of see the different patterns i made for the pieces of eight.  all I really did for that was look at different fonts and pirate themed stuff on the internets to get my ideas.  Thanks for stopping by to look at my stuff!

Ninjago Birthday Cake

I made a Ninjago themed cake for a boys birthday, and wrote his name in royal icing on the side of the cake.  I am pretty excited to deliver it.

Cupcake bouquet...

I did a cupcake bouquet for a garden themed birthday party on Sunday, and I think it turned out great. Here ya go, instructions! (Sharing is caring people!)

1 six inch pot
1 pot saucer
1 six inch floral ball
Popsicle sticks
glue gun and sticks
a rock to weigh it down.

Glue the saucer to the bottom of the clay pot.  Put the rock in the pot.  Glue the floral ball to the opening of the pot. Stick Popsicle sticks around the ball about a half inch above where it meets the pot, all the way around, spaced about an inch an a half apart. Stagger the next row up and so on.  I recommend using one cupcake to get a feel for the spacing before placing all the Popsicle sticks. Place the Popsicle sticks angled upwards.  The bouquet takes 19-20 cupcakes.  make a slit in the bottom of the cupcake about the width of the Popsicle stick, then place the cupcakes on the sticks. for empty spaces I tucked in tissue but you could easily stick in leaves or fresh greenery as well. Please note you need a denser cake, with no filling and a firmer frosting, (not a whipped frosting) the bottom row is a little precarious, and if the day is warm and you are outside, that frosting is going to slip right off those suckers. It is very pretty and versatile... The possiblilities, they are endless!

Nojo "Safari Baby" inspired cookies

I did these cookies for a baby shower.  So cute.  I was inspired by Targets Nojo collection, "Safari Baby".  To accompany the cookies I made Boston Cream Pie cupcakes.  The feedback was very good on both items.  I think my skillz are improving.  I just wish Michaels had better treat bags.  the ones I get (the only ones they have that i find acceptable) have a narrow neck that I have to slit to get bigger cookies into.  Bigger cookies are basically every cookie, so that really sucks.  I am going to have to look at Ebay or Amazon.

Minnie and Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a rehearsal dinner.  The Mickey and Minnie's are made with royal icing that I dried.  How crafty am I?  I really love the way they turned out.

The cupcake flavors are lemon cake, make with 7up, and white cake, with a whole strawberry and some fresh strawberry filling in in it.  They turned out delightful.

Cookies for Baby's Arrival...

 Still doing cookies.  Here we have baby bottles ad rattles.  I used sanding sugar on the outline of the rattles, but chose to leave the bottles somewhat plainer, but I am very happy with the result. I have to say I really am enjoying the cookies. I also made a delicious marble cake this week with a fresh strawberry filling in it.  So hmmm, what have i learned with this batch...Ahh yes. Pressure.  When using a #1 tip for lettering, pressure is so important, but even more important: consistency.  Icing consistency is incredibly important in achieving the effect you desire.  I think i am finally getting that.  When I made thos batch of cookies I also made lamb and duckie cookies, but i am lazy and have not iced them yet.  Rest assured when I do I will be pinning them.  Thanks to you visitors, for checking out my work.  I appreciate it!

Jennah's Hello Kitty Birthday cake

And here we have my daughters sixth birthday cake.  I made the the Kitty with gum paste, all of the flowers with royal icing, and the petal frosting pattern, I got straight from Pinterest.  The totally kooky thing today was that I got this big, bad-assed cake tip (see below) for frosting cakes.  It knocked the crumb coating and filling in between layers out with a quickness.

How about that bad boy, huh?

So there ya have it.  Hello Kitty birthday cake.

Jennah and Mommy

On a more personal note, six years and three hours ago, I gave birth to a tiny little girl, and named her Jennah. Jennah, my baby doll, you are getting so big and turning into such a charming little lady.  I love you so much.  I look forward to watching you grow up, even though I wish you could stay little. *sniffle* oxoxox Mama

Hello, Kitty!

I really need to take better pictures.  That being said, here is my first attempt at Hello Kitty cookies.  I am 95% happy with how they turned out.  Next time, I will use a smaller piping tip on the bow, and I will do better on the bow over all now that I have a better feel for the placement of it.  Other than that I think they are adorable.   I made them for my little dolly's class for her birthday.  She squealed with delight, so I know she loved them, and they taste delicious too. For help on this i used Callie's tutorial over at The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle.  She is crazy helpful to me and doesn't even know it!  Go look at her blog!

Delightful Spring Cookies

I am continuing my cookie making with these spring themed cookies.  I made Ladybugs, using an egg shaped cookie cutter, and some leaves with my fondant leaf cutter.  Worked like a charm.

Over here we have the flower mix I made. Again I used the leaf cutter. I used yellow non pareils for the center of the flower on all of the flowers.  Then I used an adorable spring sprinkle mix on the white flowers (not small enough in my opinion, but hey I am doing a trial and error kind of thing here) and hot pink sanding sugar for the pink flowers.  The piping and flooding skills are getting better, and I pretty much have the royal icing and cookie recipes down flat.


     The next project will be this weekend.  It is my daughters sixth birthday (!) I will be making a Hello Kitty cake, and Hello Kitty cookies, for her Hello Kitty party. (groan)  I still have not the foggiest idea what the plan is for the cake, I am going to wing it, so it may be a cake wreck.  Most definitely.  I will be using the Hello Kitty cookie tutorial from The Adventures of Sweet Sugar Belle though, so I've got that going for me, which is nice, I think.  Alright, that is all for now...pictures to follow next week hopefully!

Fisher Price Baby Shower cookies

Continuing with my cookie odyssey, I made some cookies for a baby shower this weekend.  Actually, I did the cupcakes and these cookie "favors"  The cookies took a lot of time to make, but they turned out very cute.  I did learn a few things during the making of these cookies.  Good, solid, knowledge that I would like to impart upon you, Dear Reader.

First off, Wilton gell coloring is not the best.  I had to use a ton of the brown to get a light brown color.  I was starting to lose my patience (those of you who know me though, know this is not saying much, lol) I recommend Americolor coloring.  I am slowly starting to acquire a color collection.  It works great.

Next, time management is an absolute requirement. DUH, right?

Third, never throw away any colors you make after you use them.  I made the pink cheeks on the monkeys.  Apparently, when I made them, I trapped air in the icing.  When they dried, all of them had holes in them from where the air bubble came to the surface and popped, leaving a pock mark or hole.  I had to go back over them with a toothpick and left over icing to fill the holes.  Thank goodness I didn't throw it away.

Finally, Always check Sweet Sugar Belle's cookie blog for pointers.  She does some amazing stuff.

I got my inspiration from the Fisher Price Baby Shower collection.

Bridal shower favors and cupcakes

So, it was a very busy week for me with Valentine's Day and a bridal shower.  For the shower I made the favors, and the cupcakes. They were delicious if I do say so myself, and I do. I got a mild case of OCD when I was working on the cookies, but over all I was very happy with the results.

The favors were sugar cookie, with fuschia marshmallow fondant stamped with "All you need Is Love", decorated with almond royal icing.  I painted curlicues with silver luster dust, mixed with lemon juice.  I loved the results.

Gratuitous business card shot.  They are new!  I love them!

All the cupcakes- Chocolate cupcake, with caramel filling, piped with chocolate cream cheese frosting.  The other cupcake is lemon cake, with a lemon cream cheese frosting.  It was delicious with little bits of lemon zest in it.

Here is a close up of the lemon cupcake, with the pics I made for them- they are stamped with "And they lived happily ever after" on textured cardstock with some embellishment.

I feel some crabs coming on...

Creative funk....

Well, I am just about pooped out.  I baked and delivered a lot of orders these last 2 days.  Now I don't want to bake again for a while.  At least one day. *shifty eyes*  The next project is bridal shower cupcakes, and bridal shower cookies for favors.  The shower is Saturday.  I have already started the cute little picks that will go into the cupcakes, I only have 12 more to make, However being the procrastinator that I am, I have not bought all of the things for the cookie favors.  I just had an idea (like literally just this second) so I am going to hash that out and I will post the results with delightful pictures when I have some.

I am going to get crabs....

My mother, father, brother, sister in law and husband and I are going to a crab feed this weekend.  I am so looking forward to it.  I haven't stuffed myself full of mercury since I was pregnant with my daughter! Woo Hoo!  I love crab feeds.

I had a date....

With my son.  Jennah was off being a social butterfly last weekend, with a sleep over and a play date.  Ayman and I went and caught Phantom Menace on Saturday, and spend some quality time grocery shopping in Wal-Mart and then Best Buy.  I remember when it was just he and I, doing our stuff together.  It is so easy to forget about those times after you have a second one. It is important to get that alone time.  Jennah is usually stuck to me like glue.  Ayman, not so much.  It was good to just hang with him. He even held my hand a few times. *sigh*
Good times.

Chocolate Cherry Beauties

"This is the best cookie I have ever tasted"- My dad, this Christmas. That is saying a lot.  He likes cookies.

I call these "Chocolate Cherry Beauties" they are, in a word, awesome.  If you like to bake, I highly recommend this recipe.  Not only is it absolutely yummy, it is very pretty.  You will not fail to impress with these cookies.  My apologies for wonky background colors, I copied this from its page on Just A Pinch, because I was NOT going to type it again. (<---totally lazy)  recipe after the jump

Attempting pretty cookies part deux...and a recipe.

Tonight I decided to try some piping practice. I sat down for about an hour and a half, with a parchment paper bag (that I made myself, thank you very much) and piped the hell out of some pretty cookies.  First let me say that I threw out my first batch of royal icing, because after drying cookies for 48 hours I found that:  A.) I probably over beat the frosting, and 2.) I may have added too much water to the icing to thin it.  On the plus side of that other batch, I used rum flavoring on it, which I found to be delightful.  This new batch of icing I used coconut  extract, which is AWESOME. (Side note about royal icing, if you haven't done as much reading as I have, which is ok: Do not use oil based extracts, apparently oil is royal icing's kryptonite.)

Attempting pretty cookies.

This is my first attempt at using royal icing on cookies.  I whipped up some nice looking icing, however I am having two problems with it.  When the icing for piping dries, it can be smooshed easily, crumbly almost. When the icing is diluted, it takes FOREVER to dry.  This is problematic.  I fear I may have whipped too much air into it. The cookie is delicious.  It is my Aunt Cindys roll out cookie recipe.  Best. Cookie. Evah.

This is what happens when my husband says: "Is this dry?" and TOUCHES IT.  No bueno.
So, what have I learned?  I need to practice my piping skills. Srsly. Also, I need to master making royal icing.  I did find a great tutorial on easy clean up of piping bags etc. The video is here and if you are interested, It has great ideas.  I think I can use it for cake decorating too.

So I am going to keep on trying...My kids are super cool with eating my rejects.

Stockton Thunder

My friend Miki has a batch of tickets for Stockton Thunder hockey games.  She didnt want to go tonight so she gave me her tickets.  Amr had a study group so the kids and I took in the game.


We had a blast.

Valentines Day Delivery Specials!

Sweets for your sweetie on Valentines Day! For the low low price of $10, you can have 4 cupcakes packed in a cute box,delivered* to your sweetheart. Cupcake choices are: chocolate, yellow or red velvet. All decorated with adorable micro hearts, also included is a notecard for a personal message. Delivery area includes most of Stockton, and for an additional $2 dollars I can deliver to Manteca, and Lodi, or points in between. Please contact me for other delivery info.

Also available for delivery- Six hand dipped chocolate covered strawberries. These also come in an adorable box, with note card. $10 gets you the berries and delivery in Stockton.

Mickey Mouse Oreo Cupcakes

These delicious babies are made with Oreo cookies in regular and mini sizes.  the cupcakes themselves were Andes Creme de Menth flavor and Death by Oreo flavor.  Two of my favorites, I must say! These turned out just adorable and were very fun!

Cassie Cakes

So, I am doing a little side business here.  It's a little something I like to call Cassie Cakes.  If you use the tag Cassie Cakes in the search on this blog you will find some of the things I have done.  If you have any questions or inquiries, feed free to hit me up in the comments, or email me at Cassiecakesca@gmail.com
Thanks!

Monkey Cake, with Marshmallow fondant

I did this cake for my friends little boys first birthday (man, that sounds awkward.) Anyhoo, it was my first time making marshmallow fondant and chocolate marshmallow fondant.  I really liked using it, so I think I will try it some more.  My mom bought me some cool fondant tools, so I am super excited to come up with my daughters cake, which will be some sort of Hello Kitty extravaganza.

"Monster" Themed birthday party cake

"Monster" birthday cake with matching "monster eyes" cupcakes. I am not in any way shape or form saying that these are Yo Gabba Gabba themed treats for my beautiful nieces third birthday party. *shifty eyes*

Andes Creme de Menthe Cupcakes

 Andes Créme de Menthe Cupcake- Devils food cake flavored with mint, packed with chopped Andes Créme de Menthe patties. The cream cheese frosting is flavored with a hint of mint, and topped with Andes Créme de Menthe patties. $24/dozen