happy easter!

 taking easter egg decorating to a whole new level...you'll need how ever many cakebites (shaped like eggs) as you would like (in whichever color you like), candy melts in different colors, toothpicks, sprinkles and anything else you would want to decorate the eggs in.

look how organized my little toothpicks are!

the faberge-esque eggs which i did around the same time last year on my other page take a bit more patience and time so i only made one this year. this is where the tweezers come into play. i bought a couple pairs from walmart for cheap and just use them only for decorating purposes. check out the quick instructions on last year's eggs.

happy egg decorating!

holiday treats

 T-1 day until my favorite holiday! To get you in the holiday mood here's a quick and easy way to give a sweet little treat to your friends and neighbors with extra candy melt- peppermint bark.

 

Grab some peppermint candies (candy canes that you are prepping for holiday decorations work too), a baggie and a mallet of some sort (a well loved crab hammer is put to good use). Go ahead and get all your aggression out and whack at them. Doesn't matter about size, although try to at least crack at each one.

Melt whatever leftover candy melt you have. This white chocolate stuff was just staring at me, but the broken up peppermint on milk chocolate or dark chocolate would look and taste delicious as well (or you can layer). Toss in the smaller bits of peppermint you have while it's still melted in your bowl so you can get some really good peppermint flavor in the bark. Then spread it out and sprinkle the remaining peppermint on top. Let it cool and crack it into pieces. You can baggie this into clear bags and tie off with a festive ribbon.

A little plus pic- I painted a plate at a pottery painting place with my logo. This will be perfect for Thanksgiving eating. Happy Thanksgiving!

Peanut Butter Birthday

It's a peanut butter birthday! My first birthday cake order- some minor setbacks and whoopsiedaisies, but the cake is done!

It's a peanut butter cake, peanut butter and cream cheese filling and a chocolate buttercream frosting. :)

I practiced writing on a plate first and wrote out what I was writing next to the cake so I wouldn't mess up. The lettering is made of food processed white sugar (to get an almost confectioner's sugar consistency but still kind of granulated), creamy peanut butter, and a couple of dashes of milk. You want to get a frosting consistency that's not too runny but also not too thick so you can pipe it out.

I just did the writing and thought it looked a little lonely so some flowers and dots got added into the mix! Have a wonderful birthday, Carey!

The big day!

Yesterday was A&S's wedding. I went out for a long run the morning of and the entire time all I could think about was if the weather was getting too hot/muggy for the cakebites. Which made for a very stressful run and once I got home I cranked the a/c to 75 degrees. But let me back track and give you the whole process of these wedding favors in case you ever have a crazy desire to make wedding favors. And then feel free to shake your head and wonder where I lost my sanity.

 

The labels for the wedding favor box. The font matched the wedding invitations. It's scrapbook paper cut into squares and written on with scrapbook markers. It's actually much easier to write on the square once it's already attached to the box (because then you have a larger area to hold onto when writing).

The adorable boxes ready to be filled! The boxes are from China and had double happiness in Chinese on the side.

The red velvet cakebites (top left corner) were covered in milk chocolate and given simple stripes. The vanilla cakebites were made into the bride and groom. (The groom is much easier to make and I was tempted to have everyone's box have 2 grooms...which would make for very interesting dinner conversation). The grooms were dipped one side in first with milk chocolate, cooled and then dipped on the other side. If the cakebites are on the larger side you can dip both sides at once. The bow tie and buttons were applied with a toothpick. The brides got a streaking of white chocolate for the dress (applied with quick lines of melting chocolate with a toothpick and the nonpareils were applied with tweezers. I bought candy bags with twisty ties and cut the bags down to fit the box and closed it with a cute bow with the tie.

 At the dinner table with the paper crane namecard (you can see it in the background). The subtle Asian touches were lovely and the wedding all around was beautiful. Congrats to the happy couple!

Countdown to the wedding!

There is some epic rainfall in MD, the shots and videos of Old Ellicott City are pretty amazing. Drive safely!

The good thing about the rain is that it gives me plenty of excuses to be inside and work on my most recent project. My first wedding favor order- 4 cakebites/container with flavors to match the wedding cake: vanilla with white chocolate and red velvet with milk chocolate. These are half the size of my usual cakebites, so I averaged almost 100 per cake I baked. Stay tuned for the decorations and boxes!

valentine's day designs

testing out the heart shape for the cakebites and some designs. the minature hearts are the cutest, but the red hearts on the milk chocolate also look adorable.

another design experiment

the green swirls really pop against the milk chocolate!