Dainty cookies...

The other day, I saw a cookie blog and the subject was how easy it is to make patterns or lace on cookies. She showed a very easy way of doing it-almost mathematical, with a ruler, and making little holes for dots go and such. Now, I didn't have anything to make holes without breaking the cookies, I went ahead and just tried making lines and dots, as straight as I could. The first cookies are the result of that... all in all, I think I went overboard, but still, the actual piping isn't too bad, and the only regret here is that I made the pink border around the black and white lace cookie. I just thought the sanding sugar would make the line look nice, so I didn't bother to make it perfect. Come to think of it, had I used the thicker sugar, it would have looked nicer...I wish I would have thought of this before... man... 

Lace cookies-went crazy with the lines and dots!

My best valentine cookie...ever!

And then I thought I would make a valentine's day cookie with another easy technique I forgot about when doing my first ones the other day...

Sprinkles!

 And last but not least, I thought I would try to improve my brushed embroidery... (basic pattern "stolen" from Sweetambs cookies!)

So that's it for today... I still have a bit of royal icing though, so I may be making other cookies in the next few days! Or something else...? Stay tuned! (By the way, not acting coy at all, I really don't know what the next project is!)

Valentine's day is coming soon!!!

So my kitchen is a complete disaster zone-didn't want to add a picture of that anytime soon, and I have seen enough hearts to be over valentine's day already, but I still am very happy of all the cookies I made yesterday and today. I got to try loads of different techniques and I had lots of fun! I hope you all like them too!

Sparkles...

I love you!! And of course, hugs and kisses...

I love you...

Panel-more decoration than cookie

Left: with printed wafer paper. works well, less pretty than I thought

Brushed embroidery flowers

Frog in love...

Turtles in love

PS: I so wanted to make a nice job of placing the pictures in a fun way, but nothing was working!!! And for those of you curious...the little drawings are all from fancy pants scrapbooking paper, and thank goodness for my kopykake!!

Hamburgers, with a slightly special taste...

In this house, we like meat. And we really like hamburgers. So I decided to try out these cake bites I saw on the bakerella site... of course, hers look real, mine, well, you can see what they are, so that's a start! I just needed to bake something after 4 days away from home...

Oh yes, and guess what these taste like...no, nothing like meat...they taste like...PEANUT BUTTER!!! Yes!!! Well, the cake is chocolate, the icing is peanut butter, but what really makes it taste so extreme is the beige chocolate that represents the bread. I just wish I could feed these to someone who doesn't expect it and watch the reaction! I don't know if it would be a very good one, but I would laugh myself silly!!!

Anyway, enough with cakepops for a bit, I feel like making alot of cookies! Stay tuned!!

Lessons in nutrition...

Now, just because I like to bake cupcakes and eat cupcakes and dream about cupcakes (this phrase applies to cookies and cakepops as well by the way), doesn't mean that I don't think about nutrition... I want what's good for my family. I want the hubby to be healthy, the baby to like her veg... so I think and think about how I will serve everything we need at every mealtime. We need protein, carbs, vitamins and minerals. These are essential to our well being! And because we are going on vacation in 2 days, and I know we tend to go crazy with the food when we are away from home, I decided it was high time I brought a healthy snack along. But what? What is easy, quick, nutritious and that we all love?

Well, I will give you a hint...

It's orange,

it has green hair,

and it's good for your eyes!

What is it you say? You don't know? Wait for it...wait for it!!!

Carrots of course!!!!! God, could anything be easier?

So here is to eating healthy, staying fit and enjoying our vacation to the fullest!! I hope you all have a nice weekend! I won't be baking for at least 5 days, I hope I at least left you with something good!!

My first order!!

So today, I actually sold, for money (!!), my first 24 mini cupcakes! I am so excited, and a bit embarassed that my friend Paulina, who took these to work for her birthday, will read this blog and laugh... but the point is, I sold my first cupcakes! And my cupcake boxes arrived yesterday, so I didn't have to hand them over to her in some kind of makeshift carrier! Anyway, to the cupcakes. If she would have only wanted pretty-this was the result-chocolate with vanilla buttercream and a raspberry filling. They are the ones I most often make, but they are also the best. I sprinkled them with a bit of red disco dust...

But this was the actual idea, mini minions that spell out happy birthday, but get distracted by a banana and start talking about something else, while 4 of them jump at the banana.

My favorite one are definitely the flying minions, and the banana... I wish I could have found more pictures of minions jumping, because I can't actually draw poses myself... so I made 2 of each pose. They didn't break, yay!

My other favs are the tall unhappy ones.
I hope everyone enjoyed the taste and the look of these! Thanks for reading and thank you Paulina!! Happy Birthday!

Something old, something new...

I know, I know, I made these like 2 weeks ago, nothing new, I know!! But look, there is a good reason! 1: we are invited to eat at someone's house tonight, so I have to bring something special 2: we are having fondue! So dipped cheese, dipped chocolate-perfect, no? Plus I had to see if I could do these in mini (yes, perfect), and if I could divide the recipe (yes, pefectly!!). So the love affair continues with the hi-hats...and I had still a bit of marshmallow frosting to do some mini meringues, which I will use to make a cupcake I tried once this summer and failed at! Stay tuned!!!!

Yellow cakepops...

Hello friendly readers! Ah, I was in a yellow mood today and decided to explore everything that could be done in the combination yellow and cakepops. Now, let me start by saying that I actually only made 3 things-surely there are more yellow things in this world than what I did...for example, big bird, a lemon, the sun, well I am already running out of ideas, but the point is, there really was only one thing I wanted to do, but I wanted to be sure I would not waste all the cakepops on one design if they didn't work out... so let's start with my back up plan, lego men. It was, for me, a risky back up plan, not because the design is difficult-although, I am not sure what would work best to shape the top of the head-I did it from the cake itself, but it isn't that pretty...no, what was risky for me was actually making the faces. And what I was afraid of happened. Despite loads of cakepop experts writing the same thing-the only food writer that works is Americolour-the pen indeed failed for me. I had to mix some black food colouring with water and paint the faces. But you know what? I love the result-especially the baron with his monocle (that is a french word-I do not know what it is in english-if it's the same, then I just don't know how to pronounce it!) What do you think? What faces should I make next time? On to the second design....

MINIONS!!!! For those of you who don't know these fun characters, they are the crazy little workers in the movie Despicable Me, and so cute! I hope I did them justice! Funny thing about these, when I was making them, and they had been dipped and I had put hair on them, I could have just stopped and painted Homer Simpson's face on them-'cause that's what they looked like!!! Third design...

What are the minions obsessed with?

Bananas!! And they are very unhappy when they can't have one...

But oh so happy when they do get the prize! So a banana...not my best work, but considering that I had to play it by ear with the colours, everything came out right... with the minions, everything that is black should have been food writers, I made them with fondant.
Ok, baby is crying! Better go! Tell me what you think!!!

Paul on Cookie

Remember when I made cookies for my brothers and their girlfriends? I had made "Paul en Appartement" on cookie for my brother Chris? Now because he draws himself (and is damn talented to say the least!), he must have contact with other cartoonists, and so he sent a picture of the cookie to the said cartoonist -Michel Rabagliati. He found my cookie quite nice and sent this picture with congratulations in response, and I decided to go ahead and pipe a more elaborate colour version of Paul on cookie. You will see the original underneath, it's pretty similar, I only had problems getting the blue right. In the end, I felt it was nice in darker anyway, so I left it. It took long enough to get the right shade of skin, kaki and blond!!! So there you go! What do you think?

The Hi-Hat Cupcake...a challenge from myself

2 days ago, on Bakerella's site (for those of you who do not know her, she is the cakepop queen), I found a cupcake I had never ever seen before, and got instantly curious. Now if you know this cupcake before scrolling down to the result, this is the type of cupcake that scare the begeebers (spelling?) out of someone like me. They look impossible to make. So here are the steps I took, don't scroll down yet!!!!!!

So the recipe called for a chocolate cupake with sour cream, which I didn't have at home, so I went ahead and made my regular super gooey chocolate cupcake. That's what you see up there!

Then, you make a marshmallow frosting, it takes 15 minutes of constant stirring with a handheld mixer, over a pot of simmering water. Now some people who had commented on the recipe said they got goopy white gunk. I got something resembling melted marshmallows-perfect! I decided to put some raspberry essence in it instead of vanilla.

Next step, make a huge swirl of the stuff on top with the biggest round tip ever! Doesn't it just look like an ice cream cone? Till now I couldn't believe no disaster had struck! They look gorgeous!!! Anyway, I now put them in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Last step-DIPPING them in melted chocolate! Can you believe it? The marshmallow topping not only stuck to the cupcake while surviving the pull of the melted chocolate, but also kept it's shape! Like dipped ice cream cones!!!!!

This is the inside....Yum! And absolutely perfect!!! If you are interested, go see Hi-Hat cupcakes in google, go on Martha Stewart's recipe... I don't know how to create links on my blog, so I won't even try for now... anyway, ignore everything that is said that is negative in the comments section, the recipe is perfect!!!!! 

And now the last pictures, I sprinkled them-just in case 2 of my most constant readers would say I should've decorated them! How do you guys like my Hi-Hat cupcakes? (I don't know why they are called that...)

Oh yes, and what did I do with the rest of the marshmallow frosting?
My very first meringues! They also came out perfect! Yay! What a great evening. I must say, some days, everything goes well...

A bit early for spring, but I needed cheering up...

Is it just me, or do butterflies make others feel better too? And I get the same reaction to the colours black, white and purple. Luckily I had dough and extra royal icing just lying about, so when my parents left to go back to Canada, I made myself some pretty butterflies... If anyone else is having a sad day, I hope my cookies make you smile, if only just a bit! Thanks for looking in.

Cookies for my family

My parents are heading back home
tomorrow, and I am feeling a bit down... so I decided to make some cookies. I figured, my parents got to see the things I do, so I will make some for my brothers and their girlfriends. As I am writing this, I don't know why I didn't do a little one for my sweet little niece...I guess it's because I made cookies according to each person's tastes,

and the little one doesn't have preferences yet! So Paul en Appartement is a cartoon right out of Montreal, and the orange cookie is its cover. That's for Chris, and John loves army stuff, hence the camouflage cookie. Sophie is obsessed with the smurfs, and Katie loves owls... so there you go, I really really hope they will like them, they look better in real life anyway, so I hope they will survive the trip! Katie, I am sorry about the two coloured borders, I ran out of orange while making it! I feel terrible. Now that the cookies are made, I don't feel any better though...it's really starting to hit me, tomorrow my parents are leaving, and in a month I go back to work... this is not a great start to the year. I hope you guys have a better start than I do!! Thanks for looking in!