Mini Dessert Table

Life has been crazy lately.  We moved and didn't have the Internet for a bit.  Then there has been all that unpacking.  Do these boxes never end?!  But I've missed posting.  I have so much to share! 

So for today, to get back into the swing of things, I thought I would share some pictures from the mini dessert table I did for the opening of a new salon, Blonde and Brunette.  The owners had asked for lots of cupcakes with a few sugar cookies on the side.  Sticking with their colors of lime green and funky purple I did a dessert table that would not take the center stage away from the ladies newly remodeled salon.  I kept it girly, but still fun.  This is the result.

It was a great time.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope to have many more posts up soon.

First Dessert Table

Well I'm sure the title is self explanatory.  I did this as a favor to for my husband's friends.  He asked if I could do it on a Friday night and I thought about it until Sunday.  Then I worked at the lab Monday and Tuesday all day.  So when I got started I had THREE days to pull it off.  It wasn't easy and I wouldn't have accomplished it if not for some crafty help from Miss Putt and emergency powdered sugar from my bestie.  Oh, and my sweet mommy who gave me the table and the cloth. 

I wanted lots of goodies to appeal to everyone there.  I made sure to lay an assortment out.  Even something salty for those who don't like sweets. 

Matthew's friend, Aaron Carter, took all the photos.  He also holds the copywrite, so ask before you pull them!

The paper cupcakes were made using a Cricut. 

I hope you enjoy the pics!  Let me know what you think! 

Oh, and we will be moving this week, say a prayer.

I took this one.





I took this too.  Orange slices below.

I think his photos are amazing.  Wish I was that good!
I'll be posting some more recipes for some of the desserts I used.  I also did another mini-table this weekend and I'll get those up soon too.  (As soon as I have a computer in the new house.)

Have a delicious day!

Pink Anenome~A crisis

Recently I had an old friend call me up and ask me if I could make a bridal shower cake for her best friend.  Of course I jumped on the opportunity.  She requested my Butter Nut cake with blue frosting and a pink anemone flower accompanied by 12 strawberry cupcakes. 

Quite honestly, I had never made an anemone specifically, though I have made flowers.  I looked forward to the challenge though.  Since it was over two weeks away, I thought I would make it in advance in case I needed practice.  I watched several different video tutorials first.  Then I gathered all my supplies, including a new gum paste mix I had just ordered.  I was really excited to try it out.  Just add water, how nice is that! 

The mix comes in black, red, white, and chocolate.  Isn't that lovely?  I mixed it up per the instructions and add a smidgen of pink gel food coloring.  Then I rolled it out pretty thin and cut it with small cookie cutters.  I only cut a couple of circles at a time to ensure it didn't dry out while I worked with it. 

I thinned the edges with a ball tool and put it in my very expensive flower former to dry a bit.  What?  You say that looks like an egg carton covered in tin foil?  Yes, well, I like to reduce costs when possible and recycle to save trees.  Flower formers aren't as important to me as things like tasty gum paste. 

After all the pieces had dried for a few hours I realized I hadn't left a pink circle to adhere the new petals to.  Whoops!  So I mixed up some black gum paste I would need for the flower center and cut a small circle.  (More on the awesome-ness of the black gum paste later.  Flexible royal icing anyone? Yeah, you wanna know!)

Using an equal mix of meringue powder and water as glue, I slowly adhered the petals to the black circle base.  I also inserted a clothe covered wire into the center so I would be able to place it on the side of the cake more easily.  After the center of the flower was glued on, I hand painted some white flower pistols black to make it appear more life like.  Next, my favorite part, I lightly painted on some dry luster dust to give some sparkle.  I love me some glitter!  I took some quick pictures and then let it dry. 

I was rather pleased.  It looked pretty.  I wanted to make some extras but I'd used all the pink gum paste I'd made.  The flower was so grand, it would suffice alone.  I could always make more later in the week.  I had plenty of time.  If only I had known then....

Shortly after, my husband asked me to do a dessert table for someone he knew, and I would need to do it all in three days!  It was an insane under taking, but I wanted the opportunity to network with other individuals so I couldn't pass it up.  But now I wouldn't have time for more flowers.  No biggie, I had already made the cake and frozen it.  I would just use the extra cupcakes from the bridal shower for the dessert table.  Easy again.  Piece of cake.  Speaking of cake, the church called.  We'd recently paid off our mortgage and we wanted to celebrate with a cake.  Could I make one in two days for about 100 people?  Of course.  How flattering you would even ask me!  Completely doable, or....

Not.  I did the whole dessert table and was still conscious on less than two hours of sleep in over two days.  Still needed to go home from that gig, and add the flower to the frosted cake.  Next I'd bake the church cake and frost it up.  No problem.  I pull the well dried anemone out.  I flipped it over and prepared the place it on the cake I where it.  That's when I noticed a teeny bit of wire exposed.  Can't have that, so I went spin some floral tape on it.  Can you see it coming?  Yeah, when I went to pick up the flower by the wire I discovered that it wasn't so secure.  The flower plummeted from the wire and onto the counter.  I was afraid it would land on the floor so with my Superman-like speed, I smashed it onto the counter space, cracking three petals off.  "NOOOOOO!!!!  WHY ME?  NO!"  I started shaking and practically hyperventilating.  My friend was literally on her way to get the cake.  This could not be my life! 

After my five minute meltdown, I realized this is life and it is my life.  I better toughen up.  This is why you make extras, because in the long run, it saves you time and heart attacks.  You can always use extra gum paste flowers.  They last for weeks.  But now what to do?  I can't place the flower on the side, so the top will have to do.  I don't have time to make more gum paste.  So I quickly dyed some buttercream pink that I had made the night before.  Carefully, I put the flower on the top side with a dollop of buttercream underneath.  Then I added the broken petals in discrete places to hide the jagged edges using the pink buttercream as glue.  I filled in any cracks with the buttercream and hoped it still looked pretty.  I'm not gonna lie, I was still on the verge of tears.

When my friend arrived, I told her.  Apologized.  And asked if she still wanted it.  She said she couldn't even tell it was messed up.  She loved it.  I hoped it tasted half as good as it looked.  Later that evening, as I made extra buttercream "just in case" for the church cake, she texted me the photo below and said, "It tasted amazing!"

All I can say is praise God.  Now time to do the church cake...

Strawberry Sugar Cookies {Recipe}

It's been a crazy couple of weeks here in the South!  So many people's lives have been turned upside down that my problems seem practically insignificant.  Blogging about dessert seems silly when they're are so many suffering.  But then I remembered that dessert can be a release for so many of us.  Trying out new recipes can be a sweet release for many. 

Not only that, but I promised to share my strawberry sugar cookie recipe with everyone.  Plus, I've been baking up a storm lately and I love sharing the pictures!  Last week I did a full dessert table for 80 people in 3 days!  (No, I did not sleep.)  This week, I'm gearing up for moving (it was postponed) and getting things in order for a wedding cake tasting and another dessert table on the 11th. 

So without further ado, I wanted to try making strawberry sugar cookies after the success of the lemon ones.  And in case you couldn't tell, that recipe is so easy to cater to a variety of flavors.  I'm thinking next time I'm going to try cherry.

Ingredients:4 cups of unbleached flour (remember you can trade this out if needed)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 box of strawberry cream pudding mix.
1 teaspoon of strawberry extract
*(optional) a dab of pink gel food coloring to make them  a bit pinker

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and strawberry extract, one at a time. Mix well after each addition. Add a dab of food gel color if desired.  See the before and after food color below.

Mix dry ingredients a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.  You can use your clean hand to help incorporate if needed. 

Then roll it out between wax paper as previously mentioned here.  Refrigerate until firm.  I left mine overnight. (This does make the dough edges more crumbly, but I just don't cut my cookies right at the edge until I've remixed and re-rolled it.)   Bake in preheated 350 degree F oven for 8-10 minutes for soft cookies and 11-13 minutes for crisper cookies.*  This makes 2 dozen or so cookies, depending on size.  Keep them chilled, just like I've said before, to keep them from spreading or losing shape.  Your cookies come out PERFECT if you do this.  You may have to pop them in the freezer for 5 minutes after cutting them out if your kitchen is hot; with weather like this lately, almost everyone's is.

*If you are serving your cookies soon, then I recommend closer to the 8 min. mark.  If you are doing them in advance, like a week or two, then make them crisper and they will soften over the week or two in a sealed container on the counter.  If they are too soft they can be more difficult to decorate due to their delicateness. 

I cut some out for a baby girl theme and put those in the freezer to decorate later. 

The others I decorated with a blue and orange theme I was doing for the dessert table along with some vanilla and chocolate ones.  I had a friend of my husbands come and take professional pictures of the table, but I don't have them back yet.  (insert tear drops here)

Plain Jane, simple camera at home about 2am the day of the dessert table.

Fancy Cannon camera (borrowed from my mom) on site at the dessert table.

I really hope you give these cookies a shot.  Make a batch and give them to someone who could use a smile.  You never know how much a delicious gesture can brighten someone else's day.

Razorback Velvet Cake with Berries

My husband's work place has had some visitors from across the pond, Brits, this week. So we were supposed to go to a game night with some of my some of his work friends to visit with all the newbies.  I decided to make a very Southern dessert to take over there.  Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  This cake has just a bit of chocolate added to it to give it the velvety texture it's known for and is dyed a deep Razorback red.  It seemed an appropriate choice to share with the British.  But I'm not going to lie, I was tempted to make scones and Banoffee pie and ask them if it was anything like the originals.  Unfortunately, my Love was not feeling too hot.  We stayed in.  And regrettably, I had already made a second cake to take to church.  Twin cakes.  Still coming up with something to do with the second cake.

My recipe is adapted from here, but it tastes a little different the way I make it.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (sifted, then measured~you can make your own with 1/4 cup of cornstarch inside your 1 cup measuring cup, filled the rest of the way with flour.) 

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk (I made some with almond milk and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar)

1 teaspoon apple vinegar  (even if you make your own buttermilk, add this too)

1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1/4 cup of vegetable oil
Lots of Americolor Red until the batter is RED like an Arkansas razorback

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with baking spray. Sift sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into medium bowl. Whisk buttermilk, vinegar, and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition. Beat in dry ingredients in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk mixture in 3 additions.  Add the red food coloring until the desired shade.  Think of the grooms cake in the movie Steel Magnolias.

Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 22 (in an electric oven) minutes. Cool in pans on racks 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto racks; cool completely.

Don't skimp on the sifting or you will end up with a heavy cake with clumps of cocoa powder in it. 

Make a batch of your favorite cream cheese frosting or vanilla buttercream.  I like the taste of the cream cheese frosting but I really don't like how mine isn't manipulatable like buttercream is so I guess I need to try some new recipes. 

Frost the cake per normal.  If you want extra complexity and beauty for your presentation, add some fresh berries to the middle and top of the cake.  This is also great for hiding frosting flaws as well as getting your daily dose of antioxidants!  Any berries you like are fine.  The original recipe calls for blueberries and raspberries, but you can use whatever you got the best deal on at your local farmers market.

On one cake, I took some of the crust I had cut from around the edge, crumbled it, and then patted it to the side of one of the cakes.  The other I added the berries to the bottom for a border.

I must say, very delicious indeed.

Double Oven Baking {Answered Prayers}

This post only has to do with baking in a round about way, but I still wanted to share.  And keep checking back, I'm make some pink anemones for an upcoming bridal shower cake tonight.



Last year my husband and I decided to start checking out homes to purchase.  We wanted a little bigger place with room to expand.  Anyone who has shopped for homes before can tell you how exhausting the task can be.  The joy of looking through photos of beautiful homes can be time consuming and daunting, particularly if, like most of Americans, you are on a budget.  We really wanted to live within our means, careful not to stretch ourselves too thin so we could still afford important necessities, like flour and sugar electricity. 

So after careful searching we found the PERFECT house.  A Georgia colonial style home with two big front porches on 10 acres, half it that forrest and the other a field enclosed by trees, and a creek running on the backside of the land.  It even had a mighty oak with a wooden swing in the front yard.  It was breathtaking.  We could have the garden we'd always wanted and chickens too!  (I may not seem it, but I'm a country girl.)  So we put a bid on it.  Nothing.  It was a foreclosure and our agent wasn't familiar with the process.  Eventually we gave up.  Turns out it was a blessing because of things going on with my husband's job, his paychecks were a bit irregular.  Of course, at the time it seemed like a curse.  Why God?!  It's perfect!  Don't You want us to have it?!  "No, I have other plans for you."  But, of course I have a hard time hearing Him.  (I mean look at me!  I still don't know what to do for a career!)

Then in January we found another house.  Not as perfect, but much closer to my husband's workplace and little closer to our budget.  It was almost a "cookie cutter house" to me though.  My husband felt this was the house God was leading us to, but I was unsure.  We decided to pray.  I said, to my husband and God, if I'm going to do the city limit house, it's gotta be amazing; it has to have a double oven.  The only way I'm giving up my chickens is if I can bake twice as much, twice as fast.  And this house didn't have one.  Didn't matter anyway because it sold.  But the builder for the neighborhood said, "I can do the same house on the street behind this one."  Okay...and a double oven?  "Yep."  Wow.  So we took it as a sign.  (We prayed for a bit too.)

In two weeks, we should be homeowners, God willing.  All I can do is fantasize about what it will be like to have TWO ovens.  TWO!  I can do twice as many sugar cookies at once!  Eight loaves of chocolate babka!
Sixty macarons!  A whole wedding cake!  You get the picture.  I'm so excited and yet still fearful it won't come true.

I've been challenged lately to have faith in God's promises, even if I can't see them materializing.  Case in point: what I'm going to do career wise.  But the house is materializing.  I can see it.  It's almost finished.  There are walls, rooms, and flooring (most of it anyway).  And just a few months ago, it was just talk.  The point is, God provides, not always when you want Him to and obviously, not always the way you ask, but He provides.  So, if I begin to lose some of the huge faith depsoits I normally shell out for everyone as I go through the struggle of a new career please help me to remember this post.

April Showers Bring May Flowers...{Wedding Sugar Cookies}

This was supposed to be posted last week but blogger was down.  I've got a lot of blogging to catch up on!


If April showers bring May flowers then what do May flowers bring?  June weddings!

I love weddings.  The flowers, the dress, the CAKE, the favors that are shaped like little cakes!

I wanted to be a do it yourself bride, but I had so many people telling me it was going to be too hard and too much stress that they talked me out of it.  I wish they hadn't because there are so many ways to save time and money far enough in advance that you have no worries.  Dang it.  I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off the last 48 hours, having to remind people what to do and where to be.  Oh well, I still have my prince.

So if you want to save some time, money, and still add your unique touch (or you want someone else to do it for you) to a wedding reception or a bridal shower, here is a lovely idea.

Purchase a wedding cake cookie cutter.  I got my from a local craft store, but you can purchase yours from many online shops.  It was 99 cents.

Mix up and  bake your favorite batch of sugar cookies or other decorating cookies, along with a batch of royal icing. 

It's easier to assemble everything you'll need from the start.

Then begin decorating!  My favorite decorated cookie was this plain white one I added embelishments to.  My dress was actually ivory so I might add a bit of tan if that is the case for you, depending on the shade of the actual cake. 

Fun, huh?

The undecorated cookies can be stored after baking in the freezer for a month.  Just thaw completely on cooling racks before decorating.  The decorated cookies can keep well packaged for 2 weeks.  Also, I stuck some in a plastic container for a week in the fridge (accidently) with some cupcakes.  I had to eat it when I opened it.  They tasted fine.  The icing was still just as pretty and the cookie seemed to be the same softeness.  Just make sure your refridgerator doesn't add condensation to the top of your plastic lid covering them and you should be ok. 

Happy decorating!  And happy 2 year anniversary to my best friend and my prince.