Sugar Cookie Fun

I've been wanting to try the "flooding method" for icing sugar cookies for a long time. It just seemed easier and cleaner to me... piping a stiffer frosting on the outline of the cookies first, then filling them in with a thinned version of icing. That's how I did all the snowflakes. Easier said than done. Brandon, Nick and my Dad can attest to the mess it actually made in the kitchen. We had some "flooding" problems... like overflowing! Anyway, it was easier to do my old method just using a knife hence the mittens (all left hands sadly haha) were all done just with a knife. No flooding involved.

I made some gingerbread men with the leftover dough from my house. I made a skeleton man per Brandon's request haha. I'm not sure if you can tell but they're googly eyes are all goofy.

My Best Gingerbread House Ever!

I finally got to make my own gingerbread house this year. Don't get me wrong, I've LOVED, loved, loved making them from the pampered chef stone mold my mom has used for the longest time, I just wanted something bigger and different this year for my house. And I really wanted to try making the stained glass candy sugar windows (which worked beautifully!). Thanks Nick for helping me with that. It was alot more difficult to roll out and cut the dough myself than I had thought it would be. It was thin and cracked easily and was hard to roll out big enough. Cutting through the dough would distort the shape (which would be so important to the integrity of the structure come building time...). But I made it work. I had to make 2 huge recipes to squeeze in all that I wanted to do. The Necco wafer roof was a nightmare because all the Necco's came out of their package broken! Thanks to my Mom who helped me pick all of the good ones out. I used chiclets as little lights around the house, and lots of cut up candy canes. The wreaths are M&M's and the tree is an ice cream cone!! The walkway is nerds (idea courtesy of the gingerbread houses Brandon and I saw in PPG place when we went ice skating one night. Anyway, anyone in Pittsburgh should go check out all those houses. School kids made them all from around the area and they are really fun to look at and get ideas from if your into the whole gingerbread thing!). But anyway I'll post the recipe for the gingerbread and icing incase anyone wants to try it.

Sammy's 8th Birthday Cake

Brandon and I drove home one weekend in September to visit my family, swim with the sharks, and be there for Sam's birthday party. He requested this "Lionfish" cake (strange request for a 7 year old, don't you think?) haha but it turned out well. He like it, anyway! He just found a book with a picture of it and I rough copied it in icing on the cake. Yumm!

Cake with blueberry filling for Mom and Dad's Anniversary <3

I made this cake over the summer for Mom and Dad's anniversary <3 The blueberry filling was an experiment but the whole thing was really delicious. The big round flat sprinkles were a nice fun touch too. And for once I made vanilla cake instead of chocolate and actually liked it! Love you Mom and Dad!

Cakes for Amy's 21st!

These were really fun for me to make. I used the premade fondant for the first time and it was surprisingly easy to use. Brandon helped me dye the pink and green ribbons :) Everyone really liked them, the cake and frosting were really moist and tasty. I had originally planned to cover the whole little cake in fondant on all sides but I didn't think I'd have enough to cover all the cakes and the ribbons themselves took so long that I abandoned that idea and just did the bows on top. I'll have to try real, covered, mini cakes some other time, with a more dense cake recipe that isn't as sticky or hard to handle.