Back to School Cookies

Today is the first day of school here in our district. To celebrate I made some back to school cookies at work.

These were actually 'gift package' cut out cookies. We get our cookies in frozen and bake them off in store. We don't use a traditional royal icing, like I would prefer, but a glossy frosting more used for donuts. It never gets super hard, which makes it delicious, but also harder to decorate. I am taking it upon myself at work to sort of be 'in charge' of the sugar cookies though as we roll into the holiday season. Most times we do 6cts that are simply decorated with icing and maybe sprinkles. I'm hoping to bump it up a notch this year and offer at least some cookie options that really tap into the cute factor. There are some truly amazing cookie artists out there! I am nowhere near as talented as some of them but I vow to continue to try to make cute yummy cookies.

To all my teacher friends: Good Luck with this school year! And a special Shout Out to my fiance who is starting as a Math Corps Tutor!

Nerd Craft.

I have had these pencil topper ideas in my head for months now. At work we are constantly loosing pens and once in a great while someone gets some sad looking fake flowers to tape to them so as to not have them wander off. I decided that with a bit of felt and glue I could make some of our signature desserts into a cuter version. I am such a nerd.

But they have been a big hit. Here we have Cherry Pie, Carrot cake, and our signature Chocolate sundae cake.


Until next time,

Nerd out.

A Very Haunted Harry Potter Birthday Party

It was a lot of work and we were scrambling at the end a bit but the party came together rather nicely and was a SUPER GOOD TIME. Probably the best 'Halloween Saturday' (as I like to call it) in quite a long time. I just can't help imagining what I could do with more time and money!

 Cauldron cakes, licorice wands, Bertie Bott's every flavored beans, and dips, chips, and other goodies.

 The Three Broomsticks

 Butterbeer!

 Group shot (thanks to Muggle camera woman Miranda)

 Fluffy

 Doby the house elf

 Time turner!

 Ron

 Hermione

 Dolores Umbridge

 Trelawney

 Harry Potter

 Professor McGonagall

 Trelawney (less unhinged)

The birthday kids. Hahahahahaa. I love this picture! I will write another post and go into some of the crafty details in a different post. But for now I wish you a good nights rest before All Hallows Eve.

Happy Haunting!

Maple Cookies

Working in a bakery my little inner home-baker gets pretty excited. Completely convinced that I would rock at cake decorating I decided to start small and tackle some cookies.

I have been trying to find a recipe/baking technique that produces super smooth professional looking cookies. This one wasn't bad but I feel I can do better! Then I just googled a maple glaze (since I am in full Autumn flavor mode right now) and then topped the cookies with some orange frosting just to play around with decorations.

 I boxed some up to give to my friends. Too much cookie goodness to keep to myself!

I got some good reviews from my taste testers so I will have to make another batch soon!

Camping Win, Glamping Fail

 

Well my dreams of a glamorous camping experience did not really pan out. I was looking super cute as we traveled the 4 hours to our lake in Wisconsin but by the time we got there it was so cold I had to change into the warmest clothes I brought. Of course I would be more worried about how warm it was going to be! I had barely any warm clothes at all! But layers are my best friend (along with sunblock and bugspray!) and I made it work. Also once we arrived at our destination I realized the sad truth that it was really just us friend there and that I had no one to impress. Enter no-makeup and rumpled clothing. Perhaps most shameful of all? I went FISHING. This was the one activity that I was fairly sure I did not want to be a part of but they hooked me (excuse the bad pun) and so the first night we were out I bought myself a 4 day fishing license. It was really fun being out on the lake and I actually caught some good fish! Of course we had to let my 16" bass go because it was Thursday and the season didn't start until that Saturday. Boo. Also fishing is a pretty gross business- live bait, unhooking fish, etc. but I will put a shout out to the guys who were not only patient with me but helped me with many of the 'gross' tasks that I just could not handle.



We spent so much time out on those little boats that I still feel them moving when I sit really still. We had two boats for our group and the first night we just had 6 of us so four of us (and a dog : ) were in one boat and then our other two friends Brent and Ellen were in another. We joked and laughed and shouted when we caught something but at one point Ellen shouted over to our boat..."Hey! We just got engaged!" Those two have been going out forever and as a group we were pretty sure that Brent was finally going to pop the question but we didn't know when. It was really cute for them but I still think that someone proposing to me on a fishing trip would be a "no." But she is really happy and that is all that matters. Now we get to plan another wedding!!!!! Yay!!!!!

Besides fishing and life changing moments we ate really well. Of course this is the "foodie" group but I wasn't sure what was going to happen on this kind of trip. Bless Sabrina's little heart she sent out a spreadsheet the week before the trip dividing up all the meals. Couples had two meals and singles just had one. I actually only had 'sides' for our fish fry that we were planning on having Saturday (depending on us catching enough fish for the event!) so I made a couple of sides and then also some snacky food for in between times. I ended up bringing two kinds of potato salad, two kinds of hummus, mini banana chocolate chip muffins, mini trail mix muffins, and fixins for smores. The mini trail mix muffins were a new recipe and I thought they were fantastic, little bite sized portion of granola, mini chocolate chips, walnuts, and dried apricots. I also took it to the next level for the smores. I made homemade marshmallows and homemade graham crackers. They made fun of me for not making my own chocolate but they all thought it was delicious.

Everyone else brought their A-game as well. We had two different versions of stuffed burgers, hobo dinners, an entire rack of bbq ribs (oh my god yummy), sausage and eggs, the list goes on! By Saturday night we also had quite the catch for our fish fry. The boys took the fish to get them ready (I was not going to watch that). They brought a little fryer and fried up those fish right in front of us. From lake to table in under an hour? Do you get any fresher than that? I had never done anything like that before and I was just in awe. It was so yummy.

 

So overall it was an excellent trip. I was ready to go home though, the boys have a collective maturity of about 12 years old and I swear if I hear another bowel movement joke I will shank someone. But I got in a good chunk of fresh air, reconnected with mother nature a bit and rebooted for now that I am back in the city.

Shout out to one of my besties Krista! It is her birthday today! (Later in the week I will post about the gift I made her.)

Cheers all!

Bacon Party Recap

That's right folks we threw a BACON PARTY! And not just any party but a surprise birthday bacon themed party. We are that cool. But seriously it was a good time. This happened a couple weeks ago and I just wanted to share it because I made some SUPER cute crafty things to take this party to the next level. But first some background. Our dear friend Sabrina was about to turn 25 and we were trying to come up with fun things to do for her birthday. She wanted to hang out Saturday night and then go to Valley Fair on Sunday. This sounded like a good plan. Between us girls we decided that a showing of 'Bridesmaids' (it was it the opening weekend) would be a great idea since we were all in TWO weddings last year. We also decided it would be epic if we wore our watermelon-pink bridesmaid dresses to the movie. So that was our plan to go to a movie decked out in bridesmaid dresses and then to meet up with the boys for food and drinks. Without the birthday girl's knowledge we arranged for the boys to be setting up the surprise bacon bday party. This girl LOVES her bacon and it just seemed like a good theme to run with. Everyone was to bring something bacon-y to eat and I made all the decorations. She was surprised and it was a great time!

Homemade pig pinata

Bacon-wrapped beer koozies for the boys

Hand painted bacon garland for decoration

Bacon headbands for the girls. Part Lady Gaga meat dress/ Part royal wedding

Bacon food! Bacon shaped cake, bacon jalepeno peppers, bacon wrapped sauseges, bacon wrapped shrimp etc!

Bacon font found online to make Bday banner

Bacon shaped cake (just red velvet flavor)

Bday girl getting her pinata on

Notice the nice tv in the background? Note to self: No pinatas inside!

Girls with their bacon headbands and "Bridesmaids" pose

Bday girl with her head band and chocolate covered bacon in hand. Oh and she is married to that creeper in the background :)

 

 

So there you have it. Proof that with a few simple supplies and waaayyyy to much ambition you can create a creative themed party around anything! Cheers!

Sweet Surprise

This year was a pretty good birthday. The day-of I was in Tombstone, AZ hanging out with my friends and the Earp brothers but when I got home there was a very sweet surprise.

 The cutest craft-themed cake I have ever seen! Cake Boss has nothing on this. A simple sheet cake baked by my mom and decorated by my sister. (Sure she used my marzipan but I guess I will just have to let that one go.) The simplicity and cleverness really create a lovely little confectionery masterpiece.

 Buttons! I love buttons.

 A spool of thread (that cleverly starts the frosting for my name).

Pincushion complete with toothpick pins.

The icing on the cake? (Please excuse this poorly executed pun). The craft themed necklace that my sister gave me as my bday present. Cuteness!