Archive for Other Sweet Treats

We again had the opportunity to make treats for one of my favorite family events, Kindermusik’s Fall Family Music Night. It was only appropriate to make spooky treats since the event was held on Saturday 29th, just before Halloween.

Here are some of the cookies we prepared for them this year.

I’m not a huge fan of candy corn (although I can eat a few of them without complaining), but I love how they turned out in cookies.

I love this cookie because it is so versatile and I can make for pretty much every occasion.

The next one was also one of my favorites. I don’t have the spider web cutter, but the circle cutter worked. I wish I would have made it in different colors. The spiders (on the webs) look more like mmh… ticks (yikes!). I’ll fix that next time.

My mom loved this particular cookie design. Eye catching uh? It made a few people wondered how we made that.

I love these friendly creatures. Adorable and cute ghosts.

What’s Halloween without some witches? Here we have the boots/leggings and the hats. Maybe I’ll work on the entire body next year.

And just to make it spooky enough for the little ones…

I was never happy with the “B”… I just couldn’t get it right.

The family night was a lot of fun. It was all about sharing a music night with the whole family and learning while doing it.  Let me share the experience with you if you have never been to one of them.

Parents and children gather in a spacious room with the very awesome and talented Jenn Horak leading everyone on a musical journey of fun and games. Jenn either plays music or sings to everyone to make kids become active while they jump, sing, dance and share musical instruments.  They may not know it, but children are learning and developing other skills (social, musical, and more).

Caregivers become active too! Grown ups get to participate along with the kids on this musical event as they also get to sing and dance with their little ones.

If you are interested or just curious about Kindermusik, visit their website. My children have benefited tremendously from this learning experience and I’m sure yours will too. My son Noah is almost 3 years old and he absolutely looks forward to Saturdays for his music classes.

We got very positive feedback from the cookies we made this year. I just feel bad that I ran out of them  in the end!

Check out last year’s event here.

Enjoy a sweet treat every day!

Ask me about cartoon shows for kids 5 years and under and I will probably tell you all about them.  I really can’t believe I traded my grown up shows for cartoons… but’s that’s life uh?

Anyway, SUPER WHY is in that long list of cartoons that now I am so familiar with. What??? You don’t know them??? Well, here’s a picture of them. They are kinda cool, but I still don’t understand the pig among children super heroes.

My target this weekend was the green super hero, Whyatt Beanstalk.

A dear friend of mine, Yolanda (I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing her name here) asked me to make a chocolate piece of this little character for her son’s birthday party cake. She would be making the cake at home and I would provide the image for her.

Here’s the chocolate piece that was recreated for the cake.

Cute uh? I really liked it and people at the party did also.

Yolanda came over the house with her cake and we set the image on top of it. It looked really nice, but I don’t have a picture of her finished cake.  She promised to send me a picture of it though.

About two years ago, her son was very much into Sesame Street. If you are interested here’s a link to the Elmo cake I made for her back in 2009.

My friend is a very crafty person and she made super hero capes for every child at the party as her thank you favors. My kids had fun at the party and they are still playing with their capes.

Thank you Yolanda!

This bunch is a cute one because they were created to be the toppers for baby shower cupcakes.

I always ask customers to see if  they have any ideas, designs or patterns in mind so I can figure out what to do with their request. I received this blanket picture with the baby animals.

Here are the cupcakes with the baby animal toppers.

Giraffes, tigers, elephants, monkeys, parrots, oh my!

And of course my daughter Lillie asked me if I was going to make animals girls. So, I added eye lashes to some elephants.

What do you think? My husband liked them a lot and my boy Noah said “Wow” when he saw the first chocolate pieces.

As far as the cupcake flavors, we had chocolate butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache filling and strawberry cupcakes with fresh strawberries inside of them.

Here’s the wonderful comment from my customer.

“You did a wonderful job on the cupcakes!  They were SO cute!  And a big hit with everyone at the baby shower (even the men).  People raved about the edible decorations and the chocolate filling.  Thanks so much for all your hard work and talent!”

Big Thanks!!!

I think most people are familiar with The Cat in the Hat books by Dr. Seuss. Well, this cake is about Thing 1 & Thing 2 and in case you don’t know them here they are.

I don’t really remember reading the books when I was a little girl, but now that I have my children I’m finally familiar with them. They even have the books in Spanish!

The story on the cake is about a couple of little ones celebrating their birthday, I believe on the same day (if not only days close). My client liked a pair of matching cakes I had made in the past on Monster’s Inc. where one is bigger than the other one. So this Dr. Seuss cake is bases on that idea.

Here’s the cake for 2 boys, one turning 5 years old and the other one celebrating his 1st birthday. 

Thing 1 & Thing 2

There’s a lot of details to show on the cakes. Here’s Thing 2 designed for Drake, the little brother.

Thing 2 and the always looking frightened fish

Thing 1 went to Quinn, the older brother.

Thing 1 with a flying kite

 Here are some of the details on the cakes. You have balloons, popular faces and that always worried looking fish. 

We also prepared sugar cookies for them. The images are made out of chocolate and placed on top of the cookie to give them a ‘dimensional’ look to them. 

Green Eggs & Ham

The Famous Dr. Seuss Hat & Fish

The Famous Dr. Seuss Hat & Fish

 I’m sad to report that I forgot to take a picture of the actual Dr. Seuss cookie, I did actually make one or two.

I think this set of cakes and cookies are some of my favorite ones ever. I love the fact that the chocolate pieces on the cookies look actually alive (! ? !).

The next two cakes were prepared for the same client for a First Communion and Confirmation celebrations that were held on different days. The cakes are simple, but they make an impact.

This first cake is for a lovely girl. It is a fondant covered cross cake embossed with a flower design, adorned with small white and lavender flowers and topped with a beautiful real Lily flower.

The cake is Chocolate Butter cake with vanilla cream frosting.

You might be able t see the flower design on the cake a bit better here.

That day, my house had a mixed smell of cake and Lily flowers. I didn’t complain, it was delicious and beautiful.

The second cake is also a simple cake and elegant cake in colors appropriate for a boy.  My client wanted the cake to be decorated with a cross and in her request, she mentioned and/or possibly a rosary (so of course… we gladly kept that in mind when making the cake).

Inside the cake we have a White Butter Cake with Chocolate buttercream frosting. As opposed to the first cake, this one is covered in buttercream.

The cross is made out of chocolate and my mom created the rosary (she is amazing with them). You probably can’t see it , but the rosary’s beads have this beautiful shine to it that made it look very realistic.

My client was very happy with the extra detail on the cake and was pleased overall. I really loved the cake.

First Communions and Confirmations are happening now everywhere and that is always a very happy occasion to celebrate. I was glad to prepare treats for a few people from my church, St. Francis of Assisi. Here are some of them.

The follwing cupcakes are for a little girl that is not too much into ‘cake’, but she was more than happy to try my Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

The cupcakes are topped with a small white chocolate lavander & white cross.

We also prepared a platter of cake balls in White/Caramel cake with Dulce de Leche buttercream mixed. Some of the were covered in chocolate and some with a sugar glaze.

More first communion treats are coming…

I have been participating on this event for the past couple of years. I’m talking about the Family Music Night offered by Kindermusik.

This event is always open to families of all ages that are interested in having an amazing time around music, fun activities, crafts, and much more.

Anyway, back to the treats right? My mom and I made lots of treats for the event. I always try to bake something different to the event, but our cookies have to be there. Here are some of the pictures.

Easter Cookie Tray

 Cookies inpired by candy & chocolate.

Eggs and Peeps

Robin Eggs' Cookies

Pink and Yellow Peeps

Yellow & Blue Peeps

We always bring cake to the events and that day was  no exception. Here we have Lemon Cake soaked in lemon syrup and frosted with a simple lemon frosting. We made cookies looking like limes, lemons, oranges, kiwis and my favorite fruit… watermelons. 

Spring Fruit Cookies

Mini Chocolate Cake cupcakes.

Chocolate mini cupcakes with ganache

Mini cupcakes with chocolate frosting

We made our Cake Balls in Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, Caramel cake with Dulce de Leche buttercream & White Butter cake with vanilla frosting. They are all covered in a light sugar glaze.

Easter Cake Balls

Personally, having my children enrolled in Kindermusik since they were babies has been one of the most wonderful experiences I can give them. They have gained so many skills not only music, but developmental skills.

If you are interested in learning more about Kindermusik, you can email at info@piedpiperstudios.org  or call 515-221-2948.

I received a request for a first anniversary cake. She wanted something very simple in shades of white and deep purple with a few roses. Actually, she wanted her cake to be so simple that she didn’t even want fillings! No fillings? What? I did convince her on having some tasty buttercream frosting in between each torte. I knew she wouldn’t be disappointed.

I decided to use the shape of a cookie cutter I have and make it into a cake. I put together two hearts’ cakes into one and covered them in fondant. The cake itself is a White Butter cake.

Double Hearts Cake

I made a couple of sugar roses and a couple of chocolate roses intending on using one one set only.

Chocolate Roses

Fondant Roses

In the end, I used both sets and I thought it looked beautiful. I simply loved this cake. It is simple, elegant and it looks so romantic.

A perfect cake for a first anniversary celebration.

Dessert Table

Mexican Wedding Cake cookies

Candy Corn and Meringues

 Our cupcake flavors were pumpkin (top), chocolate with chocolate frosting (middle) and caramel cakes with dulce de leche frosting (bottom).

Cupcake DisplayMeringue Ghosts

Aren’t they the cutest things? Delicious too…

  And here are some of the sugar cookies we decorated for everybody. Cookie flavors were sugar/vanilla, chocolate and cinnamon cookies all covered and decorated with royal icing.

BOO!

Black Bats

Spider Webs

Small ghosts and bats

Happy HalloweenCandy Corn

Pumpkins

I hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures.

I have to thank Jenn Horak for allowing us be part of the event. If you are not familiar with Kindermusik, I invite you to take a look at their website and see what she has to offer for your family. My daughter Lillie has been attending music classes since she was 2 years old and she simply loves it.

Some of the treats we created were  Sugar Cookies (Christmas), Cake, Cake Balls and Assorted Cookies. Here’s what we offered at the Show, but first here’s a picture of the table we set out.

Cake Balls

Cookie Sandwiches

Cookie Tray - Small cookies

Cookie Tray - Large cookies

Wehad three Styrofoam cakes for people to see our work and we also prepared a small Tres Leches cake for people to try out. Dulce de Leche buttercream was offered with each slice of cake.

What do you think? It was a lot of work, especially because the day before we had to be at another show at Prairie Life Fitness. It wasn’t exhausting being there, but preparing all the treats was a lot of work. We enjoy what we do and I especially love to hear people that they enjoy the look and taste of our cookies and treats.

I hope you enjoyed looking and reading this post.