Penguin Cookies

 OMG I can't handle how cute these little babies turned out.!!!! 🐧I LOVE them.!!!! I got the recipe that I followed and the idea from Food Network. Not that I haven't aspired to make penguin shaped cookies one day, but I probably wouldn't have thought to make them slice and bake. It's not a difficult recipe, but it does take some time to shape the different components and wait for the dough to be firm enough to cut. I think if I made these again, I would add nutmeg or some almond extract- my go to flavors for sugar cookies. I was more concerned with how they looked than jazzing up the flavors.

Cutting out the penguins really looked like I was making sushi roll cookies. That would be a fun variation.! I made the beak and feet a little oversized for next level adorableness. 

 Here they are cooling, waiting to be adorned for the Christmas party. 🎄

 I didn't have red candy melts, and white chocolate can be super finicky, especially when you buy the cheap not amazing quality hence the cheapness level variety. You have to be careful not to overheat it, or it turns into an unusable mess. You'll know when it happens. Then it's too late. Anyways, don't overheat! I added red food gel to some of the white chocolate that I already had, and had to add some oil too since, as stated previously, my chocolate was not great to begin with, and did not melt ideally. Halved mini marshmallows formed the poofy "pom-pom" on each penguins little hat.

I mainly piped white chocolate designs on the hats, but also used some edible sugar pearls and little chocolate decorating bits that I already had. I also discovered the I thought the penguins were even cuter with discernible eyeballs. At first, I was trying to hide the dot of white chocolate that I used to "glue" the mini-chocolate chip pupil on. I think having crazier bug eyes just made them even more adorable though, so there's a tip for ya. Next time I make these, they'll have bigger eyes, and I'll add some nutmeg to the dough. Overall, a cute idea and a pretty simple recipe.!

Turkey Cookies II

I've really been slipping on my cake making...but I have been so busy with grad school and multiple jobs, and my current kitchen is tiny with a questionable oven...so I've been opting for creating cookies lately. I love to think of crafty, fun activities to do with my nephew- I usually enjoy them for much longer than his attention span 😄 This Thanksgiving it was turkey cookies for us!

 We made peanut butter cookies for the base of the cookie, let them cool completely, and then attached a snack-size reese's onto each with a tiny bit of icing. I made homemade royal icing so that the feathers, gobbler, feet, and beak would all dry completely. We used food gel to tint the icing different fall colors, and just to make it all super easy, I put each color in a separate piping bag. We opted to use pre-made edible candy eyeballs because they're fun and quick, and gave the turkeys a slightly crazed, adorable expression akin to googly eyes.

Ginger Cat Cake 😻

Erin told me she that cats and Gingers are her favorites, so for her birthday I made her a Ginger Cat Cake.! 😻🎂

I used Rice Krispy treats to form the ears, paws, and tail. Cinnamon buttercream icing is in between each six-in round of pumpkin cake. I used wooden dowels to stabilize the cake.

I used a triple star icing tip to pipe the "fur" on. I striped orange food gel on the sides of my piping bag and added orange food gel to my icing in varying amounts to create a marbled, orange tabby effect. Then, I used gumpaste (an edible clay-like substance that dries harder than fondant, and is used to add detail rather than cover a cake) to mold the eyes, nose, whiskers, and other small details.

Erin loved her cake! She dressed appropriately for the occasion, wearing a cat-lounging bookshelf dress 😻📚, and promptly named him Ed Sheeran .!

Fall Cookies

So this was a lesson in creativity and problem solving for me! I just moved into a tiny studio apartment, and hadn't had a chance to bake anything in my oven yet. I was making cookies to send to a friend, and decided it would be nice to use the leftover dough to make something to bring into work. Like every project I start, I go way over the top with all the elements and things that I would like to do...! I brainstorm and think of all the creative minute details that probably literally no one else even notices or cares about. So, sometimes I need to take a breath, step back, and know that I'm my toughest critic...and literally no one else is noticing all the things that I wish had gone differently.!
I started off with my awesome shaped sugar cookie recipe that is an absolute go to for almost everything...and these cookies spread out and turned out awful. I felt like a ridiculous failure. Baking and decorating I am confident in- if I can't even make simple cookies, what am I?? I had planned to make shaped cookies, and instead changed strategy. Obviously my oven calibration is a little off, and I didn't want to risk wasting the rest of my cookie dough. Instead, I used decorating techniques to make these cookies shine in a unique fall fashion.!

I wanted to play with a few different simple styles. My favorite was the marbleized pumpkin effect with black food gel "cobwebbed" to suggest pumpkin sections and give an artsy, gothic take on a fall pumpkin. To make those, I swirled orange food gel into a small portion of white royal icing using a toothpick, and then dipped the cookies into the icing. This swirled effect achieves different shades of orange, and turns out a little different each time! I used a toothpick dipped in black food gel to make pumpkin-esque design swirls on the marbleized pumpkins, and also to draw the ghost eyes and mouths in varying stages of fright.!

The big tip to create and maintain a pumpkin shape with a round cookie, is to outline the sections first with royal icing, and let them dry slightly before filling them in.! The outlines result in a more defined shape, as the royal icing that you use to fill up the space may puff up and expand slightly depending how much icing you use.

I drew faces on a couple of the pumpkins (also using a toothpick dipped in black food gel) to create some fun jackolanterns.!

Pink roses & daisies cake

 I made this special cake for a very special lady's birthday- my Grandma just turned 93 years old! She loves pink anything and everything, and needless to say loved her cake so much she didn't want me to cut it at first!

 I made white roses and varying shades of pink blossoms using royal icing, which dries hard. I used gumpaste (an edible clay-like substance) to make the daisies. Edible champagne colored lustre dust and edible glitter and sugar pearls were all used to further embellish the cake.

 Here's Nina with her (almond buttercream sour cream) cake.!

Nina was also thrilled with my pink hair 😂💞

Galaxy Cake

 I had so much fun making my first Galaxy cake! After crumb coating and chilling a layered 6 in cake, I split up the gelatinous white chocolate mixture into several different  bowls.

 I used food gel to make aqua, navy blue, black, orange, red, yellow, and green icing. I then poured each one over the cake in whatever fashion I desired, creating a swirled painted effect.

 You can use any combination of colors- I'm looking forward to making more Galaxy cakes in the future now that I know how simple the technique really is!

 I balanced the cake on a cake plate on an overturned vase to allow the icing to drip and collect in a cake pan.

 Disco dust edible glitter and edible sugar pearls completed the intergalactic look!

Elephant cookies

 I got to make these cute elephant cookies for a bridal shower! The woman in charge of the shower presented me with a few sample images of what she was looking for, and I was able to brainstorm myself, and incorporate the wedding colors into the design I ended up using.! They turned out so cute!

First, I baked the sugar cookies (cut out using a custom elephant cookie cutter), and allowed them to cool completely. Then, I mixed up a batch of royal icing. Royal icing is really handy to use for cookie decorating because it dries completely with a clean finish, and easy to manipulate with a little bit of patience (well a lot of patience, let's be honest, it takes forevvvvver!) The biggest tips to using royal icing successfully are to keep unused icing covered tightly with Saran wrap (it can and will dry out super quickly otherwise), and to allow outlines to dry for a few minutes before flooding with thinned out icing (or your design may bleed).

Follow my creations and adventures on Instagram! : Ascakery

Spring Flower cookies

My friend requested birthday cookies, so I decided to make a variety of colorful spring flowers and butterflies! I used royal icing for both. For the flowers, I piped the outline of each cookie and the outline of each center using stiff consistency icing. I made sure that the outlines were dry before flooding each cookie with thinned out brightly colored royal icing. For the butterflies, to do the cool swirly marble effect, make thinned out royal icing and use a toothpick to swirl different pops of color with food gel, then dip the cookies! Couldnt be easier and looks awesome!

Bridal shower cookies

 I like to make cookies too! It's not always all about cakes.! These were made for a bridal shower, as you could hopefully guess. First, I made a super yummy sugar cookie dough with a hint of almond extract as the surprise to make it next level. I used a large canning jar ring to cut out these cookies since I'm all for being inventive and didn't feel like buying a circle cookie cutter.

After baking and cooking for a few hours, I whipped up some royal icing. Royal icing dries hard, and is tricky to work with because it dries out really quickly. I put plastic wrap tightly over the surface of any royal icing that I'm not using immediately so I have more time to work with it. First, I piped the circle outline of the cookies with stiff consistency white royal icing. Let this dry completely. Then, thin out some of the white icing stirring in small amounts of water until icing dripped from a spoon pools into itself. Use this icing to flood the surface of the cookie, inside the circle dam you just piped. Let this dry completely. Then, I piped a border and script on each cookie with royal icing I colored using food gel. This was tedious and I felt like I was contributing to my future carpal tunnel but I was happy with the result!

Hot chili peppers cake

This was a quick last minute cake I made today for my mom's friend. She asked for a plain cake. What is a plain cake? Give me an idea and I'm going to immediately over complicate it and come up with several different ideas and concepts to add to it. Chili chocolate cake.?! What colors.?! What can I add to plain? How plain??

 So, while this cake was technically simple, it was a good lesson in reigning myself in when applicable. Simple is not bad. I decorated the cake by piping some chili peppers and flames with icing colored with food gel.

Paisley design airbrushed cake

Ohmygosh.! So my best friend recently gifted me with an airbrush kit (😁😁😁) and being a crazy cake person, decided to take advantage of the freak spring blizzard by christening my airbrush.!

So I decided to make a chocolate Oreo cake with mint icing, because...Why not.?! I didn't have any fondant- I can't wait to use the airbrush on a fondant cake- but had a great time playing with my new decorating tool! I layered purple with pink and blue because I like those colors. 

 

 Looks pretty sweet, right.?!

 Then, I decided to pipe random Paisley designs with black icing because I like them.! I started with a simple flower outline and expanded outwards with swirls and loops and other accent shapes and dots.

 Edible sugar pearls made the cake really pop.! Love it. :)

Mario Cake

 My favorite little muffin just turned 5 years old.!!! Can't believe it. So of course I had to make him a Mario cake. He's been into Mario everything since I gave him my old n64 and games.

 This little goomba is the first figure I made for the cake.! I shaped him out of gumpaste tinted with food gel.

 Mario and Luigi I traced using royal icing. It makes decorations that can be more detailed but are very fragile.

 Here's my little sweet pea! He loved his cake!

 Here we are enjoying his party!

Weight lifting cake

 I made a weight lifting cake.! I first baked the cake in 3 different round pan sizes, then cut the domed top off of each using a serrated knife to ensure a flat stacking surface. I made chocolate icing with a lot of cocoa powder so I would only have to add a small amount of black food gel to achieve a dark black color for the weights.

I used gumpaste tinted with a small amount of black food gel to form a grey weight holder clamp and the edge of a weight lifting bar. Gumpaste is an edible clay-like substance that hardens and is perfect for creating custom decorative figures. I piped on corresponding kg details for each weight, and a happy birthday message on the side of each weight!

UNC basketball cake

My cousin loves basketball and UNC, so I made him a UNC basketball cake! I made two 9 in round cakes and a cake in an oven proof pyrex bowl to form the basketball part. I piped netting around the bottom of the cake and accented the border with blue and white candies.

 Happy 26th birthday Chrissy!!!  🎂😊🍻🎁🎈