Tennessee Sugar

This is a cake I make at least once a year.  It is one of my husband’s favorite cakes so I always make it for him on his birthday.  It is definitely a good one to make for a group of people because it makes a lot of cake :)

Last week I had the privilege to make these super cute sugar cookies for a friend’s daughter for her Spa themed birthday party! She emailed me a picture a couple of weeks before the party and asked if I could do something similar.  This is the cookie I came up with.  I was very pleased with how they turned out and I think the birthday girl was too :)

Well about 6 months ago my sweet Mackenzie told me that she wanted to have a Tangled birthday party.  I was very excited about the theme and could not wait to come up with the treats for it.  One of my favorite things to do is throw birthday parties for my daughters :)  I love the decorating and of course the baking.  We had my iced sugar cookies which have been a birthday tradition in our family since my oldest daughters First birthday party- the only thing that changes is the shape.  I also made chocolate covered Pretzel rods that looked like Rapunzel’s tower and then cupcakes.  I made a special  Rapunzel tower cupcake for the birthday girl.

How to make the Rapunzel Tower cupcake:

Supplies:

Toilet paper roll

a Dowel rod

Various shades of grey paint

Ice cream cone

purple candy melts

yellow embroidery thread

black cardstock

You will paint your toilet paper roll to look like a stone tower and take the embroidery thread and make a braid. The ice cream cone you will want to coat in the candy melts.  Cut the dowel rod to the height you want the tower to be including the Cupcake on top and then hot glue it sticking straight up on a paper plate.  Once you have baked your over-sized cupcake you will want to first put the toilet paper roll and then place the cupcake on top of the dowel rod.  Next you will take purple icing and ice the cupcake and then place the ice cream cone on top.  Finally cut a window out of the cardstock and attach it with the braid coming out of it to the side of the cupcake.  There you have it a very cute Rapunzel tower cupcake for your birthday girl

Rapunzel Tower Pretzels

These are the pretzels I made for the party.  To make them you will need short pretzel rods, bugles and some candy melts  and royal icing.  I first took some white candy melts and melted them and then added just a touch of Super black icing color to make it grey.  Then I dipped the pretzels in my grey “chocolate” mixture and put a bugle on top and laid it down on wax paper to harden.

Once they are done hardening you will want to melt your purple candy melts and then dip just he bugle tips into the purple and lay them back on the wax paper to harden.  After they were hardened I took some royal icing and piped on the details (the window, braid and bow)

I looked around a little bit for some Rapunzel decorations, but there were not a lot and plus for me part of the fun is coming up with my own.  I ended up sticking with shades of purple for the streamers and balloons and used a few purple fake flowers here and there.  One of my favorite decorations was the long braid of Rapunzel hair that went all along the banister for our stairs.  I also made a Happy Birthday banner- something I have started doing for my girls parties the past couple of years.

If you need an idea for party favors what I did was bought water-color paints and made labels for them with a picture of Pascal and called them Rapunzel paints.

We had so much fun at the party and I think it was just what the birthday girl was wanting.  If you are thinking about doing a Tangled party for your sweet princess I hope that some of these ideas help you to have “The BEST day EVER!!!”

The Sweet Birthday girl!

I made these cupcakes last year for one of my daughters Valentines Day Parties at school.  I got the idea from the Martha Stewart.  They are quick, simple, yummy and of course super cute!  I decided to make them again this year so I could share them with all of you.

They really are simple for the cake I actually just used a Devils food cake mix and the icing is a chocolate ganache recipe they are enjoy using in various recipes for example in my Smores cookie-whiches :) so you can go there to get the ganache recipe.  I mixed my cake batter according to the package direction, and then filled my lined cupcake tin.  IMPORTANT- make sure you only fill them about half way otherwise the cupcakes puff up too much.  As soon as they were done baking I used a piping bag and filled the center with some Buttercream frosting (save some of your frosting to pipe your “love” on top)  If you are trying to keep things simple just use some store bought frosting, but you could also make your own buttercream frosting my favorite recipe is the Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.  While the cupcakes are cooling mix up you chocolate ganache once it is made I would let it set for about 5 minutes then take you cupcakes and dip them in the ganache until the tops are covered I usually go back through a second time and dip each cupcake once more.  Once they are all dipped you need to let the ganache harden I leave mine for a couple of hours.  Once the ganache is set take you piping bag switch out you tip and pipe the “LOVE” on top and you are done.  Super cute cupcakes that are sure to impress whoever you decide to share them with :)

We are getting ready to watch the big game tonight…really hoping for an Alabama win- ROLL TIDE!  We are going to go and watch the game with some friends tonight so I made these cute treats to take and share.  We are more College football fans so I went ahead and made them for tonight, but they would also be a great addition to a Super Bowl Party.

The cake part of the Whoopie  pie is pumpkin and I made a cream cheese frosting with just a hint of cinnamon as the filling.  To get the football shape I used a mini easter egg pan.  You could also just pipe out your batter into the football shape.

*also note to get a more brown cake for the footballs I added some brown food coloring paste to the cake batter*

The first time I had this yummy dessert I was sitting by a window watching Giraffes walk around right outside while my family was having dinner.  I was at Sanaa at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge which is one of my new favorite restaurants.

I adapted the  version of the recipe I found at  allears.net

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful Holiday season.  If yours is anything like mine this recipe is a perfect for you.  It is a super quick and simple way to whip up a yummy holiday treat for your Christmas celebration or to warm up after an afternoon playing in the snow!

Fix a mug of hot chocolate using either store bought or homemade hot chocolate mix- once your hot chocolate is ready just add a shot of peppermint liquor and top with whipped cream and crushed up candy canes and you have a cute and tasty adult holiday beverage.  This drink is the perfect paring for almost any Christmas cookie :)

We will be heading over to my mom’s house tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with my family this year and of course she requested cookies.  Every big family gathering I go to my mom asks for my iced sugar cookies and of course I oblige.  This year up until I was about to make my dough I had planned on just doing some simple fall leaves, but then of course Pinterest sucked me in.  I don’t know about you all but I love Pinterest I could spend all day long pinning treats and crafts I want to try.  Anyway as I was saying I was checking email and saw I new friend was following me so I went and took a peek at her boards and saw the cutest little turkey cookies- I was sold!  I immediately headed to the garage to get my cookie cutter bin out in search of what I needed-Valentines day cookie cutters (yes you read correctly)  I did alter mine slightly from what I had seen on Pinterest they used 3 single heart cutters to form their feathers and I went with a double heart.  There were 2 reasons I changed it up- 1. I liked the look a little better and 2.  I was not going to attach mine I just wanted to lay them out for presentation but hen have more single cookies for people to grab and enjoy :)

So making these cute little Turkeys is quite simple- you need a heart or double heart cookie cutter mine looks like this

and then a circle that is proportionate to your feather cookie- I just used a small glass jar I had.  Here’s a little secret I actually do not own any just plain circle cookie cutters I am always just using jars and glasses I have around the kitchen

Make up some sugar cookie dough- bake the cookies then ice and enjoy :)!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone- enjoy your day!

I wanted to share with you one of my family’s favorite fall sweet treats.  My girls love to enjoy a slice of this delicious pumpkin bread in the mornings before school and it also makes a delicious fall dessert.  There is a fun little tidbit about this recipe- the original recipe which I have adapted over the years actually came from my 3rd grade teacher.  I made a version of this pumpkin bread back when I was in 3rd grade.  It is true I have always loved baking :)  I am always tinkering with this recipe- I think every time I make it a change something here or there.  I am going to post the recipe as I made it today- one of my favorite batches yet

This recipe makes 1 dozen pumpkin muffins and a large loaf of pumpkin bread- you can also make all muffins or all loaves depending on your needs and wants.  For my muffins I wanted to give them just a little something extra so I whipped up a very quick and simple cream cheese glaze to dip them in.  It was a very tasty addition of course I had to taste it straight away to make sure it was yummy and blog worthy :)

 I hope you are having a wonderful fall!  This is the perfect treat to whip up

to share withfriends and family over the Thanksgiving holiday.

This year for Halloween my oldest daughter decided to be Hermione from Harry Potter.  Our long time friends we trick or treat with every year were all characters from Harry Potter as well.  There was a Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasly and Hedgwig in addition to my Hermione.  When I was trying to decide on what sweet treat to make for our Halloween dinner together I decided this was the perfect time to try out the Butterbeer cupcake recipe I found on the Sweet Tooth blog.

These cupcakes were definitely a hit with all our little Hogwarts students and the adults too.  Whether you are a Harry Potter fan or not I recommend you try out this recipe!

Hermione loved the cupcakes