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Last summer, my husband and I, along with another couple from church held a garage sale to help fund our adoptions.  We had planned to do this annually to continue to raise funds for the cause of adoption.  We were thrilled when we learned that yet another couple from our church was working toward an adoption.  This year, we are raising funds specifically for them.  We have been working all week to gather, price, and organize the many items that have been donated by family and friends.  The amount of stuff (and good stuff) is amazing! In addition to the garage sale, we will also be having a bake sale.  Here are a few of the cookies that I worked on yesterday to sell.  Hopefully, the weather holds and we are able to raise a lot of money for a cause so near to my heart.

Rhino Cake

 A technique I have wanted to try for over a year now is called frozen buttercream transfer.  I was given the opportunity to give it a try this week.  A friend was turning forty, and he LOVES rhinos.  While I initially envisioned a 3-dimensional rhino busting through the front of a cake, my husband reminded me that we did not have the time this week to take on that particular cake (make note of this for a future date).  Instead I chose a logo (blue rhino marketing) off the web and used this tutorial to accomplish this fun cake.  It was still pretty time consuming, but fairly simple and not stressful at all. 

This is four layers of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache between each layer (my friend is a huge fan of chocolate).  I used American vanilla buttercream for the logo and the exterior.  Crumb coat is a must when covering a chocolate cake with white frosting.  I was pleased with my final coat of buttercream...pretty smooth.  I used a hot offset spatula to accomplish this (dip your spatula in really hot water, wipe it clean, and use it to smooth your cake, it melts the buttercream a little for a smooth surface).  Follow behind with a viva paper towel to smooth out any bumps.  Not too shabby!  There was a bit of bleeding between the white and black as the transfer thawed.  I used Wilton food coloring, and I've heard some other brands are better for eliminating this problem.  Speaking of black frosting, I add cocoa powder to my vanilla frosting first (making it brown) before adding the black food coloring.  It is a lot easier going from brown to black than white to black.

Lace Sugar Cookies

A friend asked me to make some sugar cookies for a baby shower in Colorado.  This is the farthest my baking has traveled to date :).  The colors for the shower were burlap and lilac.  The mom-to-be was a fan of vintage lace.  When I googled lace cookies, I found a great tutorial and looked forward to these cookies with great anticipation!

I started with the purple border and flooded with tan.  I let them set overnight and spent over four hours piping the detail on 30 cookies.  I LOVE decorating cookies and was very pleased with the final product.

Half of the cookies had holes in them to string them with some ribbon and hang them from a tree branch.  The picture of the display is yet to come. 

Strawberry Cheesecake

I've never made a cheesecake before...at least not one that didn't come out of a Jell-o box.  A friend of mine had a birthday coming up, and her favorite dessert is strawberry cheesecake.  I found a recipe and did a bit of reading on how to successfully make a cheesecake.  It seems like it should be a very complicated thing.  The most important thing I learned was probably not to over beat once the eggs are added.  I topped this with stabilized whipped cream, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the whipped cream held up.  In order to get the hearts on top.  Before baking, place a teaspoon of the strawberry mixture around the outside and one in the center.  Run a knife through each glob making a complete circle.  Starting just above the strawberry glob in the center drag your knife through.  Though I marbled some of the strawberry in the cheesecake and added the hearts on top, I also served the cheesecake with strawberry topping on the side.  Pretty and delicious!

Baby Rump Cake

My little sister wanted to throw a baby shower for a friend.  She asked if I would help make the cake.  She sent me a few pictures of baby shower cakes that she liked.  One of them was a cake that I had seen before and thought was really pretty cute.  We decided to tackle the baby rump cake.  Again, short on time (did this in two evenings) so all I got pictures of was the final product. 

Night 1:  We made the gluten free yellow cake and raspberry frosting.  We also shaped rice crispy treats for the rump, legs, and feet.  We covered them in chocolate to try and fill in some of the divots.  I hadn't tried that before - and didn't think it really made a difference - maybe I needed more chocolate on top?  Anyway, we called it done for the night.

Night 2:  We split tasks here.  My sister began smoothing out the chocolate on the rice crispy body parts with a knife while I cut the cake into three sections, filled it and covered it with the raspberry frosting.  I find, with fondant covered cakes, the more layers of frosting inside the cake the better.  Next, she began coloring fondant while I covered the cake with white.  FYI, we did put some dowels in the cake and cardboard between the rump and cake to help hold some of the weight.  I added the ribbon around the border and created the bow.  Then, we tucked the baby rump in by covering it with a blanket and added some frills to the diaper.  While I did that, my sister cut out the circles and placed them on the cake.  Last, we put the feet on and added the toes.  Great team work and a really cute little baby shower cake!

Hello Kitty Cake Pops

 My daughter's 3rd birthday was quickly approaching and I was going to be out of town for several days leading up to it.  I was concerned that I would not have enough time to prep and execute the decorating of a cake.  I decided to try out cake pops.  I could make the cake and frosting ahead of time, shape them into cake balls and finish decorating them the morning of the party.  I love the bakerella website and drew my inspiration from her.  I didn't get pictures of the process as I was in a rush.  However, know that it may have been just as easy for me to do a cake.  These little gals were quite time consuming, and I ran into many difficulties.  But as always, I learned a few things and the final product was delicious. 

I basically followed bakerellas directions as to how to do these pretty little kitties.  A few difference: 1) I had to double dip my cake pops in the white chocolate as my daughter wanted chocolate cake.  In order to cover up the chocolate I had to double dip.  2)  I used royal icing for the eyes and whiskers.  I have the very same marker as bakeralla, but for some reason it did not produce very solid lines.  3)  I used royal icing instead of a mini m&m for the middle of the bow.  I decided to go with a pink bow rather than a red and I don't think they have pink mini m&m's. 

My daughter's favorite part?  Picking out all of the pink heart sprinkles (come with red white and pink) for Kitty's bows.  If you ask her, she'd tell you that she did the bows :). 

Onesie Cookies

I have wanted to make onesie cookies for a LONG time.  I saw them once on an episode of the Martha Stewart Show.  She actually wrapped them in clear plastic bags and handed them out as party favors - cute idea.  My neighbor asked if I'd make some cookies for a baby shower.  She explained to me that everyone who came to the shower was to bring a onesie.  The mom-to-be then had to guess which guest brought each onesie.  So, the idea was to make several different designs to kind of go with the theme of the game.

First, I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe and baked several onesie shaped cookies.  This was done using a wilton cookie cutter. 

I made a few different colors of thin royal icing and did a quick flood coat.  With some of them (light green in the back) I placed some blue drops on the cookie while the green was still very wet.  The blue sank right into the green and it looked like one solid coat.  Very neat!

Using some thicker royal icing I added some details. The plan was to use some mini dragees as snaps, but they didn't ship in time.  Instead I used the white royal icing and came back and painted it with a bit of silver luster dust and vodka.

  

All in all, I was pretty pleased with the way they turned out.