Baking My Heart Out

I love to bake for any reason, at any occasion.  However, baking for a holiday is my favorite.  Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, whatever.  Well, I think I like Valentine's Day the best, because I love pink, red, hearts, and roses.  :)

I made two things this year, super yummy m-n-m cookies & cake push-ups.  Cake push-ups are super cute, but I'm still working on perfecting them.  They require a lot of frosting to be cute, and then aren't super yummy.  Unless you love frosting.  :)

Valentine's Day Cake Push-Ups.

Valentine's Day M-n-M Cookies.

I found this recipe for M-n-M cookies (just like chocolate chip but with candies instead of chips) and it looked just different enough from anything I've tried before, that I simply HAD to try it.  And who doesn't love pink, hot pink, red & white M-n-Ms?  I just don't want to know.

They were such cute little dough balls, and I think they really baked up very well!  They were super delicious and I'm ashamed to say the only other person I shared these with was my hubby.  (He's a lucky Valentine, isn't he?)

While the cookie dough chilled in the fridge (a very important steps if you want fat, fluffy, soft cookies rather than thin, crispy cookies) I baked a few cakes.

The cakes (devil's food and vanilla with red food coloring) went into the freezer (under several layers of plastic wrap and inside freezer storage zipper bags) for my future cake push-up extravaganza!

 I used a circle cutter to cut circles out of the cakes, and then I sliced them in half because I wanted the cake circles even thinner in order to fit as many pretty layers into the cake push-ups.

 I have so many pink, red and valentine sprinkles, candy corn, confetti, sugar, etc. that I knew this was the perfect opportunity to make cake push ups.

I made red, white & pink frosting.  (Red is hard to make when you use real butter b/c it's always going to be a shade of orange, but I don't mind. . . )

I simply layered the cake circles with frosting, sprinkles, more cake, m-n-ms, etc.  You get the idea...

I think the hot pink frosting with the dark chocolate cake was my favorite - so pretty!


And just what do you do with all of that leftover cake and frosting?  Cake balls for future cake pops, of course!!!

For more cake push-up photos, click here.

Sun Drop Cupcakes

I have been making a lot of cookies lately (see my last post) and I even made some cake pops over the holidays, but I haven't made cupcakes since November for my friends birthday.  My friends are the luckiest of all friends, because I often make them cupcakes for their birthdays.  Recently, a good friend asked me if I was going to make cupcakes for my OWN birthday.  I said no.  I hope they can make me some cupcakes for a change.  :)

So, a good friend of ours celebrates his birthday the day before my own!  We were set to have sushi with him, his wife & their daughter and I asked his wife if she had any cake plans (she's a bit of a "caker" herself)!  She said no, and I was SO HAPPY because I've been dying to try some "Sun Drop" cupcakes for awhile now.

For my friends in the north - Sun Drop is kind of a cross between Mountain Dew and Sprite.  It's a North Carolina soda, and our birthday boy is a true North Carolinian through and through.  He LOVES Sun Drop. 

I had actually never tasted Sun Drop before I made these cupcakes, and all of the recipes that I could find online used a box mix (even Paula Deen!) so I modified a Mountain Dew recipe.

You really just can't go wrong with lemon and lime, can you?

This recipe really appealed to me because it called for real lemon and lime juice & zest, and it was a from-scratch recipe.

My friends noted that the consistency was almost like a pound cake, which makes sense - it had 2 sticks of butter and four eggs!

Although I love to bake, every step of it (except the dishes) I really love the decor.  I was so excited to get to use up the rest of my pretty straws.

There is really nothing better than fresh citrus zest.  I just LOVE it!!!  Lemons, limes, oranges, whatever.  Give me something to zest and I'm a happy girl.

Because I was using the straws, I decided to use these little nut cups as liners.  I think they add a nice touch.

The zest didn't really come through in the raw or cooked batter, but man did they taste delicious!!!!

Sun Drop Cupcakes with lemon and lime wedges and a straw to drink up all that deliciousness!!!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 2012

I am not sure why I am so crazy as to think it is "fun" to make 12 different kinds of cookies leading up to the holiday itself.  I love cookies, so a little of it is just me wanting yummy tasty cookies.  I love giving cookies away at Christmas, so part of it is that.

After this last Holiday season, though, I realize that I only like to do this if we are not traveling to Michigan.  I know my family in Michigan loves cookies, but I can't quite get them all baked and ready to go before Christmas, while also working a full time job and trying to get Merry Martini's off the ground and shopping and all of the craziness that comes with Christmas.

But, I think I did end up making 11 types of cookies through all the madness and I'm pretty sure they were enjoyed by all!  Here are some highlights:

 Okay, I'm cheating a bit these weren't from Christmas but I made them last fall - "monster cookies" and they were the greatest cookies I've ever made or tasted in my life. 

 1. The first batch for Christmas were these festive "mint" blossoms but they weren't all that good.

 2. The next kind were "Salted Chocolate Caramel" cookies that were about the 2nd best cookie I've ever made in my entire life. 

 3. Of course I made frosted sugar cookies.

 4. I also tried Icebox cookies this year which really weren't all that great.  And very fussy!

 (They didn't even turn out all that cute.)

 5. I made Soft Gingerbread with white chocolate chips - so amazing!  They were awesome!

 Just look at that lovely molasses.

 Not pictured:
6. Chocolate Chip
7. Chocolate with peanut butter chips
8. Special K Bars
9. No Bakes
10. Peanut Butter Blossoms
11. Snickers Surprises

I think I only made it to 11, but right after Christmas I did make some chocolate chip/butterscotch chip cookies that were amazing!!!