Peanut Butter Candy Cookies

I believe that I have made these cookies on this blog before. But I don't believe that I posted the recipe the first time. I made them for Easter a few years back. I made them again today with the help of my daughter. She woke up asking to make cookies, I had planned to make them on Friday but she twisted my arm. Here is the recipe!

Peanut Butter Candy Cookies

(from the Favorite Brand Name Bake Sale Cookbook)

3/4 cup chunky peanut butter

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups quartered miniature peanut butter cups

1/3 cup milk chocolate chips or chopped milk chocolate bar

1. Beat peanut  butter and butter in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Beat in sugar, baking powder and baking soda until well blended. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat in flour at low speed just until combined. Stir in peanut butter cups. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 1 hour or until firm.

2. Preheat oven to 375°F. Form 1/3 cup dough into 1/4-inch-thick disc. Place cookies on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

4. Place chocolate in small resealable plastic freezer bag; seal bag. Microwave at MEDIUM (50% power) 1 minute. Turn bag over; microwave at MEDIUM 1 minute or until melted. Knead bag until chocolate is smooth.

5. Cut off very tiny corner of bag; pipe chocolate decoratively onto cookies. Let stand until chocolate is set. Stack cookies between layers of waxed paper in container. Store at room temperature up to 1 week.

The Superbowl is coming up on Sunday! Stay tuned for some (hopefully) very cute football-themed cupcakes! Not to mention I'll be doing a series of cupcakes this February for my summer wedding orders to taste and pick wedding cake flavors. So very excited!

Gender Reveal Cake

So gender reveal cakes are all the rage right now and my best friend just happens to be expecting her second child right now! She was so kind to let me design her a gender reveal cake for her big announcement! Since my friend and her husband haven't decided on a theme for the nursery yet I wanted to do something that was more about what the baby's sex would be and not so much baby themes. I got this cute idea to decorate baby onesies in boy and girl themes and hang them on a clothesline around the cake! So much fun! Here are some pictures of the onesies...

Adorable aren't they? So then I baked up a white layer cake (tinted for the big reveal) and iced it up with some blue frosting. Then I used some Japanese cracker cookie sticks for the clothesline poles and did some "string work" for the clothesline (I seriously am cracking myself up at this right now... cake decorator joke). Hung the onesies on the cake and placed one of the clever gender reveal taglines I have come across on the internet on top. I think this is the first cake that I have baked, decorated and delivered in 12 hours! So worth it though!

I love it when the cake turns out so clean (and problem-free)! Especially when the design came from yours truly! I really should start doing a lot more of my own designs. My daughter has a major plan for her birthday in September. May take me all of August to complete! For now though I think I am officially cake order free until April. Have to have some time off to practice some upcoming wedding creations. Yikes!

Care Bear Cake

It's January! That means that my adorable little niece is turning four! My family is always giving me new and inventive cake ideas to push my frosted creations to new levels. This Care Bear Cake was a great first challenge for a new year of cake decorating!

The biggest challenge for this cake was time. A lot happened this week. First it was a whirlwind weekend trip to North Carolina. Then there was the sad news of a high school friend passing. And to top it off there were mandatory work and dance class meetings. Fortunately I was still able to squeeze cake awesomeness in there. Sometimes life just happens all at once.

The only thing that I requested of my sister-in-law when she announced a Care Bear party for her daughter was that I would create anything she liked - as long as it did not include modeling Care Bears. Trademarked items are so hard to recreate! I have seen some true disasters in this area and have decided to leave all that cake jazz to professionals. So my sister-in-law ordered these adorable Care Bear cupcake toppers that worked perfectly for the cake!

Pinterest was the original inspiration for the cake design. I already had the cake stand used in the picture so that was set. Most of the pieces were pretty easy to sculpt by hand. I only had fondant on hand (no gumpaste) so I had to let them dry for several days. The stars were made with a handy cake mold that I got for Christmas (I used a cookie cutter for the stars on the sides of the cake). I didn't cover the cake in fondant since it was a children's party. Most kids just aren't fond of that chewy solid frosting. And parents? Forget about it!

Of course the biggest modeling challenge was the connecting rainbows. Fondant remains pretty soft unless you let it dry for weeks at a time. I didn't exactly allow myself weeks for this cake! Thankfully a 72 hour span seemed to work for this cake's rainbows but if I were ever to make it again I would use a gumpaste/ fondant mixture and let it dry for a week. The other challenge was the swing attached to the rainbow. I initially wanted to hang it from a hook attached to the back of the rainbow but the handle I made for the swing broke. So instead I used toothpicks "glued" in with piping gel. Necessity is definitely the mother of invention!

And so it all worked out. The cake was awesome. The party was awesome (have I ever mentioned that my sister-in-law is an amazing party planner?). My niece turned four with grace and... well.... awesomeness. Here's to a great year of new cakes!