394.262 (Secular holidays - Holidays of March, April, May) - A Memorial Day Post

My mother's church has an annual Memorial Day bake sale. The church sits right on the parade route, so as long as the weather is decent (which sometimes happens in Wisconsin), they do pretty well. Since I was in town for a surprise party that day, she asked me to bake some cookies for the bake sale.

I've been wanting to try the "stained glass" cookie technique for a while, so here are the awesome results!

The hubs helped with these cookies, for which I was EXTREMELY thankful. They're kind of a pain!

I made my normal sugar cookie dough (the one out of the Betty Crocker (c)1973 cook book) and cut out stars using two different sized cookie cutters. After a little SCIENCE!, the hubs and I discovered that the best way to make them without either a) the candy melting too fast and then becoming bubbled and burnt or b) the dough being under cooked was to follow the steps below:

1. Bake the cookies for 2-3 minutes on the parchment paper lined sheet before adding the candy.
2. Remove the cookies from the oven and add "large-ish" chunks of jolly rancher to the center of the cookie, using more candy than you think you'll need to ensure complete coverage of the inside of the cookie. Also, doing this carefully so no candy ends up on the dough itself, but stays on the inside of the cookie.
3. Bake until all of the candy has melted (another 3-5 minutes) and the cookies appear a little brown around the edges.
4. Use a toothpick to quickly (and carefully) spread liquid candy to any blank spots.

Instead of wasting or re-rolling the middles I cut out of the cookies, I baked the middles and then frosted them with a simple pour-frosting (Wilton recipe).

They definitely turned out beautifully, though! I've got to hand that to them! And if you like jolly ranchers, they're pretty taste-y, too!

A few more pictures for posterity, right?

Cooking in the window - I love the reflection on the window sill!

Cookies in my mother's antique glass bowl. Aren't they patriotic?

Closeup on my favorite cookie of the batch - I love the way the color swirls!

793.2 (Parties and entertainments)

I just hosted a bridal shower for my best friend and her future hubby, and with the help of my mother and the bride and groom's mothers, we turned a basement room of a local art museum into a cheery, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" themed shower space.

 I bought vases, beads, and tiny square mirrors at our local Dollar Tree to create 10 small centerpieces to decorate the tables using dyed daisies, carnations, and baby's breath.

I purchased "high quality" plastic silver ware and plates from Party City. I then baked and decorated sugar cookies, which I packaged in paper CD sleeves and tied with black and white bakers twine. Silver chargers (left over my my own wedding almost 3 years ago) were used to complete the place settings.

When we arrived at the museum, my moms (my actual mother and my "other mother", the bride's mother) discovered that the tables weren't the size we thought they were - we were expecting tables that sat 8 and these tables sat 6. We had to go out and buy some tablecloths last minute... and since Manitowoc (where we hosted the shower) doesn't have a Party City, we couldn't match the Tiffany's blue of the other tablecloths I purchased). It wasn't as pretty as I would have liked, but it worked.

And of course I made a cake and cupcakes for the party! How could I not!?! The cupcake tower is made out of aluminum covered soup cans and foam core board covered with craft paper and ribbon. It was cheap and easy and could hold almost 40 cupcakes.

The small orange and white cake had a blue ombre interior, which I didn't get a picture of before the cake was eaten and destroyed, and the cupcakes were chocolate with simple vanilla buttercream. I had a mixture of paper and foil liners on the cupcakes, as I was using the leftovers from other projects.

I made three floral "puffs" that I placed on chargers and mirrors at the center of the buffet table. They're a little hard to see in this photo (it's white against a white background) but they were very effective at making the buffet table look pretty. My black and white damask tablecloth that I usually use for summer picnics came in handy to cover the extra long buffet table.

All in all, it was a successful shower with delicious food and good company! One less activity to cross off my list before the wedding in June... now if only the table runners and bridesmaid clutches would sew themselves...

741.642 (Children's Books)

UW-Madison hosts an annual Edible Book Festival where groups or individuals make representations of books out of edible materials. A few of my colleagues at Memorial were directly responsible for putting the festival together and I decided that I should probably create an entry for the festival.

I had a tricky time choosing a book to work with - I was torn between two different books - but my students at the elementary schools where I work and my fellow SLIS grads helped me decide to go with my favorite picture book of all time: "We Are In a Book!" by Mo Willems.

I decided to go a little punny with my cake and change the phrase "We Are In a Book" that is shouted by Elephant and Piggie to "We Are On a Cake" and my little punny turn-o'-phrase ended up winning me a prize! I won the "Funniest/Punniest Cake" award and took 2nd place in the People's Choice vote!

My cake also became famous, getting coverage on Eating in Madison A to Z and I was quoted in a UW Library News & Events article written by a fellow SLISer! Oooh, and a Flickr set of all the entries! Without further ado, the cake!

779 (Photographic images)

So, this isn't a post about cake (there'll be one this week yet, promise), but it is about my kitchen, or more specifically, about my refrigerator  Like many fridges, mine has collected a plethora of magnets, photos, save the dates, and other various pieces of paper. It looked something like this:

Before

Now it looks something like this:

After

After seeing this post from A Diamond in the Stuff on Pinterest, I thought I should try a fridge photo gallery of my own.

I went to the Dollar Store and bought 7 dollars worth of picture frames and a dollar worth of glue.

4x6 frames without glass and back

I removed the glass from the frames and the stands from the cardboard backer.

"Leg" removed from backer

 I then gave the picture frames a spray coat of plastic primer, and then a coat of spray paint.

Primer coat

Spray painted frames

Once the frames were dry, I put the glass back into the frames and mounted pictures. Once the pictures were firmly inside the frames, I glued magnets onto the backs of the picture frames.

Magnets added

I then put the pictures back on the fridge:

After

In my opinion, a THOUSAND times better - the frames look nice on the fridge and will make it easy for me to switch out photos when I want to put up new ones. Leaving a little bit of space blank let me rotate out new pictures of my nephew and other updates, such as new save the dates and appointment reminders.

745.926 (Three-dimensional arrangements for special occasions)

My brother-in-law is a Marine and he and his lovely bride were supposed to be married this July, but being a part of the Corps, my brother-in-law found out that he'll likely be shipping out sometime in September. This meant that the wedding that was supposed to happen in July had to happen sooner... and the two of them went from having 5 months to plan to having 5 weeks to plan and I suddenly became a florist!

I figured I'd post pictures of the bouquets and centerpieces. The bride ordered the flowers from Costco and had them delivered to my door the Wednesday before the wedding. They arrived in boxes that looked like this:

I had to de-thorn and de-leaf all of the roses (300 stems) and make sure that they were placed in water. With so many different stems, they went in 5 gallon pails and coolers to get transported to the bride's parents' house to be made into bouquets. 

It was the coldest 4.5 hour car trip the hubs and I have EVER had. The flowers had to be kept cool in order to keep them fresh and in good shape for the wedding. Looking back now, we should have had all the stems delivered Thursday, but we weren't sure on the time it would take for the flowers to fully open.

An afternoon was spent making 3 bridesmaid bouquets, the bride's bouquet, and 6 small table centerpieces. We picked up baby's breath the morning of making the bouquets before all the ladies (myself included) went to have our nails done. The bride and I then hit up JoAnn Fabrics to pick up ribbon and bouquet 'bling'.

While I'm not a professional florist (a professional florist would probably give me shit about my bouquet making skills), the flowers looked great for the day of the wedding and met all of the bride's expectations! Whoot! Here are the pictures of the flowers the day of the wedding. The professional photographers captured them much better, but I'm just glad they held up for the day.

I know it's not cake, but enjoy!

Bride's Bouquet

Bouquet 'Bling'

Bridesmaid's Bouqets (black centered gerbs for maid of honor)

Bride and Groom (as seen through centerpiece)

Table Centerpieces

641.568 (Cooking for special occasions)

A SUPER special occasion just happened - and that would be my husband's 30th birthday! My parents stopped down to celebrate with us and in order to better celebrate his birthday, I baked a cake and decorated it with my FAVORITE, SUPER SIMPLE type of decoration - the rosette!

6" layer cake (white) with buttercream icing

Having seen the technique a thousand and a half times on Pinterest, I decided it was time to try the all rosette cake cover for myself.

Ombre technique inside and out the cake

To stack, frost, and completely cover the 6" cake in rosettes took about 10-15 minutes and produces a BEAUTIFUL cake. I used the ombre technique in green (since it's my husband's favorite color) to make the inside just as pretty as the out. There's a thin layer of buttercream between each of the cake layers as well.

Green ombre using buttercream

I am completely in love with this cake technique and will DEFINITELY be using it again in the future!

635.3 (Edible leaves, flowers, stems)

So this post might not be about actual edible flowers, but it is about flowers piped with frosting, which is edible.

Royal Icing "Primroses"

The types of flowers I make most often are those made out of royal icing. The beauty of royal icing is that, like a well preserved book, the icing flower will last forever if stored properly. Royal icing flowers harden up and since they are made of only water, meringue powder, and powdered sugar, if kept in an airtight container in a cool place, they will last for years.

Royal Icing Violets, Roses, Lilies, and Daffodils

One batch of royal icing will make dozens of flowers. My Wilton instructor suggests making more flowers than you need for your project and simply store the rest for "quick cakes", and I'm apt to agree. Having a container of pre-made flowers in the cupboard is nice when you have to suddenly decorate cupcakes or need a "special" piece for a cake.

The down-side to royal icing flowers (if there is one) is that they are a little "crunchy" if not placed on buttercream long enough for them to soften. I personally like the crunch of royal icing, but not everyone does. Many royal icing flowers can be make with a stiff buttercream icing as well.

Petal technique on cupcake in buttercream icing

Petals made with a LARGE petal tip and a slightly stiff buttercream can cover a cupcake, giving it a very feminine appearance. Large "Wilton" roses can be piped onto a cupcake using the same petal tip, as seen at center bottom below:

Petal technique on cupcakes, including a buttercream rose.

I use a Wilton tip# 125 to cover cupcakes with petals, and a Wilton tip# 104 for my more "normal" sized roses and petaled flowers.

Piped flowers are only one type of floral technique I use on cakes and cupcakes. More types of flowers to come soon... perhaps even an ode to my favorite "floral" technique, the simple and under appreciated rosette.