As many of you know, I’m headed to the Big Summer Potluck (#BSP2) this weekend! So, since I still need to do some laundry, pack, and wrap up 75 gluten-free sugar cookies I decorated for the event, I’m going to keep this short! I’m sure I’ll be sharing all fo the details about the event here…
I make red velvet cake (or cupcakes) all the time… My husband absolutely loves it, so it’s a pretty frequent request around here. So, in almost 2 1/2 years of blogging, you’re probably wondering why you’ve never seen a recipe for red velvet cake here on my site. It’s a valid question! Here’s the thing… I’m…
I try to mix it up and feature different blogs each week, but sometimes I find myself going back to the same ones. Do you ever find that you go through phases where you will love every single thing on a particular blog for a while, and then you move on to a new favorite…
This week has been a busy one for me… I haven’t had a lot of unusual appointments on my schedule, but I’ve been trying to accomplish a lot. In addition to my usual cooking, baking, and writing, I’ve also been in the process of redesigning the site… Making changes to the site are also pretty time consuming for me. I have been known to stare at different fonts for 2 hours at a time and rearrange the same widgets 10 times because I can’t decide which layout looks best!
When I think about Valentine’s Day, I immediately think of dessert. So, since Valentine’s Day is on Monday, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share a few of my favorite desserts from the past week. If you’re on a diet, I recommend that you stop reading now… These desserts are irresistible!
If you’re much like me, you’ve probably rushed around to finish all of your shopping and get the gifts wrapped so that you have next week to focus on food. Granted, I do make a lot of homemade gifts, so I don’t have ALL of my gifts done. But, I would much rather spend the week before Christmas in my kitchen listening to Christmas music while I cook and bake. It sure beats pushing your way through the super-crowded stores looking for last minute gifts! I suppose that it’s also a good time to clean the house if you have guests coming, but we won’t talk much about that.
Since I spent last week introducing you to more cookies than you could ever possibly bake during one holiday season (that’s a challenge… I dare you!), I thought it would good to focus this week’s Friday Favorites post on holiday entertaning! After all, we can’t live on cookies alone (or can we?).
This weekend, my younger brother got married!
Though I’ve been married for over 5 years, for some reason, knowing that my younger brother was getting married made me feel kind of old. Fortunately, since I was baking their wedding cake, I didn’t really have too much time to dwell on it!
After much deliberation, they settled on a small wedding cake with lots of cupcakes for their guests. Since I love to make cupcakes, I was thrilled… Plus (I have to be honest), it made my job a bit easier! I’ve been testing cupcake recipes for months, and the winning flavors were chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, and spice.
Since they got married in December, they chose a winter theme for the wedding, decorating with greens, berries, and lots of candles. The bride’s dress was ivory, so we went with ivory for the cake and cupcakes, as well. I made lots of small ivory gum paste flowers dusted with copper luster dust to decorate the cake and cupcakes. To match the Willow Tree cake topper, the icing on the cake was intentionally left a bit unfinished.
This weekend is my brother’s wedding. Those of you who follow me on Twitter or read my blog regularly may remember that I am baking their wedding cake – a small cake and lots of cupcakes, actually. As you can imagine, this week has been pretty busy for me, and the weekend will be no different!
Throughout the week I’ve been working on adding ivory ribbons to cupcake wrappers and decorating mini gum paste flowers. Now, today starts the baking frenzy. I’ve tried to keep up with blogging in the meantime, but things may be a bit slow around here for a little while next week as I do my best to get back into the swing of things.
In preparation, over the past few months, I’ve been trying lots of new cupcake and frosting recipes trying to find the perfect flavors for the wedding cake and cupcakes. So, I thought I’d share one of the frosting recipes with you today. This wasn’t a winning recipe for the wedding, but I thought it was pretty good. I used some butter rum extract from King Arthur Flour to jazz up a brown butter cream cheese frosting. It’s a great flavor combo for the holidays… If you like butter rum flavor, that is. The frosting has a definite rum flavor, which I like a lot. The frosting tends to steal the show, so it’s best paired with a simple flavored cake like a basic spice or vanilla.
I just love this time of year… Don’t you? The leaves here have started to change, and I have been enjoying the crisp, cold air in the mornings when I head out for a run. Plus, the holidays are right around the corner. Seriously… What could be better?
This time of year always gets me into the mood for holiday foods and comforting meals that warm up the chilly nights. I’ve already started contemplating all of the recipes I want to try for the holidays, so I think that may have influenced my picks a bit this week. If you’re in a chilly weather baking mood, I think you’ll like them, too!
It’s Friday again, and fall is officially here. We’ve had a rather cool and dreary week this week, and I’m really not complaining. It’s been nice to pull out the sweaters, do some fall baking, and drink hot cider in the evenings! So, as you might have expected, a lot of this week’s favorites have a…
