So, I've made a bunch of cookies in the past few months, but I haven't posted any on here because this was originally a cake decorating blog. This quickly changed when I tried the tastiest cookie ever. They are called Brownie Chip Cookies and I found the recipe on the back of the white chocolate Chipits. I originally went to buy milk chocolate chips, but they were all sold out, so I bought those thinking I'd make reversed chocolate chip cookies. Once I saw the recipe on the back included the word "brownie" I HAD to make them because I LOVE brownies!


Here's the recipe off the Hershey's website:

BROWNIE CHIP COOKIES

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cup (325 mL) golden shortening
• 1 cup (250 mL) packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon (7 mL) vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup (550 mL) all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) cocoa
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt
• 3 tablespoons (45 mL) milk
• 1 package (225 g) (1) CHIPITS® White Chocolate Chips
• 1 cup (250 mL) chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F (180°C).

2. In large bowl, beat shortening, brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla, until creamy.

3. In medium bowl, mix flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternatively with milk.

4. Stir in white chocolate chips and chopped nuts, if using. Drop from spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

5. Bake 8 to 12 minutes. Let cool 1 minute; remove to wire rack.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Just finished making the cookie batter:

Baking in the oven:

All finished and ready to eat:



They were so gooey and yummy. Within a day or so, all of the cookies were eaten!

First Cakes

Here goes the first cake post. I'm semi-new at blogging, so I'm not really sure how to go about it, but I figured I'd start with some pictures of previous cakes I've made/decorated. I took the first Wilton Course and came out with some pretty disastrous cakes, but I figured I'd post them anyway. I did learn alot from the course and have decided to teach myself some more. The thing I find the hardest about a cake decorating hobby is having time to bake/cool/prepare and then decorate the cake. So anway, here are some cakes that I've decorated:

The first cake was this pumpkin one. It was originally supposed to be a rainbow or something, but I decided to be rebellious and make a pumpkin one. So, the point was to have a stencil of whatever it was you were going to make then outline it using some gel OR by just poking tiny holes around the stencil and cut outs. The pumpkin went on a little squish, which is the main thing I don't like about the cake. Also, I ran out of icing, so I didn't get to do a border around the top! I learned to always have extra icing, and to make sure that the stencil is in the middle from now on.




The next cake is the clown cake. Basically you just buy those heads (which I thought were kinda creepy until I actually got them on the cake... here they just look happy) and then pipe out the body, legs, arms and feet. Then you stick the head on and voila, clowns on a cake! Sorry, there's a lot of pictures, but I wanted to have a good picture of each clown. As well, I believe I had to make this cake twice (I'm not sure if it was this cake or not) because the first one stuck to the pans... so I was literally rushing myself to get the cake baked and iced before the class. I learned never to do this. Give yourself PLENTY of time to do everything!








The third and final cake was the Rose Bouquet. It's pretty cute and I did get to learn how to make the roses, which I love. The roses are off to the side a little because I left space to write something on it. I ran out of time in the class to write something and got lazy to finish it when I get it back home.





There you have it, my first three cakes! Since then, however, I've made a few other cakes, one is a St. Patrick's Day Cake and the other is an Easter Cake.

Below is the St. Patrick's Day cake. It was my first time using fondant, and I think it was pretty successful for the first time. I never had a lot of time when decorating it, so it may look a bit rushed. The bottom picture is sideways and I wasn't sure how to fix it.

The next cake is the one I made for Easter. This is a chocolate cake made from scratch, and is supposed to be a nest. I'm not sure if you can tell that or not.


Here are a few chicks I made out of upside down cupcakes. I think I got the recipe off of Martha Steward's website.


Well, that's pretty much all of them for now. I believe there's a few cakes in between there, that I never took pictures of. Hopefully I'll find time to make more cakes soon, but I know for sure that you need to give yourself enough time to make them. Please comment on this with any cake decorating tips you may have!

Thanks,
Sara