Cupcake a Week: Gingerbread & Candy Cane Fondant Toppers

TGIF! It has been a CRAZY week in my kitchen and I am wiped out! My kitchen aid mixer has been running non stop this week...whipping up cupcake batters, sugar cookie dough, buttercream and royal icing. My mixer is definitely the one kitchen appliance I can not live without and I was so grateful to have it after this week of baking! I cranked out 250 decorated sugar cookies, 100 cupcakes and 140 cake pops in just 2 days for a big event that was last night! The event was a lot of fun and a huge success and I'm looking forward to sharing with you all the photos soon!

Here's a sneak peak at the cupcakes I made for the event! If you are looking for a simple way to spruce up some cupcakes for your next holiday party all you need is some fondant and small cookie cutters! By using some red and brown fondant I created these adorable cupcake toppers in the shape of gingerbread men and candy canes! You could also do trees, ornaments, bells, holly leaves or snowmen and switch up the colors too. I love how clean and simple the decorations turned out.

I can't believe this is the last weekend before Christmas! Randolph and I are headed to a "tacky sweater" Christmas party tomorrow night! I've been looking forward to this all week, what a fun idea for a party! I found some hilarious sweater vests to wear all decked out in snowmen, mittens and sequins. I'll be sure to post some photos of us in our festive holiday attire! I've already been joking around that we might just wear these sweaters when we head up to KY next week to see my family for Christmas!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Cookies & Cupcakes with Friends

Because it's Christmas and I love cookies, I hosted a party. I baked a ton of sugar and gingerbread cookies, bought loads of sprinkles and whipped up some royal icing! Then invited some of my closest friends over to do the decorating!

There were cupcakes too. Chocolate with Peppermint Buttercream. Gingerbread with Cinnamon Buttercream. Peppermint with White Chocolate Buttercream.

Everyone is in serious decorating mode!

It was fun to see everyone's creativity come through in their cookie designs and color choices!

I love all my cookie ladies!

Meet the gingerbread families!

Here's the newly engaged couple! With gingerbread creations in both wedding attire and honeymoon swimwear! What clever cookie decorators!

Cookies galore! My friends make gorgeous cookies.

By the end of the night, everyone was a little high on sugar and things started getting out of hand with icing and piping bags!

For all those Runners out there...

I just got home from a whirlwind day of Christmas shopping! Today I officially started my shopping and I'm excited to say I'm almost finished too, what a great feeling! Only 12 shopping days left, how is your shopping coming? If you are still looking for a gift for the runners in your life, I have got the perfect idea for you this year!

I am excited to say that I recently started a new small business selling a product for runners to keep their race memorabilia in. If you have been a long time follower of my blog then you know that I am an avid runner as well as a marathon coach for Team in Training. If you are new to my blog and want to know a little bit about my running background and why it is such an important part of my life then click here, here, here or here.

So now that you know a little more about my running journey, let me introduce you to my product...RACEDAY miles raced. memories made.

RACEDAY is the perfect organizational solution for all runners to preserve and display their race statistics, bib#s, race photos and other race memorabilia. If you are a runner you know what all this runner's jargon means...if you are not a runner and have no interest in running at all, then I'm sure you are bored to death as you read this! In simple terms basically this is a "scrapbook" type product for runners! Go check out the site for more specifics about the product materials and photos of the inside of the book!

I wanted to introduce you to this product as I have devoted much of my time and creative energy in developing it over the past two years! I am excited to say that I just recently launched the website to sell these books online and so far the response has been great!

So if you have been wondering why I haven't been blogging as much lately, I must admit RACEDAY has been taking up a good portion of my free time trying to get this product launched!

But since this is after all a baking blog, I did whip up a special batch of gingerbread cookies with the RACEDAY logo on them!

Right now I'm offering free gift wrapping on all books ordered during the month of December! Also, any order placed by December 20th will be guaranteed Christmas delivery! Come check out my Facebook page too! I'd love for you to spread the word about RACEDAY to all the runners in your life!

Thanks for taking the time to read about my new product! I promise there are many more holiday sweets coming up this week!

Cupcake a Week: Peppermint & White Chocolate

Last night I had a few friends over to decorate cupcakes and cookies! It was fun to share my love of baking and decorating with friends. I took tons of pictures of all the crazy cookie decorations and will try and get them uploaded this weekend, but for now I want to share with you one of the cupcake flavors from the party! Last year I made Paula Deen's White Chocolate Peppermint Cake for a Christmas party and it was a huge hit! So this year I decided to bake cupcakes instead! This recipe is absolutely amazing full of peppermint and red bits of color throughout the cake. A white chocolate buttercream on top is the perfect flavor compliment!

Add some mini candy canes on top and you've got one festive cupcake!

I can't believe this year is almost over and I've still kept with my cupcake a week theme for 49 weeks...wow that is crazy! There are still 3 weeks left for me to feature new cupcake recipes or decorating ideas! I've got a few ideas popping around in my head to finish off the year and holiday season, but if you have something you want me to try send me a message and I'll see what I can come up with!

Have a great weekend! Check back soon for more holiday goodies!

Holiday cards are on the way...

Christmas Cards are addressed...

the tree is decorated

and I've already watched Charlie Brown's Christmas!

Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

This is our favorite Xmas song!
It's a wonderful December so far!

Chocolate & Peppermint Whoopie Pies

First up...I just posted the winner of the $55 CSN store giveaway...check here to see if you are the lucky one!

Next line of business...PEPPERMINT! Since pumpkin was the star of the show during November I figured it was only fair to followup up December with another great "P" ingredient, Peppermint! I enjoyed making pumpkin whoopie pies so much that I wanted to tackle this delectable sandwich cookie once again and make some Chocolate & Peppermint Whoopie Pies! I think I'm in love! Look out York Peppermint Patties there's a new Mint treat in town!

I first discovered Whoopie Pies from Bakerella when she did a post back in July from the book Whoopie Pies. Let's just say this book is on my Christmas list!

You really can't go wrong with anything from Bakerella's site so I decided to give the chocolate whoopies a whirl! Chocolate and peppermint are a perfect combo so I whipped up a batch of peppermint buttercream for the filling to create this delicious holiday treat! A little sprinkle of crushed candy canes on the edges, jazzes up these sweet little cookies!

Classic Chocolate Whoopie

adapted from Whoopie Pies (I used granulated sugar instead of dark brown sugar...everything else is the same)

Ingredients:

-1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
-2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
-1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
-4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
-4 tablespoons vegetable shortening
-1 cup granulated sugar
-1 egg
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1 cup milk

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• In a bowl, sift together, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
• In another bowl, beat butter, shortening and sugar with a mixer on low until just combined. Increase speed to medium and beat for about 3 minutes.
• Add egg and vanilla and beat for two more minutes.
• Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk and beat on low until incorporated. Repeat with remaining flour and milk and beat until combined.
• Using a tablespoon, drop batter on baking sheet two inches apart. Bake for about 10 minutes each or until pies spring back when pressed gently.
• Remove from oven and cool for about five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.

Makes 50 cookies, enough for 25 pies.

Peppermint Buttercream

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
-4 cups confectioner's sugar
-1/4 cup milk
-1 teaspoon peppermint extract
-6 candy canes, crushed for garnish

• In bowl of electric mixer cream butter on medium speed.
• Gradually add confectioner's sugar and milk and mix well.
• Mix in peppermint extract.
• Place peppermint buttercream in plastic bag and pipe a dollop on flat side of cookie. Sandwich together with another cookie.
• Sprinkle filling with crushed candy canes!

One bite of these babies and you will have the freshest breath in town!

Cute as a Button Pink & Gray Baby Shower

Can someone pinch me please! I am beyond excited to share with you that my Cute as a Button baby shower has been featured on the truly amazing Amy Atlas site today! Go check it out here! I have talked about Amy before here on my blog, and I cannot say it enough, her creativity, style and passion for all things sweet truly is an inspiration! She creates the most elegant, elaborate and fun dessert tables for all types of occasions!

So with my cousin Suzi being pregnant with her first baby, a little girl due on Christmas Eve, I knew I had to pull out all the stops and create an amazing shower for her! I had recently created some cute as a button cupcake skewers for my friend Kelly after she gave birth to her twin boys just a few months ago so I decided to take that idea and run with it.

First on the agenda was to come up with a color palette and create the invites. Since she was having a girl the obvious color choice was pink. I wanted the shower to feel a little more sophisticated so I decided gray would pair nicely with the pink. The whole idea behind the shower was to keep things clean, simple and homemade.

The invites were hand assembled with all materials being found at Michael's. The base of the invitation was a silver metallic stock that came with matching envelopes. A pink textured paper was placed on top of the silver and the main invite was printed on a white card stock. The invite was embellished with paper buttons using Martha Stewart's button punch.

My sister and cousin jumped on board to help me bake and decorate and we were able to pull of a super sweet dessert display! There were of course all sorts of yummies, from sugar cookies, pumpkin cupcake skewers and a yellow cake with a swiss meringue buttercream piped on as ruffles! I love love love the ruffle technique! This was my first time attempting the ruffles and I can certainly say it won't be my last! I first saw this technique from Melody Brandon of My Sweet & Saucy. She even has a video tutorial for how to use the ruffle tip. You should try this, its lots of fun, I promise!

Here's the entire dessert display!

Onesie sugar cookies with fondant pink buttons. Definitely "cute as a button"!

All party guests took home little pink boxes tied with silver ribbon packed with mini sugar cookie buttons. The boxes were a steal I just happened to stumble across at TJMaxx...love that store!

Guests also left with their own jar of sugar cookie mix. The glass jars were from HomeGoods. By wrapping them with a pink satin ribbon and pink button on top they make such a sweet gift!

A peak at the inside of the ruffle cake! YUM!

Here is one of my favorite features of the table...the ornament chandelier! This is a simple, super cute and inexpensive DIY project that will WOW your party guests! The clear ornaments and ribbon were bought from Michael's and filled with pink foam balls and silver beads. The silver matte and glitter ornaments were from the $1 bin at Target! I used 16 ornaments and tied the ribbon at varying lengths to create the chandelier! Since Suzi's baby is due on Christmas Eve what better way to tie in a Christmas element than with some ornaments!

The cupcake skewers were displayed using recycled can goods and wrapped with ribbon.

The pink trees were another great find at TJMaxx. Although they are intended to display jewelry they were cleverly re-purposed to showcase some dangling button sugar cookies to tie in with the shower theme.

Here's a picture of Me, Suzi (the mama to be), my cousin Betsy and my sister Emily!

It was a great day filled with family, sweets, and all things pink!

I am all about creating an amazing display without the huge price tag, and I think that was successfully accomplished with this event! I hope you enjoyed this shower and found some inspiration in the theme or design elements used!

If you're still getting your house all decked out for the holidays and have some extra ornaments laying around, why not make an ornament chandelier! You could dangle it from a doorway and use it as mistle toe, now there's an idea!