Dairy Free Cake...

Many of you know, and for those of you who don't you'll soon find out that my two youngest boys have issues with dairy.  Our middle son, has never really handled it, from his very early life, when I would eat dairy products and then later nurse him he would projectile vomit...not a pretty picture.  I had to eliminate all milk by-products and soy products as those seemed to be a trigger.  When we had our third son, we quickly learned that he had the same intolerances, after many tears, I remembered that I can eat a lot of things; I just have to make them from scratch.  This is a yellow cake that I made with canola oil and rice milk instead of margarine and regular milk.  I've made it a time or two, and really enjoy it.  I used some strawberries that I had left over from a cake I made this past weekend, and then topped the cake off with a quick frosting that is made of a Milk Free/Soy Free Margarine, Rice Milk and Powered Sugar. 

Enjoy!

40th Birthday Celebration

These cookies were for a set of twins who are celebrating their 40th birthday today.  Rumor has it they were going to be celebrating the "BIG" day at a Milwaukee Brewers game, but celebrating with a little tail gating first.  These cookies were part of the pre-game celebration.

Enjoy!

FORE!

This cake is for an avid golfer who is celebrating his birthday today.  The cake is chocolate with a generous layer of strawberries nestled in between the chocolate cake.  The entire cake is then topped off with butter cream frosting.

 

Remembering those on Memorial Day

These are some cookies that I made in honor of Memorial Day, but in my “rush” to get them done, I didn’t take enough time to let them completely dry/set so they were enjoyed by some not so picky little boys in our house. 

MOPS Cookies

I made these for our MOPS year end brunch.  My goal was that they would help compliment the beautiful themed tables that were decorated for the brunch. 

Jedi Master Yoda

So the same boy that turned 6 and had a Yoda birthday cake will be passing out personalized Yoda cookies to his classmates this week.  Using the William Sonoma ® Star Wars™ cookie cutter I imprinted the outline of Yoda on each 3 inch round cookie.  Then I free handed added the detail to each face, and finished each cookie up with the kids name. 

Enjoy! 

“Do or do not... there is no try.”

I have to admit that my "Star Wars" knowledge is lacking, I remember watching the movies when I was a child with my older brother. I remember Yoda, Princess Leia, Hans Solo, and many of the other characters, but I’m not a “Star Wars” buff by any means.

I debated what to do and how to make this cake. At first I thought I would just do Yoda’s head, and then the debate was butter cream or fondant. When I was not pleased with how the Yoda head was turning out as I attempted to make it bigger, I started searching for a different image to use as my guide. I ended up finding one that was more cartoon like, I took the image and then made it larger on poster board. I was going to shape the cake like Yoda himself, but my husband reminded me if I left my cake in the original 11x15 size, I could feed more people.

 

This Yoda cake is a chocolate cake with butter cream, and hopefully he is able to help an awesome 6 year old celebrate his birthday. Enjoy!



Yoda Image I used as a guide



Soccer Ball Cake

Today happens to be "Meet the Coach" day for the youth soccer program where we live.  It also happens to be when a little boy is celebrating his 6th birthday.  I made this cake using my very first cake pan I ever received.  This pan was one that my dear husband bought for me before we had kids, before I "really" got into decorating cakes.  It has been sitting in our basement and it has moved with us at least 3 times.  I was excited to use it and make this cake.  The cake pan is a Betty Crocker “Bake ‘n Fill” you can do a variety of different things with the cake pan, filling an inner dome with say ice cream, cake or about anything else.  I opted to fill the inner dome with the same vanilla cake that I made for the outer dome.  So the inner layer and outer layer are separated with a layer of butter cream frosting, and then the outside is finished with butter cream frosting.

Enjoy!

Yo Gabba Gabba Cake

Here are a Yo Gabba Gabba Cake and Cupcakes that I made.  The insides are vanilla and I used food coloring to make it a "rainbow" of colors.   The outside of both the cake and cupcakes was done in buttercream.  I made the cake to resemble the boom box and made the cupcakes into some of the shows characters.  (I forget how small cupcake tops are…but I think they turned out okay)

Enjoy!



Example of rainbow cake/cupcake inside.



Boombox Cake with Cupcake Friends

Boombox cake

Graduating from UW Madison

As I posted earlier this week, Graduation Season is starting.  I made a few more Graduation Cap cookies some with tassels, some without and a few more “W” for the University of Wisconsin Madison.  When I packed up these cookies I had to arrange them differently than what I normally like to, as during my "photo shot" I lost a tassel.  These cookies are on the fragile side. 

Enjoy!

Eric's Benefit

I’ve followed Eric’s courageous story for the past 10 months, checking in on his Caring Bridge website multiple times a day, shedding tears as I read his journal update, yet I haven’t had the chance to meet Eric. 

 For months I have seen posters around town, and then one day I contacted his mom Sharron asking if I could donate some cookies to the silent auction.  

If you want to know more about Eric or his Benefit dinner and golf outing, please check out the following links. 

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ericmurrock


http://www.ericmurrock.com/



Allergy Friendly Cookies

Well these are not my “normal” cookies.  Actually altogether these were different, these cookies are “allergy friendly”.  I made these cookies for my son’s class, he was the “star” of the week, so all week I have tried my hardest to make different snacks for his class.  One of his classmates is allergic to both milk and eggs, so I purchased Soy Margarine and used an Egg Replacer to make these cookies.  The consistency seemed dryer than my normal cookies.  I think it maybe would have helped if I had chilled the dough before working with it, but seeing as it was 9:00 PM last night when I was making/baking these, I didn’t have a lot of extra time.  My taste-tester (my wonderful husband) reassured me that the cookies were “quite good”.  Since I choose to decorate my “normal” cookies with Royal Icing, and one of the main items in that is egg whites that wasn’t a choice, I made a quick pour frosting consisting of powdered sugar, rice milk and corn syrup.  They aren’t beautiful, but they are allergy friendly. 

 Enjoy!

Shaken not stirred...

I enjoyed making these Martini cookies; I hope they are a big hit. 

Enjoy!

Wisconsin Graduation

It’s getting to be that season where colleges and high schools start having their graduation. 

Our neighbor’s son-in-law happens to be graduating from UW-Madison this weekend.  These are for the family to enjoy this weekend. 

I’m sure my “IOWA” family members will be most disappointed that I would even consider making “WISCONSIN” cookies.  Oh, well. 

Enjoy!

Spring Fling Cookies and More

A very longtime ago, during cycling class my dear friend Karen asked me if I would donate to DOOR CANcer's Annual Spring Fling, http://www.doorcancer.com/ (Karen was asking for her co-worker). So here is what will be donated for the silent auction. Trying to stick with the "Spring Fling Theme" I made some tulip, butterfly, flowers and flip flop cookies.

This week is Teacher Appreciation week, so this plate of "Thank You Apples" are heading to some teachers, just a small way to say "Thank You" for all that they do for our kids.



The Martini was for my friend Teri



Today just happens to be the 5th of May, or Cinco de Mayo. I thought I would celebrate and take advantage of the holiday to try out my new Margarita shaped cookie cutter. So here is my first attempt at Margarita cookies...paired with some sandal/flip flop cookies.  If I think it is warm, maybe it actually will be.

Chocolate dream come true

I don't know if it is intrigue or what but I have been making this cake a lot since I first made it in late January. I referred to it as “THE ROB”; back then as that was who it was for. The name has stuck and I’ve made quite a few.

It is a simple 8-inch chocolate cake with a very generous layer of chocolate butter cream frosting with another chocolate cake. The entire 2 layer cake is then coated in more chocolate butter cream and then topped off with chocolate shavings. I've said it before...this cake is only for those that "Really, Really" like chocolate. 

Enjoy!