Sugar cookies part 1 - birds

There were some more work birthdays coming up, and I was wondering how I could mark those occasions too.  I wanted something that would suit more than one person, and could be personalised. I follow a fair few cookie pages on Facebook and thought - aha, cookies!  

I have made roll-out sugar cookies before, and tweak the recipe slightly regarding bake times each time.  I haven't tasted anyone else's to compare, but wonder always if mine are the right crunch/soft ratio, or the right colour and so on.  Nonetheless, I went with my tried and true recipe (flavoured with a drop of caramel) and baked up a large batch of birds, circles and plaques (more about them to come).

The birds and circles were spares really, just done for fun - and then Mr Becca mentioned that he had a meeting to attend and did I have any spares for him to share with the participants?  Uh, yup.

As you can see, I had a few chocolate chunk ones, however they didn't bake up as well, because the chunks were a bit large I felt.  (the children ate those ones, and declared them perfect)  I decorated them in gorgeous shades of bright pink and green, and think they looked lovely.  He asked for them to be personalised with an initial, and the participants were all very impressed :)

Mixed birthday cupcakes for a man

When it comes to birthday treats for men, well, you need to know if they have a sweet tooth.  See many men prefer crisps to chocolate, and well, that's a whole new ballgame then.  

Luckily this chap was partial to chocolate, and vanilla.  So these mixed classic cupcakes were a doddle, and the blue, green and yellow designs - perfect!

Happy 60th birthday to a great guy...

Cookie decorating parties are such fun

Our girls are, possibly sickeningly for some, the light of our lives.  Really.  They drive us insane at times, but we really are glad they're about.  Would have been all sorts of fun with Mini-3 too, but sometimes you just need to deal with the hand you're dealt.  

Mini-2 has a birthday coming up soon, and a school friend who wanted to come over for a playdate.  Now this particular girl in Mini-2's class lives on a street with about 4 or 5 other girls in their year group.  And when they found out that L was coming over, well, they all wanted to come!  As you do when you're 6.  So they all came.  And I guessed it would be a madhouse for a couple of hours, so figured I'd call it an early birthday party and try to contain the excitement slightly.

Mini-2 chose the cake she wanted (see details in a separate post) and then chose cookie decorating as the activity.  Remember those edible food markers I bought a year or so ago for her 5th birthday cake?  Well they still worked, so were put to good use by the girls at the party.  As with last year, they all had a blast and were thrilled to take home their arty efforts.  Well done girls!

Big sis went for the stripy cupcake case and sprinkles with the red cherry again - ha ha.

Little sis (and birthday girl) decided to write herself a happy message

 Not everyone managed to complete their designs, but they were all happy with them.

Great work girls!

Becca does decorations, and holidays

The Team were invited to a friend's birthday party, and I was asked to make the party cupcakes.  All very thrilling, and right up our street... But we were going on a late holiday this year, in the October school holidays, to Australia (yes indeed, you read that right!  Australia!!  For the first time in over a decade, and thus with the children.  For nearly 40 hours door-to-door) and were leaving the day of the party.  So not only could we not attend, I couldn't make the fresh cupcakes.

So the mother had an inspired idea - could I make the decorations, and she'd make buy some cupcakes from the supermarket?  Sure thing I said...  Butterflies, flowers, birds and buttons - Happy 6th birthday E!!

One Direction, every little girls dream

It was that time of year again, D's birthday, and this year she was planning a One Direction themed party. They had so enjoyed the little lilac mini cupcakes from last year that that was the go-to idea for this year.  I started out with the little named decorations and let them dry out overnight.  Then made up dozens of mini cupcakes, all named and some even with the party-guests names on!  Then once they were decorated they were lined up and ready to be eaten.

Happy birthday D - hope it was fabulous!!

 

Say Happy Birthday with purple roses

This lady loves purple.  She asked for light and dark purple roses on mini cupcakes to be the centerpiece of her birthday celebrations.  I had made sugarpaste roses before, but only once or twice, so confidently said, sure thing, I can do that!
Then spent far longer than anticipated on getting them good enough.

I used vanilla bean paste this time, rather than the usual extract, so there were tiny little dots throughout the sponge and icing.  Lovely taste, will try this variation again soon. 

They went down a storm at the birthday lunch I believe, and her children took the leftvoers in to school the next day in their packed lunches.  And every other child wanted to trade snacks, yey!!

Mini cupcakes for little princesses...

Now that I work whilst The Team are at school/work, it's a bit trickier to organise my time for baking and other fun stuff.  And for more dull stuff, like making packed lunches and getting the kids to after-school activities on time and the like, sigh...  I guess this part is a work in progress, as I hone my time management skills in a new way - that's a positive way to look at things  :)

So for the big batch of mini cupcakes I needed for tomorrow lunchtime, I started on the sugarpaste decorations on Thursday night.  I had spoken to the parents of most the young girls in question, to find out their favourite colours as I had a plan to name and decorate cupcakes in matching colours.  

 

And you can see that The Team got their names in there too, in their favourite colours of green (Mini-1) and pink (Mini-2).  And no, before you ask, I don't have those tiny cute stamps in numbers, despite trying to locate some.

I got the cupcakes baked tonight, and am pleased that nearly all of them turned out well.  But oh boy, I made way too many decorations!  I had bought some cute Disney Princess and Disney Monsters University topper discs too, and didn't have enough cupcakes to use them all - oops.  I'm sure the girls will all be a) super excited to see so many mini cupcakes just for them, and b) to see their names in their favourite colours on said cupcakes.  Roll on tomorrow!

The girls range in age from 2 to 9, they'll all like Disney Princesses, right?

 I mean, who doesn't?

Aww, I just think they're so cute!  Hope the girls do too...

A cake can be the actual birthday gift...

This was a fun request - the cake was to resemble a bow-tied gift box!  It had to be in lilac and cream, where the icing was cream and the bow and any accents in lilac.  there were also to be matching cupcakes and it was for Laura's 21st.  Righto then, off to work.

I had recently seen a few bows done in a different style from that which I had learnt and sort of mastered, and was keen to try one out.  So I asked for a tutorial or some advice from another baker and she pointed me in this direction.  I found it really well written and easy to follow, et voila - I made lots and lots of loops!

Despite adding CMC powder to my sugarpaste so that it would be possible to roll it thinner and have it harden faster, I still made these a few days in advance and probably rolled them a little too thick.  I had been a bit nervous about how I would place and attach them, so did a couple of placement practices.  Until I found that you can't place any more than one layer without something to hold/bind them - oops.  Nevermind, the final run worked out well I think, and I used buttercream and a touch of sugarpaste to hold them in position.  I added the gift tag in last, as it needed to be soft so it could mould to the shape of the finished cake.  Suffice it to say that the customer was thrilled, and I heard back later that the birthday girl had absolutely loved it all.  Result!  Oh, and Happy 21st Birthday Laura   :)

It's not too obvious unfortunately, but some of the cupcakes have cute indentations on them that say 'party time' and 'happy birthday' with balloons.  Perhaps white wasn't the best colour for that?

Big girls like birthday cake too

I had a long and involved series of conversations with a loving Dad, who decided that for his daughter on her 21st birthday a broken iPhone was the way to go.  Seriously.  Apparently she'd managed to break about 6 screens between when she'd first got the phone and her upcoming birthday.  Crazy clumsy.  But she had been sensible and purchased insurance, so was fine.  Until the next time that is.  I was quite impressed that he knew his daughter so well, and he chose a classic victoria sponge in black and white for her.  And she loved it.  Happiest of birthdays to you Chloe!

My first models

At the end of either of the two afore-mentioned practice sessions, we tried our hand at making models.  Despite buying myself a book, I hadn't yet tried making any of the models featured within.  Partly because I was scared of how poor they may be, but also because on the nights I don't have a cake to bake and decorate or prepare for, I like to lounge around and relax, watching tv or reading a book - or sometimes both.  Then there are those nights when I need to do the ironing, or business admin, or upload family photos from whatever we happen to have done recently, and so on...  In short, not work.

So I had been kinda lazy.  And then they said we'd try making penguins, because they were sort of Christmas-sy, and easy.  Uh, ok.  

And actually, it was fun.  Slightly tricky, but not awfully so.  We made them completely by hand, with  no tools at all for assistance, so we'd know how to do it for future reference.  I didn't get the pupils of my eyes in quite the right position, but hey, he looks fun, right?

 Here's the full gang's array - super cute huh?!

Then we tried Christmas trees, again because they were supposed to be easy.  Uh, yeah - if you have years of experience and tiny little pointy scissors.  And a steady hand.  The first photo is my mentors, the latter mine.  Can you see the difference?  Really?  Go on, you can, right?  Ha ha

What looks like a Christmas pudding but isn't?

Another meeting, another cake style.  This time it was a Christmas pudding cake, and again, I hadn't wanted to learn specifically for the design of cake but rather the skills involved.  She'd suggested an igloo cake (also somewhat Christmas-sy) but I felt this sort would help me better understand the creativity that could be shown in a bowl cake.  

I haven't baked a cake this shape yet either, so was happy to practice how to cover this one too (like the present cake, it was a simply sponge cake, layered with jam and buttercream).  Then in different coloured sugarpaste, we hand-cut the 'custard' spilling down.  Likewise the holly and berries, decorated to our tastes and just for fun.  The 'raisins' were done by painting onto the surface with brown food dye, ingenious!

Et voila, the cake that looks like a fruity Christmas pudding, but isn't!

It's a present? No, it's a cake

Back in the summer, I had gone to practice cake skills with a friend.  Now it came time for Christmas-related cake skills, and we chose to do a present cake.  I thought this could come in handy for any time of year, so was keen to practice with someone who knew what they were doing (at least, more so than me).  

We started with a square cake, which I've never baked, so that was fun to try to remember how to cover it with sugarpaste.  Then on to the bow.  I had tried a few times in the past, from watching videos on YouTube, and felt all my attempts to be not up to par.  This turned out to be exactly the same type of method, but when we laid the ribbon part flat, the two ribbons didn't cross over.  Rather they just met at the edges, so there was to be no bulk underneath the bow.  What a good idea.  The bow was made in just the same way as in all the videos I'd watched, but it was made much bigger, so I was better able to get the proportions correct.  And the two halves were just pushed up against one another and then simply stood up on the cake, on top of the draped ends of the ribbon.  

All a bunch of great ideas, I felt, and they helped me get a better handle on the technique - which was just what I had hoped for.  So, whilst it's far from perfect, I'm happy.  

Cookie decorating, at a birthday party? What fun

Although I was fairly sure that the girls invited to Mini-2's birthday party would be alright if left to their own devices to play, I wanted to have a few activities up my sleeve, just in case they needed distraction or entertainment.  I bought a pin-the-wart-on-the-Gruffalo game, wrapped up a pass-the-parcel game (admittedly in the last hour before the party, not my best  plan) and was ready with prizes for musical bumps and the like.  I wanted to try out the edible marker pens again, so this time made the girls cookies and sugarpaste-covered them in plenty of time, so that it would harden and be a smoother surface on which to draw.

These were the edible ones, not for the kids to decorate.  You'll see I used the Muppet and Sesame Street rice paper toppers I had previously bought to match the napkins (see post about the petal cake for clarification).  Well, it'd be a shame to waste them...

A plate-ful of naked hearts and cupcakes, all ready to be decorated.  And below, on the art mat with the pens, ready for the crafty part of the party.

Why is it that children feel the need to name everything?  I suppose it's because it's one of the first words they are keen to master when it comes to learning to write...

 This child is a little bit older, so is trying to do an actual picture on her cupcake

Mini-1 wanted to make her cupcake look like an actual cupcake.  She's coloured the 'case' pink and is putting coloured line sprinkles on the top.  If you squint, you can just see a red cherry on top.

 All the cookies from all the girls - ready to pop in their party bags to take home to show their families.

Happy birthday to our darling Mini-2

Today is our darling daughter's birthday.  That'd be Mini-2 I'm talking about, as we're lucky enough to have two darling daughters (darling son is always loved, never forgotten, but not with us any longer).  Not always darlings, but always lucky to have them.  I had seen a really cool image of a decorated-by-a-child cake a few weeks ago that we all loved, so I bought the requisite food colour pens and was just waiting for the day.  I also wanted to try a couple of other new things, so found out her favourite colours from a limited selection and set to work.

The cake itself is a vanilla sponge with strawberry jam and orange coloured vanilla buttercream in the middle, but the cake is (hopefully) purple and white zebra striped.  Now, you'll see in a moment that their artwork is nothing like as good as the little girl in the above blogpost who decorated the other cake, but our girls had a lot of fun.  And isn't that what birthdays are all about?

The naked cake - you can see little brown marks underneath the white sugarpaste - that's the bigger chunks of Oreo cookies that I didn't macerate quite enough with the mortar and pestle ;)

 They look just like normal markers, don't they?  We'll have to be sure to keep these out of the art box

 You can see that the icing was too soft, by the deep indents made by the pens.  Ah well, lesson learned for next time.

Two very happy crafty girls!!