Pirates Ahead!!!

Happy Birthday Pirate Charlie!  Charlie's 5th birthday was celebrated with lot of friends at a local park on a beautiful day!  Pirate costumes, digging for treasure in the sand, being eaten by a shark, a pirate obstacle course with a plank to walk, pirate crafts, a pirate pinata and of course, a scavenger hunt for pirate treasure and about 30 little pirate friends - what a perfect party it was for this special little pirate!  

     We made pirate costumes for all the kids and had pirate names too!  My two were Wild Charlie Swashbuckler and Silly Jack Landlubber.  

A Pirate Party wouldn't be complete without pirate sweets!  Here are the pirate cookies, cupcakes and pirate cake:

Pirate sugar cookies

Pirate Cupcakes

Four tiers of Pirate  Cake, balanced on pirate legs, standing in the sand sprinkled with treasure and jewels!
The pirate ship was made from modeling chocolate.  The water tier was chocolate fudge cake filled with vanilla buttercream.  The Octopus is fondant.  The bottom pirate body tier is white almond sour cream cake filled with vanilla buttercream.  

The cake was balanced on pirate legs standing in the sand, with jewels and gold!

 Here are some fun pics of the party:

         

 Lots of Pirates, running through the park with Treasure Map in hand, searching for clues to find their hidden treasure and gold!

 

"Look!  A Clue!  A Clue!  A Clue!"          

Happy 5th Birthday Charlie!

Frozen! Who doesn't love Olaf?!

My almost 5 year old watched Frozen for the first time about 4 months ago and he honestly wasn't all that interested in it.  For a long time, I thought I had the only kid who wasn't Frozen-obsessed. Okay, well that changed.  I'm not sure what exactly changed, but recently he's wanted to watch Frozen every.single.day.  The kiddo doesn't get much screen time because hubby and I limit it so his brain wont turn to mush.  But, he wants to watch it now whenever I'm making dinner or when his little brother is napping.  So, I see a LOT of Olaf....and I sort of luv him!  Seriously, who doesn't love this hilarious little snowman who just can't wait to experience summer.
So, because we're sort of Olaf-obsessed in this house, here  is Olaf in sugar cookie form:

My kiddos LOVED these and their little friends were also super-excited about them.  My 2yr old is always the first one awake in the morning and when he crawled into my bed and I showed him a picture of the cookie, he clapped and said "ooooooohhh, OOooooolaf!"   When his big brother saw the cookies a bit later, his reaction was equally sweet:  "Oh mommy, those are PERFECT!!  I am SO proud of you mommy!"

These cookies got a lot of interest on my FB page and I have an order I'm making for a birthday party sometime in November.  I'll be posting the date i'm making them shortly on FB and information on how to order some if you're interested.

Superbowl Cookies

I unfortunately didn't get any good pics of the superbowl cookies I made, but here is the one pic I have from my phone.

The recipe for the cookies and icing are below in the Valentine's Day cookie post.  Super easy if you want to re-create!

 

Valentine's Day Cookies (with recipes and tutorial)

I love any chance to bake (and decorate!!) cookies or cakes or cupcakes.  So, Valentine's Day just around the corner means cookies for my boys' preschool class and daycare.  

The best thing about decorated sugar cookies is that they have to be done in stages so the icing has time to dry....Perfect for a busy working mommy to fit into an already crammed schedule.  These cookies can be made at least two weeks ahead of time, wrapped, and frozen.

I'm no expert when it comes to cookie decorating, but I've learned that icing consistency is the key to success.  The best information I've found on the secret to perfect icing is from  Marian of  Sweetopia.  She has a great tutorial on icing sugar cookies and I've linked to it here for you.  I also decided to post links to the recipes since they were so easy to make (below).   


Happy Baking!


No Fail Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 6 cups flour 3 tsp. baking powder 2 cups unsalted butter 2 cups sugar (white granulated) 2 eggs 2 tsp. vanilla extract or desired flavoring (I like almond myself) 1 tsp. salt

Instructions

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.
2. Chill for 1 to 2 hours
3. Roll to desired thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees F (176 C) for 8 to 10 minutes or until just beginning to turn brown around the edges. This recipe can make up to 5-dozen 3" cookies.

Antonia74 Royal Icing

Ingredients

• 6 oz (3/4 cup) of warm water 5 Tablespoons meringue powder 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 kilogram (2.25 lbs.) powdered icing sugar

Instructions

1. In mixer bowl, pour in the warm water and the meringue powder. Mix it with a whisk by hand until it is frothy and thickened...about 30 seconds.
2. Add the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.
3. Pour in all the icing sugar at once and place the bowl on the mixer.
4. Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes. Icing will get thick and creamy.
5. Cover the bowl with a dampened tea-towel to prevent crusting and drying.
6. Tint with food colourings or thin the icing with small amounts of warm water to reach the desired consistency.

My sweet little boy is turning 3! (almost!)

We celebrated Charlie's 3rd birthday a bit early this year, figuring it would be easier to do with mommy 36 weeks pregnant than with a 3-ish week old (which seems somewhat impossible and which would probably mean no fancy cake and no fancy anything).  I still cannot believe that my sweet baby boy is turning three soon.  I heard once that when you are a parent, the days go slowly but the years fly by. 

So.Very.True.

Charlie is loving Thomas Trains these days, so a Thomas Train party it was.  We  decided to have his party at a local kiddie play area, which meant that I was just in charge of the food, cake and favors.   With pinterest and cakecentral as my starting points, the party planning started weeks ago.  It is safe to say that every minute of my time these past few weeks that wasn't spent working or preparing for the arrival of Charlie's little brother was spent on Charlie's party.   There were a LOT of late nights and early mornings working on Charlie's party, but I wanted every single detail to be perfect for him!  And, it is no secret that I love the cake making  and party planning and crafty parts of all this...
Here are some pics from Charlie's party:

       

  

Charlie's Cake!

4 tiers of chocolate fudge cake layered with vanilla buttercream and oreo cookie cream filling.

Yummmm......

I made this Sir Topham Hat our of gumpaste - so he is completely food safe (though rock hard)

              

  

The trees, hills, sun and tracks and tunnel are made from Satin Ice fondant.

The clouds and grass are made from buttercream.

The rocks are chocolate.

360 degrees of decorated train cake! 

And finally, singing Happy Birthday to our little boy:

 

Happy early birthday Charlie!  I never knew just how perfect life could really be until almost  3 years ago when you came into ours and I love you so much! 

Valentine's Day Cookies

Sweet little heart cookies for my little guy's friends at daycare. 

Onesie cookie favors for Baby English!

I've never met this Mommy to Be, but I know her sister very well. 

Her sister ordered these adorable little onesie cookie favors for Mommy-to-Be's baby shower this weekend!  

All 50 cookies were a bit different, some said "E" while other said "Baby" and others had just designs.  Dots and stripes and hearts...

Pink, blue, white, yellow and green pastel colors, as Baby E's gender is a surprise!

 

The cookie details:  sugar cookies with royal icing.

I hope they were fantastic and congratulations to the mommy to be!!