I’m taking a break from my Blizzards and Baking posts to share with you a quick idea for your Valentine(s)!

My friend, Madalyn, and I made fun Valentine treats for a few special friends.It’s an easy treat to make and you can do it in a few hours!

We decided on caramel corn because I really wanted to try a recipe I found on Smitten Kitchen. You can find the recipe here, which I tweaked just a little bit. I didn’t like the idea of making it spicy. I like the sweet and salty combination but not spicy.

Making the caramel corn was a simple process, at least on the second try. When making the caramel, you really have to watch the syrup and be sure not to overcook it. The first batch turned an odd orange color and tasted burnt so we had to redo it. Pull it off just before you think you should. That was the perfect amount of time.

When the caramel is ready, you need to pour it on the popcorn very quickly and toss with greased spatulas. It is an easy step that you have to do really quickly.

Dump it on a pan and let it cool – this step is very difficult. The reason it’s so hard is because it’s so yummy! You just want to eat it all right away! It smells like the boardwalk at the beach. It’s pretty much amazing.

But I digress… we packaged these up for our friends and decorated with cute hearts and extra love.

We added some Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to the packages because it’s not Valentine’s without some chocolate!

We hope they love the treats! I know I did…

Ok – so we got slammed with about 25″ of snow. And this is totally not normal for where we live! But we were prepared… to make lots of food! I had 2 cake jobs cancel (thankfully!) so I had plenty of time to play in the snow and make lots of treats. So I hope to post on all the fun creations we made. I’ll come back with  more details but until then – you can see picts on flickr (the little box on the left will take you there). Here are just a few highlights:

Be back soon!

I know it’s a little late to be posting about Christmas cookies but these were so stinkin’ adorable, I couldn’t help myself!

I had over 250 cookies to make last month and this was one small batch of cut-outs. I had never made them before but found some great tips online for cutting them and then googled some images for how to decorate. In the end I was happy with how they turned out but devastated that they would have to be eaten!

This particular tray was one dozen cut outs and I used 6 cutters to make 2 of each. There are other designs out there but these were my favorites. I’ll show them to you close up in increasing order of cuteness:

The stocking and Candy cane were pretty simple. They are official staples of the Christmas holiday so they had to be included, but aren’t much to write home about.

I loved the snowflake! The blue was such a pretty background, although this one looks a little bubbly. The white snowflake on top makes me cold just looking at it! That might have something to do with the inch and a half of snow outside…

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree! How lovely are your green icing branches! Cute. I liked the star on top. It was simple but makes the tree official!

Wouldn’t you feel terrible eating this cute little guy? I’m reminded of the gingerbread man in Shrek. He looks too happy to be so close to being eaten.

Isn’t he just the cutest?!?! I loved the nose sticking out. I had to be so careful not to break it off during packaging. I hope to make many more of these in 2010!

Happy New Year!

Apparently it’s been awhile since I posted. I have a broken computer screen and have been lazy. Those are my best excuses! But I have so many fun things to post about. I made most of my Christmas gifts this year and had a ton of cakes and cookies to make in December. I hope to update them all this month – once I get around to uploading the pictures!

I’ll start with a Baby Shower that I did last month. First was the cake:

The theme was to go with the bedding – baby sailboats from Pottery Barn. I love matching bedding. It’s easy to have a theme, especially when the hostesses come up with such a sweet slogan for the cake.
The favor was a cookie with the theme continued. I really enjoyed decorating each one a little bit differently. I repeated the same four colors but came up with a variety of sailboats, ships, and schooners. I don’t know the difference but it was fun!

More cakes, cookies, and crafts to come!

For a wedding this weekend, we were commissioned to make 160 cookies – half with the Oriole’s logo and half with the Yankees logo. They were to be used as the favor – wrapped in little bags next to a sign that says “Pick your team, Marissa’s Yankees or Kevin’s Orioles” Super cute, eh?

This task seemed easy enough – but it also hung over my head like a load of bricks. The time it would take was seriously expected to be in the many many hours column. But, as always, we got it done.

We started with the baking. We made about 168 – with a few extras in case of child stealing (check), falling on the floor (check), looking a bit too crooked (check), and over-browning (check, check, check). The final count is closer to 151 so we are in the clear! Here they are lined up like little soldiers on my counter:

Once they were baked, we let the cool a few hours. Then came the white icing. I must admit, I have found the BEST cookie icing recipe for this. I found it online and copied it right away. Here it is:

Best Cookie Icing Recipe:

You’ll need:

6 oz (3/4 cup) of warm water
5 Tablespoons meringue powder (you can buy it at baking stores or Michael’s)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 kilogram (2.25 lbs.) powdered sugar

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. Add the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.
Pour in all the icing sugar at once and place the bowl on the mixer. Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes. Icing will get thick and creamy.

You can use this amazing icing as an outline and then thin it a lot to fill it in. It worked great!

Here are the cookies filled with delicious white icing:

So yummy!

We let them dry (harden) overnight and the icing was nice and smooth and rock solid (in a good way!) Then, the decorating began. A few months ago I bought some stencils and we tried to use spray icing on some practice cookies back then and it didn’t work at all. Really. It was terrible! And then we didn’t try anything again so I was a little worried…

But we tried a few times, made a few mistakes. And then got in a rhythm. Here I am working on them like a little trojan horse (my grandma used to say that – and probably still does!)

I ended up using the stencil as a general guide and then filling in / adjusting after. It worked really well.

One more for funsies:

Chandler made most of the Oriole’s:

and I was in charge of the Yankees:

We had a few for taste testing and they were given the stamp of approval. Now all that’s left is time to dry and then packaging up to look so cute!