Sugar Swings! Serve Some: May 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

memorial day camo whoopie pies....!


so it's memorial day...as i was trying to explain today to my 7 year old what a "memorial" is...i realized i need to do a better job about talking about holidays with the kids...they are more than just days off....and this one in particular is more than picnics and bbqs...we have a pretty good darn life
in part due to many fallen soldiers that have given their lives for this great country of ours....

i also realized explaining some things to the kiddos is definitely getting more difficult as they get older since they do have it pretty good BUT i also want them to appreciate all the good things that they have in their lives....and Memorial Day is remembering those men and women who have given their lives for this country....and although they think they know what "war" is....they don't really get it at this age...as much as they love drawing battle scenes and army tanks and army dudes!...note to self: spend more time talking with the kids about why we celebrate the holidays we do....

....onto the food...instead of doing red, white and blue....decided to go with some camo desserts in honor of those who have served and those currently serving for the great US of A....

...i have found this whoopie pie recipe always works well and is pretty much fool proof...i made 2 batches....one chocolate (as is)...and then one i omitted the cocoa powder (replaced with just flour) and tinted the 2 green camo colors....

to get army green mix a little brown in the regular green

...then pipe a little of each color into circles....i did brown first, then green, and army green and dot with some more brown...or experiment to see what order you like better


...the filling is also the fluff recipe filling with about 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder added in as well


...the chocolate filling was great in these...although i'm not positive people knew what they were when first looking at them and i found myself constantly saying..."they are camo you know for memorial day"...!


 ...and i will let the picture say the rest...


....and take a moment to say thank you in your own way...however simple that may be.....

thanks for stopping by and hope you have an awesome week!


Monday, May 14, 2012

mother's day, graduation, and 80's neon party.....!


...so i hope everyone had an awesome mother's day weekend! or just had a fun weekend in general...to celebrate mother's day AND to celebrate that i officially finished my higher pharmacy degree (pharmD)....i made myself a fun little party.....and channeled some of my inner 80's just for fun....!


...if you're an 80's child...you'll remember these...


florescent jelly bracelets...or actually a lot of neon and florescent stuff in general....belts, sweatshirts, shoes....you name it....so tried to get some of that color for this par-tay....

....tint your frosting until you get the color you like....i used food paste pink, yellow and light green from william sonoma (the orange i made from the same yellow and added a little red to get the color i wanted)


the cupcakes and cake are a chocolate cake from i am baker which is from this recipe.....2 words.....MAKE IT!!....so simple and delicious!....decorated the cupcakes with the tinted frosting with some different wilton tips....

I always like to know which tip did what design (tip 199 is my fav right now!)
the diplomas (did you realize they were diplomas?) where made with tootsie rolls...my newest favorite medium since i am not a fondant fan....just nuke a tootsie roll in the microwave for no more than 10 seconds.....roll out flat, then roll it up like a diploma, snip ends if needed until you get the diploma shape...i tied it with some leftover edible grass from easter....i originally did them in the vanilla flavor, but then realized i had matching colors of the frosting with lime, cherry, orange, and lemon tootsie rolls!


had some leftover frosting so made some sandwich cookies with some store bought chocolate wafer cookies....


i like the chocolate with bright neon colors together....definitely had an 80's look to them for me....since there was a lot of florescent with black combos back then!


and the cake for mother's day...it was a 6-inch chocolate layer cake...frosted with homemade buttercream with just simple drop flowers on top in the bright colors....

flowers made with wilton tip #108
...and added some sugar pearls and some bright pink non-pareils around...and done!


....and you get some fun neon goodies!....i never thought i'd look back to the 80's and say "why yes, more neon please...." but i actually kinda miss it....and neon is making a come back....i bought a neon pink belt the other day from the gap!...now if mullets and acid washed jeans come back into style i may have to take a pass (and how would you make acid washed cupcakes??!)....but some florescent accessories and goodies i can deal with!
 

the kids and i had a really nice mother's day....i got to sleep in late, got some homemade gifts, and had a fancy lunch with them .....a lunch without chicken nuggets or mac and cheese on the menu!....the rest of the day i just enjoyed them and being their mom....absolutely nothing better....

p.s. playing around with pic monkey (my nostalgic 80's pic above).....love that site....it's ridiculously easy to use too!

Monday, May 7, 2012

bubble guppies cake with cotton candy buttercream...!....!


....so if any of you have preschoolers....you may know the bubble guppies (a show on nik jr)...it's actually a really cute show (they are "bubble guppies" but kinda like little mermaids---3 girls and 3 boys) and it's a show all 3 of my kiddos enjoy (even if the 7 year old does put up a stink sometimes---he doesn't watch "baby shows" anymore....)


....the fish are pepperidge farm goldfish with melted candy melts for the face....


...the bubbles are large edible sugar pearls (and some little blue ones on top too)....the seaweed is made from green candy melt....


...all the bubble guppie characters are made with candy melt....just print the pics you want, put a piece of wax paper or parchment over the paper,  and "color" in with the candy melts (let harden at least 20 mins or so)....i've done it a gajillion times....like here and here....and it's great because you can make them way ahead of time and just store in a cool place until needed....


 ....the cake (guess i failed to get any pics of the inside) is a 4 layer doctored chocolate devils food cake mix (use 4 eggs and replace water with 1 cup of buttermilk)....also added chocolate chips and a couple of generous squirts of hershey's chocolate syrup.....the frosting is made with this stuff...


.....have you seen this in stores yet?...duncan hines frosting creations and there are a ton of flavors...this one is cotton candy! you are supposed to add one powder packet to a can of their frosting starter (which just seems like a can of their vanilla frosting) but i decided to add it to a batch of homemade buttercream as i didn't want the frosting to be over the top cotton candy flavored....

....i was kinda skeptical about using them at first but wanted to give them a go....


....i love the light blue color...so pretty!


...and of course had to test out on some cupcakes (those of you on instagram may recognize these :) the flavor was actually very pleasantly surprising....not too overly sweet with the cotton candy flavoring...and since i used homemade buttercream you could still pipe easily (i read some reviews that the frosting with too soft to pipe when you used their frosting starter with the packets as per the directions)


.....and actually perfect on a chocolate cake!....this worked out great for the bubble guppies cake since the color was perfect for a "water" background....and i just spread it on thick and wavy....added the characters (just pushed them onto the cake until they stuck in the frosting) and added the other details....seaweed, crabs, sugar pearls.....done!

Happy Birthday to my Greta!
....and happy birthday to my twins! they turned 5! totally big kids now and i'm loving every single moment....i love seeing them interact with each other and their older brother....it's really amazing sometimes and i catch myself just watching them a lot these days....i know one day i'll look back and try to remember when they were 5 (just like i do now when i look at their newborn pics).....the time really does move at warp speed it seems and i really try to enjoy every single stinkin moment these days...!

ps max's cake is coming soon....hint....it rhymes with shmider span and totally turned everyone's mouth red and black....!

happy monday and have an awesome week.....sharing at these fun blog hops too.....stop by and see some more amazing stuff!