Creepy Eyes

          When Sydney was about 3 1/2 and Hayley was about 15 months old, they had this funny game where Sydney would put hats on Hayley. The hats were always way too big, covering Hayley's entire head so you could only see her eyes if she tilted her head backwards. Hayley would chase Sydney around the house and Sydney would happily yell, "Creepy eyes, creepy eyes!" and laugh uncontrollably. They both loved it. When Hayley turned about 2, she decided that being called "creepy eyes" was offensive and we made Sydney stop. Now recently, Hayley's totally cool with it again and they now use some homemade beanies my mom made them and play the same game. Tying this together, I have had a dozen unfrosted cupcakes in my freezer for the past few weeks that I haven't known what to do with. We have a church trunk or treat tomorrow and though I know a dozen cupcakes will last only about 2.4 seconds there with so many kids around, I figured at least they'd get eaten and enjoyed by somebody. So I scrounged around in my cupboards to see what I had to make some Halloween-inspired cupcakes. I have seen these "eyeball" cupcakes circulating through cyberspace for the past few years and realized that I had the tools to make some! It was super easy. I just melted some white chocolate coating and dipped the tops of my cupcakes in it. Make sure to let the excess chocolate drip off or you'll have globs of extra chocolate coating on your cupcake (I like to rotate the cupcake as I allow the excess to drip off so it drips off as evenly as possible). Once the chocolate coating hardened (takes only a couple minutes), I cut some green gum drops in half (hamburger-style) and "glued" them onto the centers of the cupcakes by dabbing them with a little melted chocolate coating and then pressing them on. I then used some leftover black decorating gel I had on hand for the pupils, though you could also use black sprinkles, black frosting, etc. Lastly, I used some red decorating frosting to pipe on the bloodshot veins for the eyes. The girls had a blast watching me make them and got even more excited when I called them "creepy eyes." Such a super fun and fast Halloween treat! Try it!

Creepy Eyes

Mama and Baby Duckie Cake

          So I am helping throw my best friend a baby shower this weekend. Congrats Aubrey! She is having a little girl and I am so excited! Once the baby comes, Aubrey will be staying at home with her, meaning we will be able to get together and hang out more often. Yay! And our girls will grow up to be best friends. The end. ANYhoo, I decided that I wanted to try and make her a super cute cake for her shower. The theme is mama and baby farm animals, so I thought a mama and baby duckie cake would fit the bill. I still consider myself quite an amateur when it comes to cake decorating, but I'll just keep practicing! I have learned that having any type of hobby that may require a little time or concentration is pretty much pointless when you have three little kids running around. I had to stop making this cake literally every ten minutes or so to deal with "Mom, my pee sprayed out of the toilet," or "Rosalie is calling someone on your phone Mom," or "I'm starving, can I have another snack even though I've already had a bajillion today?" Ok, so I might have exaggerated that last one a bit. Not by much though. Anyway, long story short, I believe it is an amazing feat that I finished this cake at all. Whew. Anyway, moving on . . . So, this is a 9x13 double-layered cake. I crumb-coated the entire cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and then tinted some blue to frost a layer for the water and tinted some green to make the grass. The "flowers" on the grass are daisy sprinkles. I just couldn't make Aubrey a baby shower cake without representing some baby girl colors--hence the purple and pink star piping around the sides of the cake. In case you're wondering--and you probably are-- the ducks are made from mini brownie bites that I rolled into balls and covered in white melting chocolate. The feet and wings of the baby ducks are daisy sprinkles, their eyes I drew on with an edible black marker, and I piped on their orange beaks. The mama duck has a piped-on orange beak as well, but I also piped on her feet because I think using the daisy sprinkles like I did for the babies would have looked too small to scale. Maybe not. I don't know. Too late now. For the mama duck's wings, I cut two mini marshmallows into triangle shapes and adhered them with a dab of white melting chocolate. So that's mostly the breakdown! I really hope I can drive this cake to the baby shower on Saturday without it getting destroyed on the drive! Wish me luck!

Halloween Sugar Cookies

     Yesterday I decided to make the women I visit from church a Halloween treat. I have struggled over the past few years to find a sugar cookie recipe that I just love. I tend to like my sugar cookies soft and chewy rather than thin and crisp. A lot of sugar cookie recipes I have found (especially ones for cut-out cookies) are meant to be crisp. I have also found that several sugar cookie recipes I have tried just don't have a lot of flavor. I have finally found one that tastes great and creates deliciously soft and chewy sugar cookies! For instructions and ideas about how to use this sugar cookie recipe for cute Halloween cut-out cookies, try here. My only complaint with this recipe is that the dough was quite sticky when I tried to roll it out and shape the cookies. I had to use a lot more flour than I expected and was worried all the extra flour would dry the cookies out. Well, once I added the necessary amount of flour to roll out and shape the cookies, it was fine. The cookies baked up flavorful and moist! I think this is my go-to sugar cookie recipe from now on. FINALLY! I also decided to try a new method of cookie decorating: decorating with royal icing and the "flooding" technique. I was a little intimidated but it actually wasn't too bad. It takes some time to use the toothpick and "flood" the cookies with the thinned out icing, but it was surprisingly relaxing and fun. I just love this technique because it makes such a smooth and clean decoration for cookies, making them look a lot more professional than if you just slathered on some regular icing. The royal icing also hardens up nicely. This was my first attempt at decorating cookies this way, so I had to cut myself some slack. One thing I learned is that you CANNOT pick up a cookie that you just flooded with royal icing until it is COMPLETELY dry (an hour or two should do it). I made this mistake and ended up crinkling the icing because it wasn't set all the way yet (as you can see with my pumpkin cookie in the picture above). On the whole though, this was a new baking experience and it was fun and not as daunting as I imagined. I will definitely be trying this again for Christmas cookies! Santa will be pleased.