Beautiful Bridal Cookies

I am so happy to bring to you today...something WEDDING themed. With my love of themed things, it does seem odd I have never done anything wedding related. Until now, anyway ;)

These were for a bridal shower this weekend and the colour theme was coral, beige and white. A beautiful combination I do believe! They were for A* who is a VERY lovely young lady with the most bad ass sewing skills I ever did see!

*Not her full name

I have never been involved in wedding planning, but I feel like if the day ever comes when I do, I will have to quit my job to search pinterest 24/7 like a neurotic insane crazy person. I do that all the time in my spare time anyway!

These cookies were fairly simple, not to say I didn't make my fair share of mistakes and problematic decorations aka many profanities left my mouth.

I made royal icing roses ahead of time which made a nice little touch without the fuss of having to make them the day of.

Look at the prettiness! It was a nice change of pace to make simpler cookies with tiny little designs.

I did 4 designs, and each design I made 6 cookies with either a white, cream or coral base to make things interesting! Of course all the cookies are different...you know me and my crazy cookies!

Want to see more cookies? There is lots to see, let's make haste!

Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cups

I love chocolate SO much. I don't really have many vices outside of dark chocolate. If i ever run out, I pretty much lose my mind. You can find me scavenging ritzy neighborhoods and artisanal bakeries for a sweet tiny morsel of the dark stuff. MMM. Yep. I'm insane.


I recently picked up this:

Coconut AND peanut butter? I adore this combination--and let me tell you, this stuff is GOOD. No sugar or weird ingredients and it has a lingering coconut oil flavour which I adore. Not a nasty weird coconut taste, just a subtle natural one! SO naturally...ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom! Peanut butter cups had to happen.

Just look at em!

So let's not delay, grab your chocolate and peanut butter and come with me!!!

Raw No Bake Fake Carrot Cake {Protein Bars}

I have been wanting to make carrot cake ALL week. I even bought carrots and walnuts, okay, okay I usually have those things, but STILL.

And then the long weekend came and went and nothing. And then I didn't have time...AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN.

And then, this was born:

'Carrot Cake' Protein Bars with a Cream Cheese Protein Drizzle. YUP. This is real life, y'all. I think. Don't quote me. These are raw, no-bake, gluten and sugar free, too! Wahoo! You can also make these vegan by using a vegetable-based protein powder!

Also, I could have easily made any of my other protein bars like my cranberry chocolate protein bars or almond and coconut protein bars...but...ehhhh who wants to be convenient? (b-tee-dubs, those are both delicious recipes, too!)

Fun fact? I also made this beautiful Carrot Cake with lots of protein! It's gluten, sugar and weird-stuff free as well! Find it here. 

Without further ado, please, let's talk ingredients. 

Happy Easter! {Easter Recipe Round-Up}

Hello! 

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it! 

I hope you have a great time spending time with the family--or stressing in the kitchen ;) Which...not happy you are stressed but stressed backwards spells DESSERTS and that's everyone's favourite!!

Still need some ideas for Easter desserts? I got you covered ;) Here is an Easter Recipe Round-Up!

DIY Easter Chocolate

Easter Cookies Part 1

Easter Cookie Ideas Part 2

Marshmallow Buttercream Chocolate Cupcakes

Pink Baked Donuts

I would colour the marshmallow buttercream pink or yellow for the cupcakes and top them with easter chocolate like Pastel M&Ms or Mini Eggs! Hey..maybe I will do that! Or add different pastel sprinkles to the donuts...MMMM!

Either way, whether you celebrate it or not--it is ALWAYS nice to have a day off to spend with family and friends.

Enjoy it.

XO 

Easter Cookies Part 2

Day 7 of foreign illness. Status: weak. Curious itch in back of throat is new development...prospects are bleak.

ANYWAYS..

I just thought I'd stumble onto the blog to post the rest of my Easter cookies! They are more or less variations on the other designs that I thought turned out cute so I thought I'd share! I also set aside another small batch of cookies for a coworker's birthday. I forgot to take a picture (oops) but she liked them and has decided to frame and not eat them! lol

I just love the little roses <3

Hipster bunny love <3

And let's see some MORE!

Easter Sugar Cookies

Hello!

I hope you are all well! The first decent-ish type weather on a weekend and this flu is getting worse and worse. But this post is about cookies and not my high temperature and ugly sweatpants. We can chat about that another time ;)

It's about these.

And of course these:

And this furry little bottom!

Design: It was on the Wilton box the cutters came in!

The bunny cookie is very easy! You just need a bunny cookie and a small round/flower cookie. Just stick it on with royal icing once both iced cookies have dried!


And best of all? All you need for your icing is this:

Haniela on YouTube is UNREAL. She posts the most creative cookies, cakes and more! Find here here: Haniela's YouTube

She uses ziploc bags. I ran out of piping bags and decided to just use these. No tips or anything needed, either!

Another YouTube channel I am obsessed with is Montreal Confections. Find her here. She inspired my little hippie bunnies :)

Don't leave yet, there's more!

New Recipe Index!

Hello again!

Just wanted to point out a new page on the blog...
If you look to your right, on the side bar you should see:

If you click on the recipe index page you will be brought to here:

Where all my recipes on the blog are organized into click-able links!

This makes it easier for me when I need to go back and find a recipe as opposed to searching or looking through the labels (there are so many labels! Eep!)

Hope this is helpful, let me know if it is or isn't!

XO

DIY Easter Chocolate

Hello!

Oh how I miss posting frequently. On top of it all, I have some freaky weird stomach bug which makes me feel like garbaggio.

IT'S ALL GOOD THOUGH! Why? BECAUSE THEMED THINGS. We all know themed things are my life. I love having a theme to inspire my little creations. It makes things so fun!

Easter is next week (who is excited for a day off?!) so I will be doing some Easter/Spring themed goodies. Stay tuned for some pretty cookies as well!

Chocolate is probably the most popular Easter gift, especially for kids. I think making the chocolates yourself is a lot of fun and gives you the freedom to personalize your gifts.

On the agenda today: Easter Egg (hollow) filled with goodies and DIY Easter Egg Carrots! So cute! Put them in a box or cellophane bag with some ribbon and you're done! Or put them in little eggs for the kids to find on Easter. You choose the colours, treats inside, and can even involve the kids in the process of making them too ;)

Want to see how to do it?

Pinterest Nails #2: Nailed It or Failed It ?!

Time for another edition of 'Pinterest Nails' - the series where I search 'nails' in the Pinterest search bar, find the first picture of nails and do a tutorial! Why? Because most of these links just go to an image leaving you wonder how the heck they did it!

Case and point:

# Of Repins: 8338

Source: No idea

Link: Links to Image 

This looks quite similar to the last one I did! Popular nail artist and a popular look!

While this was easier than the last look, I still ran into trouble. Mostly because I am very tired, it's getting late and I am exhausted. Alas, it's okay!

 You Will Need:

• Base and Top Coat
• Peach/Pink Polish
• Black Polish
• Glitter Polish
• Dotting tools or bobby pins

1. Apply base coat
2. Apply Nude polish to thumb, pointer and ring fingers. Do this for both hands, usually two coats of polish and allow to dry.
3. Apply glitter polish to middle finger and black polish to pinky (for both hands)
4. Once polish has dried use your dotting tool to create polka dots on both ring fingers.
5. Next, use your dotting tools small end to create two dots beside one another. This is the top of your heart. Slowly drag the colour down to a point to make your heart!
6. Apply top coat once design has had sufficient time to dry.

That's it! Easy peasy. Except....I kept fidgeting and ruining my nails and having to do the SAME NAIL over and over and over...and then I just gave up!

Also the shape of my nails and colours I used are not the same...but sometimes you just have to compromise. Is it perfect? No. But this look was much easier to recreate than the last one! Here's to hoping these get easier ;)

I really like the colours together, very cute!

What do you think? Do you hate it when you can't find a tutorial on nail art, or do you use them as inspiration only?

Happy Dotting!

XO 

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes With Marshmallow Buttercream

Hello!

Soo...everytime a family birthday comes around I get super excited. WHAT WILL I MAKE. OOOOOO.. The choices.  I decided to make these cupcakes much to late last night, but they were so worth it. These were made for my brother's birthday alongside the Zelda cookies!

The colours remind me of spring. Which STILL has not happened. Why? Where ya hiding fellow season?

I feel so much better that I have had a chance to bake and decorate some cookies and cupcakes. I know, that's really strange.

Also, I learned I don't know how to spell marshmallow. I had to look it up several times. MALLOW. MELLOW? I DON'T MAL-KNOW.

 But when this happens, who can complain? :

No one. No one will complain.  Marshmallow buttercream is so smooth and creamy. Barely any air bubbles as opposed to when I normally make buttercream. Makes for a prettier cupcake ;)

Today involves: cupcake pictures, marshmallow buttercream recipe and an easy way to get two-toned frosting, yippeee!!!

How could you resist? You can't. So keep reading!

Legend of Zelda: Cookie Edition!

Happy Sunday!

When I was in 7th grade, my mom bought me Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. I had always loved video games (still do!) and for the first time ever, I lost complete track of time, ignored the world around me, and stayed up past 10:30.

I will always have a special place for Link, Epona, the Gorons and all the other parts of the franchise and games that make them so wonderful. So with my middle-youngest brother turning 19 on Monday--I thought I'd make these from one of our favourite games of all time (although he prefers Majora's Mask).

I tried my best to recall the main parts of the game and some little details, too. I wish I had a million cookies because the ideas are endless! Rupees, pots, deku kids, masks and OH MY. Really, I could have made a million. Maybe one day?

The wooden signs from the game, one of Link's swords, Tingle from Majora's Mask, power-up hearts and the bombs!

Want to see more pictures of Zelda cookies? OF COURSE YOU DO, DON'T BE RIDICULOUS! I even made a Navi cookie ;) !

Best Dressed Dessert: Tuxedo Cupcakes

When I heard that my significant other was a huge fan of tuxedo cake, of course for his birthday, precisely 43 days in advance, I began my plans. This occurred in tandem with the Autobot/Decepticon and Spiderman cookies I wrote about earlier.

Everything had to be perfect. I made chocolate decorations. The colour was off, so I re-melted them. Those were ugly, so I re-melted those. Then they were garbage, so I ate some, tears streaming down my face--munching on deformed transformers. Deformers? Anyways..

Tuxedo cake traditionally is a dark chocolate layer cake with whipped cream and chocolate ganache. I had honestly never had it before, so Google and Pinterest were my friends. I knew I had to manage it somehow, but If the cake screwed up, I'd be devastated.

Cupcakes, I thought! Perfect! But the cupcakes had to be like mini tuxedo cakes..with whipped cream frosting, chocolate ganache and a dark fudgy cupcake...hmm...

Only...no. Whipped cream MUST BE STABILIZED! If you want it to hold it's shape and be able to be prepared ahead of time, at least. You cannot just whip it and stick it and hope it won't drip it, NA'MEAN PLAYA? You dig it. I just know you do.

SO I decided to make a buttercream and a whipped cream. That curdles into a giant mess which I poured down the sink. Legit. Large chunks of lumpy butter and cream. No bueno.

What you must always remind yourself through this recipe:

1. Stabilize whipped cream! Read about it here. 
2. Keep whipped cream cold or it will weep. Yes, it's a big soft, fluffy baby.
3. Cupcakes must be cool before decoration. Whipped cream frosting= cold.
4. Cold.
5. Do you get it now?
6. Oh and stabilize!
7. And I love you. Bonne chance! 

Moral of the story, please learn from my mistakes and enjoy this beautiful, absolutely elegant and sinful cupcake. The whipped cream frosting is the icing on the...er, cupcake!

Not quite dressed yet..missing their fancy topcoats!

Ready to make one of these? Keep reading for recipe, and if you only want the pictures, go to the end ;)

Puzzle Piece Autism Awareness Cookies

Hello!

Well, as far as posting goes--there has been and will continue to be less frequent posts. Such is life. Other things are also going on which make finding time for the little things that make me happy to be almost impossible. ALSO I got an iPhone as a gift/I am borrowing it and I absolutely loathe it.

To be succinct... I have lost my muchness and I don't know where to find it.

I am 100% android and think the Iphone is glorified garbage. Personal preference, though.

I made these cookies for National Autism Awareness Month for a bake sale. Being that the puzzle piece is often used as a symbol for this cause, I chose puzzle pieces.

Technically I wrote this on World Autism Day (April 2nd) but like I said, technical and practical issues over hurr. My apologies!

Autism is often misunderstood and people with Autism, even more so. It's a great cause to learn more about, if you can. There are lots of touching stories out there that clarify some misconceptions.

For these cookies, I don't have much in the way of instructions. Just flood and outline the cookies however way you choose. They look best plain but I had some errors I wanted to conceal.

The colours used in the Autism Awareness logos and products are a teal blue, darker blue, red and yellow:

Keep reading for a few more fun pictures!