HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYLA!!!!

For Kayla's birthday I offered to make her office treat for her, I went with some hostess cupcakes. I just used a cake mix for my chocolate cupcakes....because well this is straight from a box and still rocks :) I love Duncan Hines as my favorite, so I went with devil's food.

I baked them as usual and then prepared the white cream filling.

Vanilla Cream Filling

3 tbsp vegetable shortening, room temperature
3 tbsp butter, room temperature
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup light corn syrup

I then scooped the filling into my handy dandy ketchup looking bottle :) it worked perfect for putting the cream in the cupcakes!

You then attempt to get the icing to look as close to Hostess as you can :)

and enjoy!!

Mini Apple Pies

These are quick and easy, and we perfect for me and my husband because he loves apple pie but I am not too keen on baked apples, so this more crust then filling ratio allowed me to enjoy them too!

Start with just a roll out pie crust, and the glass custard cups and i used the pre-made apple pie filling. Use the top of the custard cup to cut out a piece of the pie crust.

Then fill each cup almost full of pie filling. Place a top piece of crust on, pinch the sides, and cut slits in the top.

Bake for approx 20-25 min or just until the crust starts to get golden brown. Enjoy with a scoop of ice cream on top. Mmmmm

As we said, big things were coming. Well, here they are!!! Melissa and I have been dying to make giant cupcakes and we finally found an affordable mold in The Lakeside Collection.

Melissa decided to make a pink cupcake and I decided to make a blue one.

Anyone know why we picked pink and blue?? It's because one of us had an announcement. Any guesses yet?

We decided it would be fun for Melissa to tell the office that she and her husband are expecting their first baby by making a giant pink and blue cupcakes. It was a huge hit and a fun way for the office to find out.

The molds were easier to work with then we thought. Since they were silicone it was a little easier to work with than with a standard metal mold. If you want to make a giant cupcake, here are some helpful hints.

* You will need 2 boxes of cake mix. You won't use all of it so you can use the extra for regular cupcakes.

*Since these aren't your typical cupcakes, your baking time will need to be adjusted. It took us about 50 minutes for the cupcakes to be done.

* Once cool, you will need to do a little trimming for your top to fit on the bottom.

BIG things are coming!!!!!!!

Bake-to-School

School Supply Cupcakes

First I did the rulers the day before so they would have some time to harden in the fridge.
Start with a pack of fun size Hershey bars.



Take about a half cup of icing and add food coloring to make it "ruler yellow". Then microwave it for just a few seconds to make it pourable over the chocolate. You will have to be careful, it can get messy. Hot icing pouring over chocolate=the chocolate might start to melt :)


Then the next day I made some chocolate cupcakes from a box, iced them with vanilla icing and the rulers were ready to be put on.

Now time to make the books. I used Airheads for the book covers, and frosting dough for the pages.

Frosting Dough
*you will have to scale it down

1 can of icing
1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar


You cut the Airheads into smaller book size pieces.



Put a teaspoon size scoop of the frosting dough in the book.


When you fold the Airheads in half, the dough will fill the space and with a little touch up, will look like pages of the book.

Back to School

We decided to make first day of school goodies since we work at a local university and classes had started. I went for the "apple for the teacher" theme where Melissa went for an all around school theme.

First I baked white cupcakes and frosted them with white frosting.


Then I dipped them into red sugar.



Next, the recipe wanted me to scrap out part of the frosting to make it look like someone took a bite out of the apple. This was a little more difficult than I anticipated and decided to just put a dab of white frosting on the side. I then used chocolate sprinkles as the apple seeds and put a pretzel sick in the middle for the stem.

Here's how they turned out.

Bundt Cakes with a Twist

Mini Bundt Cakes Coated in Chocolate Almond Bark........mmmmmm

You will need.....
any cake mix
almond bark
and a mini bundt cake pan

I tried a new brand of almond bark, that came with a tray to microwave the chocolate in.
Less dishes for me=happy :)

So after you have baked your mini cakes let them cool for a about 10-15 minutes.


Then heat up your almond bark
(you might have to add a little oil to make it thin)
then dipping!

You can add sprinkles or any other topping at this time.
Then let the almond bark harden and ENJOY!!

Decorating Bag Take 1

I have been wanting to try a decorating bag for some time. I finally found one that was cheap enough so I thought I would try my hand at decorating.

Here I am with everything ready to go!

I started with a Pillsbury Funfetti mix because I always have one on hand(it's my husband's favorite cake) and a can of white frosting.

Mixing the batter

In the oven they go!!

I decided to try and make two-toned frosted cupcakes. Probably not the smartest thing to do since it was my first time using a decorating bag but I thought I would give it a shot. I absolutely love the Betty Crocker classic gel food colors.


I was hoping for prettier colors but I only had yellow and green left.




Hmmm....I don't think this is supposed to happen when you are using a decorating bag. Looks like I need a lot more practice.

The finished product!

I also decided to do white cupcakes with sprinkles.

I think they turned out pretty good for my first attempt!

a little about us....

We are Kayla and Melissa and we are two co-workers who, together thanks to blogs like bakerella and a lot of google image searching cool baking ideas, have become very interested in baking. We are by no means professionals, but it is our hope that after a lot of practice and maybe a couple of classes that we will be darn close. We would really love your comments and if you have an idea that you would like us to try we would be more than willing to give it a whirl and then see if we can give some hints or tricks for our readers!

The First Annual 4th of July Bake-Off

So we had our first bake-off for the 4th of July in our office. We have a feeling that there will be more bake-offs to come for future holidays too :)


Melissa's Entry "All American Cookout"

Kayla's Entry "Firecracker Cupcakes"-with pop rocks on top!




And the winner was.............KAYLA!!!!!

We will be posting recipes for both coming soon!