CookieD-oh

...because the Internet NEEDS another marshmallow fondant tutorial! I use Rhonda's Ultimate Marshmallow Fondant.  Found  here.   It's fabulous and I love it.  It's been my favorite for about four years, give or take. And the ingredients... Now, the recipe starts out with 15 ounces of mini marshmallows.  Every marshmallow I've ever bought comes in either a 10- or a 16-ounce bag.  However, this recipe will not work right with 16 ounces of marshmallows.  For real.  So take out one ounce of marshmallows and do whatever it is that you do with one ounce of marshmallows. Or I guess you could just buy three 10-ounce bags and make two batches, if you want to do it the easy way. Grease a microwave-proof bowl and spoon.  Pour the marshmallows into the bowl.  Add two tablespoons of water.  Set aside. I like to mix the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl before I melt the marshmallows because you will want to add ...

This weekend was all about cupcakes.  I made 40 of of them for a baby shower, plus 24 cake pops, which doesn't sound like much until I tell you there were 6 flavors. Strawberry... Red Velvet... Vanilla Almond... Chocolate... Cookies & Cream... And vanilla, strawberry and lemon (flavor #6) cake pops...which I forgot to photograph.  But they were adorable. Unfortunately, no matter how you do the math, 40 cupcakes do not fit evenly into 48 cupcake holders.  But I do love these cupcake boxes (is it still a box if it's plastic?) that hold 2 dozen.  They sell them at the local cake shop.  And they make me look like I know what I'm doing. (True story...I took a cake to work about 15 years ago for a birthday and one of my co-workers absolutely REFUSED to believe that I made the cake. Not because it was awesome or beautiful or amazing, because it wasn't, but because it was in a bakery box.  Which I purchased at the above-r...

Valentine Robots via SweetSugarBelle! Her tutorial is here.   I did mine a little differently because every time I outline sections with icing, you can see the outlines when I'm done.  Totally bums me out. So I did it this way: It worked for me.  And I didn't spray them with the luster spray because I forgot to buy some.  D'oh! Anyhoo, I bagged them up and I'll be sending them to school with the boy on Valentine's Day.  Because he was very excited to see Valentine cookies that weren't all sappy and pink and girly. That's all for now. Enjoy!

Time for another cookie challenge from Georganne over at LilaLoa!  This month is the sketch it challenge .  Unfortunately, I have very little actual artistic talent.  And what talent I do have tends to lean more toward sculpting/forming items.  But, it's a challenge, so I gave it a go. Ironically, just a couple weeks before the challenge was issued, I sketched this picture in response to a thread over at www.cookiedecorator.com: That's a bottle of Super Red, with a sad bottle of Tulip Red in the background.  (I thought it was funny.) But I didn't want to make a cookie out of that sketch.  So I made some new sketches: The birds up at the top were inspired by a child's shirt I saw at a store.  I thought the bird on the shirt looked like it might fit inside a heart cutter.  And it did.  WooHoo!  Although, I should have taken a picture of the shirt.  It would have meant less agonizing over the tails, when I couldn't rememb...

These were cookies I made for the boy's class two years ago, I believe.  Aren't they cute? They're bees.  Made from a heart cutter. How smart is that?  (I can say that because it wasn't my idea.) Inspired by  A Master Creation  and put on sticks for the kids.  Because kids like things more if they're on sticks. Red for the boys... Pink for the girls... I also made a giant Queen Bee for the teacher, but I forgot to take a picture.  Go me! And here are some others that I made for my sister-in-law's birthday the same year. I love Valentine cookies.  I'm going to get started on this years' soon, but for now, this is all I've got. Enjoy!

I was going to call this post "The Ghost of Birthday Cakes Past", but then I figured you'd expect to see more than one cake.  And I'm only showing you one cake. Anyhoo, this is the cake I made for the Boy's fifth birthday (or 5st, if you're a Cake Wrecks follower).  He wanted penguins and an igloo and a slide.  We saw a Christmas cake on Cake Central by BarbieAnnplayswithherFOOD and adapted from there. He wanted ten penguins.  No more, no less. Little igloo on top.  White cake, I think.  Nothing fancy. Sprinkled with a little "pixie dust" disco dust.  Looked very icy. Penguins sliding.  The little guy at the top of the slide was my favorite. Snowball fight! Hanging out. Building a snowman. I definitely see things I would have done differently.  I should have used more colors.  Maybe some trees, or something. I don't know what I was thinking to make the snowman's hat and scarf blue.  Should have ...

Who here is cheap frugal? **raising hand and waving wildly** Then have I got a recipe for you!  You see, several years ago I quit my job to stay home with my children.  Then my husband was promptly laid off.  While he worked to get his business off the ground, I tried to find ways to save lots of money.  Now that we're doing a bit better, this is one of the money saving habits that stuck with me.  Because I usually have an apoplectic fit when I see how much the laundry detergent goes for at the grocery store. Note: There are many, many laundry detergent recipes out there, but this one works for me. The ingredient list is quite simple: 1 bar of bathsoap, grated, or 1/3 bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap, grated 1/2 cup Borax 1/2 cup Super Washing Soda 2 gallons water, divided And here's how you make it! Grate the bar of soap.  I used Dove (pomegranate scented) this time.  I used to use the Fels Naptha, but Hubby started complaining abou...