12 Months of Giving....

With the beginning of a New Year comes the dreaded New Year's Resolution. I don't really dwell on what my resolution is going to be, of course it has always been to loose weight like the millions of other woman out there. However, this year I have decided that in 2012 I will make it a point to give back some way or some how at least once a month! Usually my year involves some sort of charity, whether it is adopting a family for Christmas, raising money for the American Cancer Society or participating in Relay for Life. This year I would like to set aside my time each month to focus on helping some sort of charity, family, business or person with a hands-on approach. I truly do feel that what you put out into the world you will get back 10x more. Therefore, in 2012 I am going to give give give and watch my life be blessed because of it!

Here is my list so far....

Donate 10 inches of hair to Locks of Love
Surfrider Beach Clean-Up
Habitat For Humanity (build)
Meals on Wheels-Salvation Army
Adopt-a-Family through Salvation Army

The Feast!

Well this past weekend the husband and I scrambled to clean up our new home so we could have people over to celebrate his 29th Birthday. I thought it was a great opportunity to use our Wine Party certificate we have had for almost a year along with having family over to see our new place. Our place is not close to being done and from what I have heard from others, it will always be a work in progress. But we have done the "major" redecorating like the flooring, whole new kitchen and paint. I think everyone was amazed with how much work we have done on our new home. Anyways I have found a new love called pinterest. I know most of you by now are on it or have at least heard of it. When I was invited to it, yes you have to be invited to it (so silly), I really didn't pay much attention to it. However I began using it because I was finding recipes online for this party and OMGooodness it is amazing! I was able to plan the entire menu for our party on it and when I was ready to create all the goodness I found I just printed all the recipes right from it! Now I might be on the track of becoming addicted to it. I really don't see anything wrong with becoming addicted to it because it encourages me to do a bunch of arts and crafts or baking on my own (I tend to just buy stuff I usually can make). I do have a huge crafty side of me but with work and the money I don't have it is hard to find the time to sit down and craft, however I have been making more of an effort to craft and pinterest has helped a lot! So I found 5 or 6 recipes (mainly from Annie's-eats) that I knew would be a big hit at the party and are also a few of the hubby's favorites! Here are some pictures of them from annies-eats.com...I wanted to take pictures of what I made but cooking/baking for 8 hours really tires a person out! :)

Turkey Cake Pops Without the Pop!

I had an order for 24 of "something Thanksgivingish" for a clients' work party so I decided to practice some pop making! I found these adorable Turkey Cake Pops at Bakerella and I knew I just had to make them for this order! I decided to trash the pop idea and just make the Turkey balls because 1.It was easier & 2. I had nothing to place the pops in for easy transportation. I also had to switch out some of the ingredients for the ones I made because I could not find the original ingredients in my area. They ended up turning out super cute and my client is very happy with them! I used vanilla cake with pumpkin pie spices to make it taste "Thanksgivingish", Almond Bark (for the coating), candy corn (for the feathers, both regular and caramel), sprinkles (for the eyes, nose & wattle), and almond M&M's (for the head). This was the first time I used Almond Bark for the coating and it works/tastes great and it is so much cheaper then the candy melts! After I was all finished I would have loved to make cupcakes and place each Turkey Ball on a cupcake but I didn't have enough time. Maybe next year! Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Time Flies....

OMGoodness where has the time gone? It has almost been 2 months since I have posted on here! Well I do have an excuses and that is we FINALLY got the house we have been negotiating on for the last 9 months! Yay! We knew that there was A LOT of work that needed to go into the house once we got it so we have been using every waking moment on making our new house into a home. I mean it needed EVERYTHING, from new flooring to a new kitchen to new drywall! Therefore I have had really no time what-so-ever to do any fun baking or cooking! During the last two months I did put my toppers in a craft fair that is very popular in Orange County called Sugar Plum, and they did surprisingly well! I was able to sell around 50 bags (each bag had 12 toppers) along with getting my name out there so people can contact me about dessert tables or personalized toppers! So between the remodeling of the new house, working, crafting for Sugar Plum, volunteering for Sugar Plum and just everyday glitches (like me severely hurting my knee on a ladder accident) I really have had no time for anything else! However, we are at the home stretch for the BIG remodeling ventures, Sugar Plum is over (for now), and I am looking forward to hosting a birthday party for the husband along with baking/cooking items for the holidays so I will once again be able to blog all the yummyness that I create! I hope everyone is well and looking forward to holidays filled with family, friends and love!

Cupcake Toppers

I love baking and I love adding a little more then frosting to my cupcakes, which is where cupcake toppers come into play! I have really enjoyed creating different types of unique and fun toppers and I just opened an Etsy account. I must say it is all really new to me and I am completely lost when it comes to marketing and using Etsy but it will soon all fall into place! Here are some pictures of recent toppers! Here is my Esty page: http://www.etsy.com/people/katysylvester

Cake Balls

This weekend I had an order for cake balls for a soccer team to fill their snack bags with at the end of the game. I originally wanted to do soccer ball cake balls but in the process of trying to do that I realized how difficult it was to draw a soccer ball on each one with the large size of the cake ball. Therefore I just decided to sprinkle the top of the cake ball with the colors of the team, black and white. I then created a cute tag for the bag and the kids LOVED them! Here are some pictures of the process I used.....

 Bake the cake and cut into pieces

 Put pieces into bowl with icing & stir

 Roll into cake balls and freeze

 Put chocolate covered tips of sticks in cake balls

 Dip cake balls in melted chocolate

 Sprinkle

Bagged and ready to eat!

MIA

Well I have been pretty busy the last few weeks and I do apologize for not posting very much but to be honest I have not been doing very much when it comes to desserts. My husband and I have been dealing with a short sale for the last 8 months and in the last couple of weeks we have been dealing with a lot of paper work and decisions because we are finally going to close escrow in a few weeks! We are very excited and cant wait to begin remodeling the town home and building a family in something we actually own! Owning a home has been something very important to my husband and myself. It is important to us to own something, take care of it and mold it into something we will live in for a long time. On that note I have also been debating on what in the world I want to pursue with when it comes to Savory & Sweet. I want this company to bloom into something big but at this moment I am not too sure what I want it to grow into. Right now I have the opportunity to begin selling my cake toppers at The Sugar Plum Festival. This will give me a chance to see if it is worth my time to continue to pursue creating paper products or if I should just concentrate my time on desserts & dessert tables. I would love to end up having a one stop shop that pretty much has everything to do with dessert tables, but that is in the far future. I will also begin selling my toppers and other paper products on Esty as well. I have been working quietly on toppers in the last couple of weeks which is another reason no blogs have been posted. I plan on posting some toppers on here and eventually having a link to my Etsy shop, which I have yet to create! In the mean time I do have an order for some cake pops that I will begin creating in the next couple of days that I would love you to check out. I will be posting a blog on that soon! As for now, I hope all is well!

***By the way I know I was suppose to make a Tuesday Treat Blue Cheese and Strawberry cupcake, which I will get to, I promise!

Savory & Sweet Cupcake Inspiration

I absolutely LOVE salads and one in particular that I have had many versions of but I must admit Mimi's makes the best of is a Strawberry, blue cheese, walnut & balsamic vinegar salad!

katyelliott.com

While creating yesterday's Tuesday Treat: Maple Bacon Cupcakes I began to think of other savory and sweet dishes that I could create into cupcakes and that salad was the first thing that popped into my head! I am really excited (and a little nervous) at the same to to create this amazing cupcake! I want it to taste just like the salad so I am planning on making a strawberry cupcake (real strawberries of course) and then topping it with a blue cheese frosting and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar along with a sprinkle of walnuts! In my mind is sounds amazing but we wont find out until next Tuesday :)

Tuesday Treat: Maple Bacon Cupcakes

So I stayed true to what I was going to create for the first Tuesday Treat, which is Maple Bacon Cupcakes! I was daring and took a small bite and to my surprise it was not too bad. The hubby loved it and that is all that really matters!

Here is how I made it!

First I made the base; maple cake

2 tbsp flour

1.5 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp oil

1 tbsp imitation maple extract 

(you can use Grade B pure Maple syrup if preferred, imitation was cheaper)

*Stir*

Next I cooked up 1/2 a piece of bacon to a crisp and then chopped it up and added to the cake base. I also add about a tsp of the bacon grease.

I then baked it at 350 degrees for around 10 minutes. It came out looking more like a muffin but still had the consistency of a cupcake :)

I then created my cream cheese maple bacon frosting by just taste testing until it was deeelicious!

Cream cheese

Powder sugar

Unsalted butter

Pinch of brown sugar

Imitation maple extract

I then crisped the other half of the bacon cut it up in little pieces and topped the cupcake with it and TADA here is....

SAVORY & SWEET Maple Bacon cupcake with a Maple Cream Cheese & Brown Sugar frosting topped with toasted Bacon crumbles :)

The hubby loved it!

Pie!

So I have never baked a pie before and recently I have been having the urge to at least try to make one. Well, although sometimes I may seem crazy, I am truly not because there was no way I was going to make a pie from scratch for my first pie! Therefore, I bought 2 frozen pie crusts and canned cherries and threw them together! I dumped the cherries into one of the pie crusts and then covered with the other pie crust. With the left over crust I made two little cherries to put on top of the pie and then put some holes in the top and tada, a cherry pie! I put it in the oven for a total of 45 minutes and out came the pie. Now it was definitely not the best looking pie we have seen but it gets a 10 for taste! Now I guess the next pie I make will HAVE to be from scratch since I believe you can only get away with making 1 pie in your lifetime from frozen crust and canned fruit :) Here are some pictures!

 Before the top crust

 Crust on top cherries made

 Up close!

 Done baking

Cherry & crust goodness!

UPCOMING: Tuesday Treats!

I have decided to create a new dessert every Tuesday for you all to try out yourselves or maybe just enjoy reading about and drool over the pictures. This upcoming Tuesday I have decided to finally create something Savory, because this is a SAVORY and sweet blog isn't it?

I do not like bacon, I know, call me crazy, but I truly don't eat anything pork related (I know I am missing out on a lot of yummy things). Let me explain, growing up I really looked up to my brothers and sister. For a good part of my childhood my oldest brother did not eat pork because pigs were his favorite animal, therefore I did not eat pork, which has followed me into adulthood. However, just because I do not like pork doesn't mean all the people around me don't as well. My husband loves pork, actually he loves ALL types of meat! So I have decided to create Bacon Maple Cupcakes just for the hubby and I might actually have to try a bite!

I have not completely decided on how I am going to make them but I definitely know I am going to be making a maple based cream cheese frosting sprinkled with toasted bacon bits. For the cake I am not too sure what base I am going to use yet but I know it is going to have sprinkles of toasted bacon in it as well. I hope you are all looking forward to the upcoming Tuesday Treat next week!



Orange Gooooodness

Based on my last post you saw that I was actually able to make something without having to do it more then once to get it right! I was also able to make some yummy cake balls to go with the yummy Oreo pops for my nephew's 2nd Birthday party! My sister-in-law let me use some of her orange extract (powerful stuff) to flavor the orange chocolate melts so it kept within the orange flavor theme. I wasn't too happy with the outcome of the consistency of the melts but it still worked to say the least. Next time I flavor my melts I am going to have to use an oil based flavoring. Here are some pictures from the party!

 Orange & Chocolate Cake Balls

 Dreamsicle Oreo Pops

 The Birthday Boy!

 Birthday boys sister!

 Happy Birthday Ollie!

 The birthday boy on the slip-n-slide

More Cake Pops!

Creamsicle Oreo Pops

Well I am happy to report that I was actually able to make the Creamsicle Oreo Pops, and they don't look too bad!

Here is how I made them!

 First I had to find these suckers at Walmart (thought they ran out of them!)

 Then I had to separate all the broken ones out (there was a lot) The hubby was happy though!

 Then I stuck a lollipop stick in each one & put them in the refrigerator so the cream could get hard

 While they were chilling out I started to melt the chocolate candy melts

 This took about 3 times at 30 seconds on 50% power

 I then took one Oreo out at a time and dipped it in the chocolate, using a fork to help coat it

 I then dipped the chocolate covered Oreo pop into white sprinkles

 Then let them all cool out on wax paper in the refrigerator

 And here is the end result, a Chocolate Covered Creamsicle Oreo Pop!

I hope my little nephew loves them!

Tomorrow I will attempt to make the cake balls.