A Beautiful Wedding with 30 DOZEN cupcakes!

My kitchen, fridge, freezer....and my neighbors freezer have been taken over by a massive cupcake order for 30 dozen cupcakes and a cake! I was pleased with the turn out, and I think my husband, and neighbors for that matter- are grateful to have the fridge back! It was a beautiful wedding and venue at Cactus & Tropicals. I had to show pictures of the details because it was all made by the brides mother, dad and sister! I love the decorations, they were gorgeously done!

Cookies & Cream

Lemon Cupcakes with Lavender Frosting and a lemon & lavender shortbread cookie

Lime Cupcake with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Red Velvet with White Chocolate Buttercream

French Vanilla with Raspberry Whipped Frosting

 

Here are some beautiful pictures from the venue at Cactus & Tropicals 

JELL-O Cookie Recipe

I love Jell-o Cookies! The colors are so fun and bright, and I love that I can make them coordinate with any party theme and color! Plus, I love that they actually taste like the flavor of Jell-o you use, which is fun, and my daughter loves! I made this batch and flattened them out a bit before baking them, I prefer the "bubble" look they have when you just leave them as balls when baking, but they're both fun!! I've had so many people ask me for the recipe, so here it is! Enjoy Jell-o cookies yourself! 

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1 3 oz pkg Jell-O – my favorites are raspberry, lime, lemon or orange

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

Cream the butter, shortening, sugar and Jell-O. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat on medium speed until well mixed. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder. On slow speed, add the dry mixture, adding a little at a time. Mix well.

The dough will be fairly soft, but not sticky. You don’t need to refrigerate the dough before rolling. I like to use a scoop to make my cookies more uniform in size.
Pre-heat oven to 400°. Roll dough into 1″ to 1 1/4″ balls and then roll in a bowl with about 1/2 cup of granulated sugar in it, completely covering the exterior of the dough ball. Place on the pan about 2″ apart. Using a flat-bottomed glass (or bowl) press the dough to about a 3/8″ thickness.
Sprinkle the top with colored, chunky sugar. Mine all matched the different colors of dough, but you could contrast the colors if you like. Take the bowl (or flat-bottomed glass) and very lightly tap the chunky sugar into the cookie.

Bake the cookies for 6 – 8 minutes. Those 6 minutes are plenty long enough unless you like your cookies crisp! Cool on a rack. It takes about an hour, start to finish. If you get one batch in and start rolling the next, it will go fast enough that you can start working on the next flavor/color before you finish the first. Store in a air-tight container.

Yield30 – 36 cookies

Cake Central Magazine!!!

I was thrilled to pieces when I opened my email tonight, amidst an extremely stressful week and saw:

 

High Fives All Around! Your work has been included in the September 2013, Volume 4 Issue 9 - "Fashion Inspiration 2013 - Valentino" section of Cake Central Magazine!

I had 2 weeks to think up, make and have photographed a cake inspired by this Valentino dress:

Luckily I'm friends with Mary Clark of DMC Studios, who does absolutely beautiful work, and she was nice enough to squeeze me in to photograph my cake!

And when all was said and done, I was featured on 2 full pages:

 

And a Bio!!

Oh The Places You'll Go!

Such a cute theme for a baby blessing luncheon-and adorable design by Amber Dickson of

 The Butterfly Papers

 Amber requested some "cloud and sky mini cupcakes, which added wonderful color to the table setup, I think! Unfortunately, it was too easy to eat about 10 of them! I think I ate more than that just while making them! Mini Cupcakes are EVIL delightful, haha!

 

Proud Parents, Amber and Seth Dickson with little baby Grayson

Check out talented Amber at http://www.thebutterflypapers.blogspot.com/