Thursday, May 23, 2013

Shark Bites




Summer is finally here and what better way to celebrate than with cupcake bites that look like they might bite back!

The decorations were so easy to make out of gumpaste; I felt like a kid playing with play-doh, only this time you're encouraged to eat it :)!


After dying the gumpaste with black gel coloring I rolled it out and used a large star cookie cutter to cut out triangles.  As soon as I cut each triangle I bent the tip slightly to give it more of a shark  effect and then let them dry.  Gumpaste hardens quickly and gets very hard so it holds its shape well.





These little sharks were super easy too!  I took a chunk of gumpaste and used a large skewer to create the mouth opening.  While they were drying I used a small star cookie cutter to cut out their mini fins.  I "glued" the fins on with a small dab of water.





To bring the sharks to life I used black gel coloring for their eyes and white frosting for their teeth.  I dipped a toothpick in the gel coloring and dabbed it on the shark to create the eyes.  (FYI DO NOT DOUBLE DIP THE TOOTHPICKS).  Using a #2 tip I piped each little tooth in the sharks' mouths.







If you have extra mini fins put them on the cupcakes to create a pool of sharks :).





ENJOY!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Pretzel Cookie Dough Bites

If you need something easy and completely delicious than these are for you!  This treat is so simple you don't even need an oven!!

I found this recipe on Pinterest by Baked From a Box but I had to make a few changes to really perfect this!

Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup Butter
  • 1 Cup of Sugar
  • 1 1/3 Cup Yellow Cake Mix
  • 3 Cups Flour
  • 1/2 TSP Salt
  • 2 TSP Vanilla Extract
  • 8-16 TBSP Milk
  • A Lot of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (yes "a lot" is a real measurement)
  • Salted Pretzels (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT THEY ARE SALTED)
  • Sprinkles
  • Parchment Paper


I made the mistake of getting unsalted pretzels, HUGE MISTAKE!  I had to individually salt them myself so they would taste right.


HOW TO:
  1. Cream the butter and the sugar to make it fluffy and light
  2. Mix in the cake mix, flour, salt, and vanilla
  3. Next add the milk, this requires a judgement call so add until you think it has enough :)
  4. Now roll out the cookie dough, you can decide how thin or thick you'd like it! :) yumm
  5. Cut the dough so it's about the size of a pretzel and sandwich it between two pretzels
  6. Freeze the pretzel sandwiches for about 30 minutes
  7. After freezing your pretzel sandwiches melt your chocolate chips and prepare your sprinkle bowls
  8. Lay a piece of parchment paper on your counter 
  9. Dip each sandwich half way into the chocolate and then directly into the sprinkles
  10. Then put the sandwich onto the parchment paper and let it dry



SOME HOW TO PICTURES:


Pretzel Sandwiches

Not eating the cookie dough might be one of the hardest things you've ever done (and that's coming from someone who's taken Constitutional Law)



Dip it 

Dip half to a quarter of the pretzel in the chocolate







Sprinkles!!!!!!!!






Change up your spinkles (I like the small round sprinkles the best)






YUMM!!!



Advice: Make extras!