IC#47-A Sneak Preview

Our Iron Craft Challenge for this week was to make something for the table.  I'm making something to serve at Thanksgiving and didn't want to make it until this afternoon.  Therefore, you'll just have to wait awhile to see the end result.  For now, a little photo preview.

Pumpkin Cake

This week it was our turn to bring snacks to bible study.  I decided to take a simple route and try out this recipe for pumpkin cake.  I already had a box of cake mix and some canned pumpkin.  I had used a little of both for other things, but I decided to go with it anyway.

On the top, I created a pumpkin stencil and dusted it with powdered sugar and cocoa.  At first, I made a parchment paper stencil and was going to just use powdered sugar.  But this stencil proved too flimsy and the edges turned up mid-sprinkle.  After consulting my husband for advice, I ended up covering the whole thing with powdered sugar, cutting a new stencil out of cardboard, and then dusting with cocoa powder.  Much better.

The cake was delicious.  Moist and tasty.  It was all gone by the end of the night so I think it was a big hit.

Iron Craft Challenge #15- Peeps!

This week, we were challenged to make something using Peeps as part of the Iron Craft Challenge.  This meant using the actual peeps themselves, not just making something peep related.  I didn't really want to have peeps sitting around my house as permanent Easter decor (sorry little guys), so I went the edible route.  In honor of my bird-inspired craft business, here are some peeps dressed up to look like another species.

"Well Mr. Peep, we certainly look sophisticated." "We sure do Mrs. Peep, do you think we pass as goldfinches?"

I used melted chocolate to "paint" on the coloring of another bird species, the American goldfinch.  I used chocolate chips and toothpicks as my materials, but I'm sure you could get more fancy-schmancy with it.  Although the female does not get as bright yellow as the male, I like to think that this is a mating pair.  They are shown here sitting on a cheerios nest.

Moments after this photo was taken, the cheerios nest was consumed.  As of the writing of this blog, the birds were still alive.

Birthday Celebration!

Guess what!  Today is my birthday!  I'm going to celebrate tonight with some Cold Stone cake batter ice cream and on Friday with a fiesta birthday party (tacosss!!).  How about you celebrate by looking at pictures of birthday things on my blog.  Sound good?  Great!

Dessert Pedestal

Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes

Playful Party Straws

Skunk Cupcake Topper

Pom Pom Decorations

Mocha Cupcakes

Last night, I baked some mocha cupcakes for a party.  They were pretty tasty, so I wanted to share with you.

 

 I used a basic chocolate cake recipe from Better Homes and Gardens.  This cook book has never steered me wrong and I highly recommend it.  I thought about posting the recipe here, but just click on the link :)  These cupcakes take about 15min to bake.

One thing I will add is that I scooped the batter into cupcake pans using a cookie scoop to dish out the batter.  We recently bought one of these using a wedding gift card and it is AMAZING.  You can scoop cookies, muffins, cupcakes.  Anything.  One scoop is the perfect size for mini-muffins.

I then iced the cupcakes with coffee icing.  This was the tricky step.  I used this recipe from Paula Deen for coffee buttercream frosting.  I imagined big, fluffy frosting.  It turned out rather thin, more like that glazey frosting that you see on sugar cookies.  I added more and more powdered sugar before finally accepting fate and using what I had.  But, it turned out rather good!  I just dipped the cupcakes into the frosting and they ended up with a pretty, light-brown glaze.  (although after some man-handling, they don't look quite as pretty in the picture below-consequences of a potluck I suppose)

Plus, I got to use my dessert tower.  Oh yeah.