Spring Has Sprung!

Well, I thought "spring had sprung" but it was cold and snowing (almost invisible but still) on Tuesday when I brought these springy cookies to Ladies' group - it was the only thing spring like about Tuesday morning! The cookies came to mind when I decided to bring Strawberry Cake for my contribution to the food table. I just had to make strawberry minis to go with the cake - more as decoration than anything - they are just cute!

The cookies are an adaptation of my favorite sugar cookie recipe by Sugarbelle. I made them with Nielson Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla and Nielson Massey Orange Extract and 1 tsp. of grated orange zest. They were  very deceptive - they looked like strawberries but tasted like orange - what trickery!

I made some little blossoms for some of the "strawberries" with white fondant and added a dot of yellow royal icing for the center of the fondant blossom. 

Of course - in my tradition of "over doing" almost everything - I just had to add a few chocolate dipped "strawberries" to the plate of springiness :) I also brought some actual chocolate dipped strawberries to completely take it over the top, because that's just how I roll ;) Looking at my "daisy" cookies in this pic - they look like fried eggs ;( oops

Easter Cake

"John's Three Layer Apple Cake"

When planning what cake to bring for Easter dinner, my daughter suggested the apple cake, so my search ended right there since I know it is a favorite for everyone who would be attending. I also made a post about this family favorite here.

The filling inside is cinnamon buttercream and the outside is vanilla buttercream. The roses are the "star" of this cake, they are gum paste and fondant roses - I am now taking course 3 of the Wilton courses at Michaels. When I made these roses, we had not learned how to make them yet. I just followed instructions in the course 3 book and did my best - same for the leaves. 

What do you think? I think they are not too bad for a first try without guidance from our instructor.

Birthday Party Cookies

Roll-out cookies for a birthday party.
These were practice cookies - my grandson's birthday was coming up and I wanted to try making some party cookies. I didn't have cutters so I drew some cupcakes and party hats on paper and cut them out as templates. I just used a paring knife to cut the cookies out using the template - takes longer than using a cutter but you gotta improvise sometimes.
I used Lila Loa's chocolate roll-out cookie recipe which can be found at: http://lilaloa.blogspot.ca/2011/03/end-all-for-chocolate-cookies-recipe.html
and Callye's sugar cookie recipe found at: http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/blog/2011/06/basic-sugar-cookie-recipe-2/
I also made these cookies....

and 1s which I also had to draw and cut out now, the flowers I had a cutter for those.