So, get ready to have the most amazing red velvet cake you have ever tasted. Your taste buds simply won’t be the same.

Cake Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 sticks of room temperature butter

2 ounces of red food coloring

3 tablespoons of cocoa powder

2 eggs

1 cup of buttermil

1/8 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

Directions for the Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and butter a sheet pan.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Mix together the red food coloring, cocoa and salt in a small bowl until it makes a paste.

Mix paste into the cream and butter mixture.

Stir eggs with buttermilk and add to the batter.

Mix in the vinegar and the vanilla, as well as the flour and the baking soda.

Mix all ingredients until well blended.

Pour the mixture into the buttered sheet pan, smoothing out the top with a spatula.

Bake the cake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick can be inserted into the center of the cake and removed clean.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan.

Ingredients for the Frosting

1 cup of milk

1 cup of sugar

5 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

2 sticks of butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

Directions for the Frosting

Combine all of the ingredients for the frosting in a medium saucepan.

Mix the ingredients with a whisk until the sauce becomes thick, which should take about 15 minutes.

Allow the sauce to slightly cool.

Once the cake has cooled, remove it from the pan. Spread the frosting over the surface of it, as well as the sides, if there is enough remaining. Sprinkle the pecans over the surface of the cake to add an extra bit of color and flavor.

Cut a piece and enjoy!

So, without further ado, here is my recipe for a delectable carrot cake that you are sure to love.

Ingredients for Cake

1 1/4 cups of vegetable oil

2 cups of white sugar

4 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of fresh grated carrots

1 cup of chopped pecans

2 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of baking soda

2 teaspoons of baking power

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of softened butter

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions for Cake

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan.

Beat the eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla in a large bowl. Mix in the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, the sale and the cinnamon. Add the carrots and stir. Lastly, fold in the pecans.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until completely cooked in the center. Let cool for 10 minutes and remove from the cake pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Ingredients for the Frosting

1/2 cup of softened butter

8 ounces of cream softened cream cheese

4 cups of confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 cup of chopped pecans

Directions for the Frosting

Combine the butter, cream cheese, vanilla and confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl. Beat the mixture until it comes out completely smooth and creamy. Stir in the chopped pecans. Once the cake has completely cooled, spread the icing in an even layer over the top of the carrot cake.

This carrot cake is ideal to serve as birthday cake, as a cake for any other type of celebration, or as a cake that you simply want to enjoy to tickle your sweet tooth. You won’t believe how perfect the combination of tastes are, and best of all, you won’t believe how easy it is to prepare this cake.

If you are interested in making your own cookie pops, here is a very easy to follow recipe:

Ingredients

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

3/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

4 cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Sprinkles and colored sugar (for decorating)

4 inch white craft sticks

Instructions

Combine the butter and the shortening and beat them on medium speed with an electric mixer until the are nice and fluffy. Add in the all of the sugars and continue beating. Add in the eggs, the vanilla and the oil and beat together until well blended.

Combine the flour, the baking soda, the salt and the cream of tartar and beat well. Add the butter into the mixture and mix everything together well.

Cover the dough and place it in the refrigerator, allowing it to chill overnight.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and shape the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls. Roll the balls into the sprinkles or the color sugars until they are completely covered.

Set the sprinkle and sugar covered dough balls onto an ungreased baking sheet, set 2 inches apart. Insert a craft stick into the base of each of the balls. The craft stick will give the cookies the look of a lollipop.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for approximately 10 minutes, or until set and golden brown. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for about 2 minutes on the baking sheet. After two minutes, remove the cookies from the baking sheet and set them on wire racks so that they can cool all the way through.

To add more decorative flair to the cookie pops, tie a decorative ribbon around the sticks, giving them even more of a festive look. Insert them into a cellophane bag, if you wish, to give them even more of a ‘lollipop’ look.

Heart Shaped Cookies. This homemade Valentine’s Day treat is a cinch to make. Just whip up your favorite cookie dough (sugar cookies are a great one for this treat,) roll the dough out with a rolling pin, use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out your hearts and bake them. Once the heart shaped cookies have cooled, make them even more appealing by decorating them with white, red, pink or purple icing and shake some colorful sprinkles on top.

Red Velvet. Nothing says Valentine’s Day more than the color red, so how about making your sweetie a treat that is a lovely shade of red and that is divinely tasty. You can either whip up a batch of red velvet batter from scratch, or you can make a boxed batter. Turn your red velvet batter into a cake or a cupcake. You can make your treat even more Valentine friendly with heart shapes, or by adding Valentine themed sprinkles.

Heart Shaped Brownies. If your Valentine loves chocolate, then heart shaped brownies may be right up her alley. You can make any type of brownie batter that you like – traditional, chocolate chunk, white chocolate, walnut – you get the idea. Bake the brownies and then once they have cooled, cut them out with a heart shaped cookie cutter. You can leave the brownies as-is, or you can add a little bit of pizzazz to them, and a little bit more sweetness, by topping the brownies with icing and sprinkles.

Cereal Treats. Make a yummy, gooey treat that doesn’t require any baking at all this Valentine’s Day. Whip up a batch of your favorite cereal treats (Rice Krispies,  Cheerios, etc.) and instead cut them out in heart shapes. Alternatively, you can make one giant heart shaped cereal treat by forming all of the treats into a big heart shape. Just like all of the other treats, you can top these cereal treats with icing and sprinkles, if you wish.

No matter which treat you choose, your sweetie will be sure to love his Valentine’s Day sweets.

If you are designing a cake for a winter themed wedding and you are a little stumped for a decorative idea, have a look at some of these winter wedding cake decorating ideas. These designs are sure to delight the bride, groom and all of the guests, as well as add a touch of wonder to a winter wonderland themed wedding.

Snowflakes. An obvious choice when it comes to winter wedding cake designs is snowflakes, but it is one that ties beautifully into the given theme, and one that you can easily customize and modify. Create snowflakes out of fondant and design them to fit the taste of your bride and groom. You can create different sized snowflakes all in white and scatter them around the cake, or you can design snowflakes in a collection of different colors; blue and silver, for example. Another option is to feature just one big snowflake on the top of the cake in order to make a simple, yet bold statement.

Pinecones. Pinecones are another aspect of nature that are commonly related to the winter. Consider topping the cake with two large pinecones and placing smaller pinecones around the perimeter of each tier. You could also create a spiral effect with small pinecones along the front of the cake.

Holly Berries. Holly berries are simply stunning and their red hue will make quite a bold impact on a wedding cake – particularly a white one. Instead of using real holly berries, make them out of fondant or gum paste. Scatter them randomly about the cake and you won’t believe the beautiful visual effect they will create.

Snowmen (and Women.) If you want to add a whimsical look to a wedding cake, then consider using snowmen and women to decorate the cake with. For example, you could replace the traditional cake topper with a gum paste snowman and snow woman. Add snowflakes to the cake, as well. This will create a fun and festive look for a winter wedding cake.

The next time it’s cold, snowy or rainy out, or your kids say that they are bored and want something fun to do, ask them if they want to help you do some baking – I guarantee you’ll hear a big “YES!” But, before you grab out the bowls and the ingredients, here are a few tips to help make sure that baking with your kids goes as smoothly as possible.

Decide What to Make. For starters, you should decide what you want to make. Let your kids help you make this decision. Give them a few options and let them choose which one they want to make. Remember, however, don’t offer them options that are too involved, as frustration may be the end result.

Read the Directions. Make sure that you read all of the directions, from start to finish, to make sure that you have all of the ingredients that you need and to ensure that you won’t be hit with a surprise, like letting the dough chill overnight.

Wash Up. Wash all hands that will be involved with baking thoroughly. Not only should you wash before beginning, but you should also wash during and after the process. For example, if you are cracking eggs, make sure to wash hands after doing so.

Divide Tasks. If you are working with more than one child, dividing tasks is particularly important. You don’t want to run into arguments, or competitions. So, to make the task fair for all involved, decide who will be doing what beforehand. For example, one child may add all ingredients that require measuring cups and one child may add all ingredients that require measuring spoons, or, you could have one child add ingredients and another child could mix them.

Don’t forget to talk about some important life skills during the process, like the mathematics involved in measuring and the importance of following directions. Following these tips will allow you and your children to have fun baking experiences together, and will allow you to provide them with some important skills that they can take with them throughout life – not to mention spending quality time together and creating delicious treats.

You can start off by using your favorite sugar cookie recipe. You can make these homemade or you can cheat and purchase a store bought sugar cookie mix. I used my favorite recipe that I got from my grandmother. I figure the cookie is the main part of this treat so it should be good.

While your cookie dough is chilling in your refrigerator, you can start to get the other ingredients ready.

Ingredients:

• Large Marshmallows
• Royal Icing
• Icing Colors (Food Color or Wilton Gel Colors of your choice. You can find the Wilton Colors at a Craft Store)
• Silver Dragees, Mini Chocolate Chips, or other little candy pieces you could use for buttons and accessories on your snowman. (You can pipe these details in royal icing OR use accessories. For kids… accessories are easier)
• Parchment Paper
• Shortening

Once the dough is completely chilled (at least 4 hours), prepare your work surface with flour, a couple of cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, a spoon, cookie scoop and preheated oven.

Use a cookie scoop or a tablespoon to scoop a small ice cream scoop size of dough and sprinkle it with flour. Flour helps the dough from sticking to your hands.

Roll the dough into a ball and press it flat. It should look like a puddle when you are done. There is no perfect shape for this, the idea is to get them about half an  inch thick and all about the same shape.

Bake the cookies according to the recipe that you are using. You can make up some Royal Icing while they are baking. My daughter and I used the Royal Icing recipe on the Wilton website, but you can use your favorite recipe here. Below is the recipe that we used:

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons Wilton meringue powder
• 1 lb sifted powdered sugar
• 6 tablespoons water

Directions

Mix together all ingredients using an electric mixer on low speed for 7 to 10 minutes or until you see the icing form peaks. Once you see stiff peaks, transfer about 1/2 of the icing into a mixing bowl and add 1/2 teaspoon of water at a time while you stir it until the consistency is slightly runny.

When you are finished, place the icing in a container covered with a wet paper towel and lid.

Place a piece of parchment paper on  your work surface and start off with a couple of cookies. Spoon a small puddle  of icing onto the cookie. Use a knife or the back of your spoon to spread it out making sure the icing goes to the edges in some spots.

Next, liberally grease a plate or silicone mat with shortening. And place about 8 marshmallows on the mat, spaced out. Set your microwave for 20 seconds and DO NOT WALK AWAY. Watch the marshmallows. As they start to puff up, you are ready to go. Don’t let them get huge or melt. You just want them to puff. Stop your microwave BEFORE they double in size.

Liberally Grease your fingers and pick up one marshmallow at a time and kind of smoosh it into place. You don’t have to be neat or perfect, just get it on there. The marshmallow should not stick to your fingers as long as you have shortening on them.

Repeat this step for each cookie and then let the icing set up just a bit.

Now you are ready to decorate your cookies in way you want. You will need a piping bag and size 1 or 2 tips. Use coloring to color your royal icing the colors you want and have fun decorating your melted snowman.

Every decoration on these is royal icing. I pipe the noses on in a medium/stiff consistency. Use a #1 or #2 tip and pull up and away as you pipe. The nose should stand up in the direction you pull.

You can use Mini Chocolate Chips for buttons. The arms, eyes, and mouth were piped with a number  tip.

Image Source: trulycustomcakery.com

Use Fruits or Nuts

Decorating a Christmas cake does not have to be difficult or expensive. You can easily use fruits and nuts to make some very nice Christmas cakes for your family or friends. Do a Google search to look for different ways you can use these items for your cake. It will work much better if you use dried fruits, cherries, and different types of  nuts. You may be surprised at all of the nice ways you can use fruits or  nuts on a cake to make them look very beautiful for your guests or just for your family.

Make Different Cake Shapes

Once you make a cake whether it be square or round, you can cut the cake in different shapes to make a very nice Christmas cake. For example, you can easily take a rectangular cake or square cake and easily cut out a Christmas tree shape. You can then decorate it with green icing and then decorate your tree using different items. You can pipe on some very nice decorations for your Christmas tree. You can also cut out a snowman, Christmas wreath, bell, etc. Use your imagination and you will find many different ways you can use cake shapes when making a Christmas cake.

Use Icing Colors and Glitter

You normally think of the colors red and green when thinking about Christmas. You can choose these two colors when making your Christmas cake to make them very festive. You can also make the cake even more festive by adding in other colors in different shades, such as gold, yellow, white, pink, etc. You can also add some edible glitter to your cake when you are finished decorating it to make it even more beautiful. I recently saw a silver Christmas cake with glitter on it and it was absolutely beautiful.

You can do many things with Christmas cakes if you sit down and let your creative side take over. Research online on different ways you can decorate Christmas cakes that are easy for you.

Ingredients

• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1/2 cup seedless strawberry jam
• 48 lollipop sticks
• 1 can (16 ounces) vanilla frosting
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups canned chocolate fudge frosting
• Vanilla frosting
• Red past food coloring
• Dark chocolate and candy cane flavored kisses

Prepare and bake your cake according to the directions on the box. Use a greased 13X9 inch baking pan for your cake. Allow the cake to completely cool when it is finished baking. It is done when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake on a wire rack.

Crumble the cake into a large mixing bowl. Add the jam and mix well. Shape the cake mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place the balls onto a baking sheet and insert the lollipop sticks into them. Place in your freezer for at least 2 hours, or you can refrigerate them for 3 hours, or until the cake balls are very firm and easy for you to handle.

Insert the cake pops into a Styrofoam block to stand. In your microwave, warm the vanilla frosting and peanut butter. Stir the mixture until it is very smooth. Spoon this mixture over the cake pops.

Tint the desired amount of additional vanilla frosting red. Use fudge, vanilla and red frosting, pipe hair and the faces for the elves. Top each with a chocolate or candy-can flavored kiss for the hat.

Let the cake pops stand until they are set.

These cake pops are very fun to make. You children can even help you with them. These little elves are so cute, and it is very much fun making their little hats and faces. People will definitely be wanting this recipe, so make sure you have it with you if you serve these at a party. Also, make sure you make enough of them because they will go very quickly, especially if there are a lot of children around.

Christmas is a great time to make treats for your friends and family to eat. These cake pops are the perfect treat to add to your list of sweets that you are making this year.

Image Source: Tasteofhome.com

]]> http://cakedecoratingexcellence.com/blog/christmas-elf-cake-pops/feed/ 0 http://cakedecoratingexcellence.com/blog/christmas-elf-cake-pops/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/cakedecoratingexcellence/hOgG/~3/hw5r8sQGyOU/ http://cakedecoratingexcellence.com/blog/peanut-butter-blossoms/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:49:23 +0000 Admin http://cakedecoratingexcellence.com/blog/?p=1204 Peanut butter blossoms is one of my daughter’s favorite Christmas cookie, as well as the rest of my family. She has always loved peanut butter and chocolate together. This recipe is very simple to make,  and even better it only takes a few minutes. Your children can easily help you with these cookies in many different ways, such as unwrapping the Hershey Kisses and rolling the dough into balls. Most of these ingredients you may even already have in your house.

Ingredients

• 48  HERSHEY’S KISSES Brand Milk Chocolates
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup REESE’S Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1  egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
•   Additional granulated sugar

Directions

Preheat your oven to 375 F and get out two cookie sheets for the cookies.

Start off by unwrapping the wrappers from the Hershey Kisses. This is something even young children can do as long as they don’t sit and eat them all!

In a mixing bowl, use your electric mixer to beat together the shortening and peanut butter until the ingredients are mixed well. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and the brown sugar. Beat these ingredients until the mixture is fluffy.

Add egg, milk, and vanilla and mix well with the electric mixer.

In a separate mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually beat this into the peanut butter mixture.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in a small bowl of granulated sugar, and then place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Your children can help you with this step.

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and immediately press a Hershey’s Kiss into the center of each cookie. The cookie will crack around the edges when you place the Hershey’s Kiss into it. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and place on a wire rack to completely cool. This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies.

As you see, this is a very simple, but delicious recipe. Most people love the taste of chocolate and peanut butter together, and what better way to eat it than in a cookie. These cookies taste especially good when they are just a little warm from the oven. Hopefully your family will enjoy these cookies as much as mine does. This is always a favorite around the Christmas season every year.