Superbowl Sunday

What I learned today...

is that I shouldn't try to decorate things when I'm not in the mood/haven't had much sleep.  We were heading to our friend, Jeff's yesterday for the Superbowl, and I had wanted to make cute football themed desserts.  I found a recipe for peanut butter balls and thought I could turn them into footballs.  Good idea, in theory, at least.  They were not turning out quite football shaped and I couldn't get the white chocolate to pipe on correctly.  I gave up. 

The good news was that the boys at the party loved them, no matter what they looked like.  I think Andy and Jerry were personally responsible for housing most of them!

I also wanted to make another bite size snack that wasn't too fussy but would be delicious none the less.  I found a recipe over at The Pioneer Woman for Graham Cracker Cookie Bars.  I happen to have all of the ingredients necessary and although they were a little sloppy to make, they were my favorite of the night. 

Despite my lack of decorating skills yesterday, and my  lack of sleep the night before, I had a great time at Jeff's and am glad for such good friends!

Congratulations, Molly!

Cake success and fail on the same day...

My cousin Molly graduated on Friday from Bishop McDevitt High School and will be attending LaSalle University in the fall...our alma mater!  LaSalle is where Matt and I met twelve years (eeek!) ago, and I think Molly will do great there.  Molly's mom asked me last week at the family reunion to make 2 dozen cupcakes--half Bishop McDevitt themed, the other half LaSalle themed.  I thought, "No problem!"  Little did I know that the baking gods were not working with me this morning.  I baked 2 dozen vanilla cupcakes and while cooling, the cupcakes pulled away from liners.  CAKE FAIL! After a little bit of googling, there are two possibilities as to how this happened.  Either, the cakes weren't fully cooked or the oven is heating evenly.  My guess is that its a combination of both.  I'm always worried about over baking cakes, and our oven has been acting weird lately. 

Needless to say, I had to start over and make another batch.  This time, I made sure to bake them a little longer and rotated the cupcake pans more often.  The results were much better!   I made swiss meringue butter cream icing and tinted half of it yellow for the LaSalle cupcakes.  Have you ever had an idea in your head that you just couldn't make happen in reality?  That's what these cupcakes were like for me.  They turned out cute enough, but just not what I had in mind.  I've seen lots of cupcakes rimmed with sugar, and I thought it would be fun to try.  Somehow, it just didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. 

Sorry the pictures are so dark.  It started to storm like the world was ending right as I was finishing up, and I just could not get the lighting right.  (Not-quite-right seems to be the theme of the day).

The cupcakes, luckily, tasted pretty good.  Molly said they tasted very fresh, which  I always like to hear!  Holly really liked the icing and even conned her Poppy into giving her his icing...Poppy just ate two plain cupcakes!   After devouring the icing, Holly said, "These are good.   Matt made them!"  She proceded to tell everyone that Matt made the cupcakes and kept thanking him!  Needless to say, Matt didn't correct her!

Congratulations, Molly!  You'll have a great time at LaSalle!

Another (semi) cake fail...

Book club oops!

I borrowed an Ice Cream Cone cake pan from my sister-in-law a few weeks ago.  (Have you checked out her blog?  You should.  She rocks.) It looked so cute, and I couldn't resist.  I figured I'd make them for book club tonight.  Well, in theory...they are cute.  The problem?  They cannot stand on their own!  Right now they look okay, but I guarantee that they will not survive the drive over to Jen & Mandy's house.  The good thing is, they taste amazing!  It is yellow cake recipe with Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Butter Cream frosting.  Delish!  

Looks cute, right?  Not so much when I couldn't figure out how to transport them...

See?  Awful.  Hopefully the girls won't mind.

Brownie Fail...and a few other things.

Another snow day...

Yet, not the most successful day of baking.  In the simplest of terms, I tried to use this...

to make brownies, but ended up with this...

and this...

So much for trying to be cute with brownies.  The bright side is that Matt loves to use brownie pieces in his ice cream.  Guess what we are having tonight instead of cute brownies?

I also made some Peanut Butter blossoms using some cookie dough I had made awhile ago and frozen.  Delish.  Can't go wrong with peanut butter cookies.

Finally, I attempted to make my own fondant for the first time.  I detest the way store bought fondant tastes, so I decided to try a homemade recipe.  Let me tell you, I will never use store bought again.  This fondant tastes just like buttercream icing, and it is simple to make.  I need the fondant for cupcakes I am making this week and thought that I could get a head start.  It  is not pretty right now, but hopefully I will be turning it into something special later this week.