Lord of the Rings Wedding Cake

Jayme and Trey got married October 19. They wanted a Lord of the Rings cake. They wanted the ring in it somehow so this is what I came up with.

I used Lego Arwen and Aragorn as the couple.

I made the chain out of gum paste. It was a fun little cake to make. 

Air brush cookies

A  couple years ago Bryan gave me a very nice airbrush for Christmas. I admit I was scared of that thing. It just sat in my office and intimidated me. Until the other day when I was using a spray can of food color to spray color onto a practice cake to see how it would look (You will see that later, closer to the wedding) I ran out of the spray can color and we live 20 miles from the store so I had to quit. Then I remembered the air brush and that I had some airbrush food colors. Now, be at ease, I have never used the air brush for anything so it is ok to use for food. So I took a deep breath and plugged it in, filled the paint cup with gold food color and started to spray. OH MY WORD!! It  was so easy and fun. I don't think it will replace my decorating the usual way but it adds another dimension.

Today I was messing with it and while I am not confident enough with it to decorate cookies for any special thing I did have a fun time making these and trying things with it.

Mainly I need to practice control and patience! 

I decorated some cupcakes that I had extra and made them look like mummies.

Made some pumpkin cinnamon rolls with pumpkin pie spice cream cheese icing. Very good.

Then the other day I made some bat cookies for a party and some caramel apple cookies for another dinner.

These were a fun, relaxing project.

This isn't a cookie but...

I did just make Bacon Jam. I got the recipe from Cravings of a Lunatic. It is so good!!

I think it would be amazing on a burger.

Grasshopper Cookies

They look so innocent sitting there...don't be fooled, they are evil! Wickedly good.

I shouldn't make cookies. But I can't help myself.

Pumpkin Cookies

These are so good, if I do say so myself. This was a recipe I found and modified to make them more moist and cake like. Enjoy!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together: 1&1/2 sticks of butter (room temp); 1/2 cup Crisco butter flavor shortening; 1 Cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup organic sugar

Add in: 2 tsp. real vanilla; 2 eggs and 1 (15 oz) can of pumpkin puree

Mix well.

By hand stir in : 2&1/2 cups flour; 1 tsp. baking powder; 1/2 tsp. baking soda; 1/2 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. cinnamon; 1/2 tsp. each of ginger and nutmeg; 1/4 tsp. cloves

This batter is almost like a muffin batter. I used my cookie scoop and make sure to put parchment paper on the cookie sheet. 12 per tray bake for 12 minutes at 375. Remove when done to a cooling rack. 

For the icing: cream together 1 (8 oz. block cream cheese); 1/4 cup room temp. butter.; 2 tsp. vanilla; a pinch of salt and 2 cups powdered sugar

I put it in a piping bag and piped it onto the cookies. This recipe made about 62 with the cookie scoop I used. The icing didn't go that far the way I did it. It left about 12 without icing. I put fall leaves sprinkles on them. 

And then you add Pearl Dust...

And it changes everything!

Ball brand baby food jars

I love love love these little baby food Ball jars!! They are so handy for icing. Each on is 4 ounces and has a wide mouth and a plastic lid. So great for mixing and storing icing. I just know if I fill one with icing that I get about two of my small squeeze bottles filled from one jar. They come 4 in a package and cost about $5 at Walmart. Believe me I stocked up!