RIce Cream Krispie Treat

I spotted this idea online somewhere recently, but when I went back to find it again, I couldn’t! But the idea is pretty simple – sculpt rice krispie treats into the fun shape of an ice cream cone!

I chose to keep it simple this time and used regular rice krispies and cocoa krispies cereal, but you could add some color and/or flavoring to the marshmallows for other options. For example, pink for strawberry or pale green and chocolate chips for a mint chip ice cream look 🙂 The possibilities are endless! I considered making a red fondant cherry for the top, but ended up only using some sprinkles to add color and festivity to this cheery birthday surprise 😀

First I sketched out my approximate size and shape on white parchment paper over a half sheet pan…

Then covered the sketched parchment paper with a clean parchment sheet and taped it down/used non-slip squares to help when spreading/sculpting the krispies. It was a bit tricky to sculpt as it hardens fairly fast and is also hot off the stove. But butter up your fingers and stay calm and it will work out 🙂 They did remain slightly malleable even at the end for some minor adjustments.

I wanted two cone drips, but ended up settling for one once I got sculpting! Keep an extra pan nearby for the rice krispie mix that you don’t use and ask a helper to take care of that while you put the finishing touches on the design.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this RIce Cream Krispie Treat turned out, and I am eager to try some other “flavors” and maybe even shapes! Donuts? Flowers? Letters? oh my.

Cookie Party!

The end of year holidays were just too busy, but come spring I finally had time to host a cookie decorating party again! Spring/Summer/Fun – pretty much anything goes, especially with some of my new cookie cutters 🙂

Baking prep! Cookies drying… (not nearly all the cookies pictured here 😉 )

Party color theme and decorations

Sprinkle Bar!

Mixing up the fancy colored buttercream frostings

All ready for the cookie decorators to arrive 🙂

Just LOOK at all these beauties! I love seeing how people decorate and what creativity comes forward in the cookies 😀

Thank you all for your creativity and friendship!! 🙂

(towards the end of the afternoon… not all guests pictured here)

Cake Construction & Architectural Construction

After a long hiatus from baking, I’m back! I’ve moved and have a much more workable kitchen with more space, so I am looking forward to keeping up better in the new year!

The purpose and inspiration for this project was 1) To break my baking dry spell and launch back into a layer cake, why not?! 2) My take on looking at how my day job and hobby are similar 🙂

1 – “FOUNDATION & UNDERLAYMENT”

2 – “SITE PLAN”

3 – “FLOOR PLAN”

4 – “ELEVATION”

5 – “SECTION”

6 – “DETAIL”

7 – “PERSPECTIVE”

April {Baby} Showers

Back in mid April, my department at work hosted our friend and co-worker an office baby shower! The shower was Norwegian themed to honor the Momma’s heritage and I baked orange cardamom cupcakes for the occasion. The Real Simple recipe I used called for a chocolate sour cream frosting, but in the end I felt like the chocolate was too much and overpowered the cupcake flavor. I ended up just making a simple cream cheese frosting and I think the combination was successful. Yum!

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Birthday desk surprise

Friends at work have gotten into the fun tradition of decorating each others’ desks for birthdays! My favorite part is dreaming up personalized and specialized themes that are fun and fit the person we are celebrating, and seeing what we all bring and how it comes together. The latest was a collection of vignettes that included Easter, candy, chocolate, cute, minis, marathon runners, gluten-free, snow sports…

Birthday desk surprise

I baked this gluten-free chocolate cake from Bob’s Red Mill, and decorated it with fluffy vanilla “snow” frosting, coconut, mini skaters, daring skiiers, a marshmallow snowman and a cute gingerbread house!

Matchstick Cookies

I saw these mini matchstick cookies from SprinkleBakes and had to try them myself!

It took me several rounds to get these little cookies the size and shape I wanted, but I finally got some I was happy with. You have to make the dough, freeze, cut, freeze, and bake immediately to help them hold their sharp shape…

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It would have been faster to buy a package of ready-to-go white matchstick boxes, but by the time I decided I was going to go for it, I was a little short on time to order and hand out by Valentine’s Day like I planned (but not soon enough :P). So I ended up just buying a package of matchstick boxes at Fred Meyer, pocketing the matches and cleaning/altering/decorating the boxes for my own use with white paper and washi tape. I had more cookies to share, but the box alteration time set my limit for sharing to a special few 😉

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How cute are these ?!! 🙂

Raspberry Almond Valentine

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Happy Valentine’s Day! I was inspired to use fresh berries for my Valentine bake and came across these lovely raspberries, and then the almond cupcakes and bittersweet chocolate ganache followed 🙂 I look forward to getting a new camera someday soon, but for now, these camera phone photos will have to do!

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This lovely cake stand was made locally by JaMpdx! Thank you, Jenn and Meghan! 🙂

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