A couple's 18th Wedding Anniversary

One customer called me up and asked me to make cookies for her and her husband for there wedding anniversary a month ago. I wanted to make the cookies as sentimental as possible. So I asked what was her and her husbands favorite color and she said it was blue. So I thought I'll just make different shades of blues. She wanted hearts and pearls so I said I can do 2 large(5 inch cookie cutter) heart cookies and the rest would be regular (3 inch cookie cutter) heart shaped cookies. I thought to give the cookies a vintage theme, so I decided to add in different shades of pink heart shapes in the middle and then add the pearls around. A long side two name cookies. I didn't charge her for this because she won a certificate from me (1 dozen butter cookies), which can only be used once.  If I did charge her for this it would of came out $36 for 1 dozen cookies. 1 cookie would be $3 and up,depending on size. 

Chocolate Treat Basket!

Made these sweet treats 2 weeks ago for some priests I know. One of priests cannot take gluten so everything in this basket is gluten free. I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free mixes for the chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake. I used Pamela's gluten free honey graham crackers for the graham cracker toffee. Topped it all off with a chocolate bar. Viola!  Super easy and of course they enjoyed it! 

My 23rd Birthday Cake

The finished product! The first layer cake is a 6 by 3 inch gluten free butter cake. There is no filling and the frosting is a buttercream frosting. I added 3 white roses on top with edible powdered gold leaves and edible pearls. To get the black frills I used a tip 104 and I got the bright burgundy color with a mixture of burgundy and red. I added a vine with the edible gold powder with a touch of pearls again. The only thing that wasn't edible were the pendants. I bought those at Jo-ans. I used Grecian columns, and used small letter cut outs for "Happy Birthday" and the number "23" in roman numerals from fondant. The second layer cake is a 8 by 3 inch gluten free pumpkin layer cake with cream cheese filling and cream cheese frosting on top. I used buttercream frosting for the frills and roses and vines. There were 8 roses on the sides. I had to refrigerate this whole thing to set, especially the second layer. Same design topped with another store brought pendant from Jo-ans. 

About 3 weeks ago, I was trying to figure out what kind of birthday cake design I wanted for my 23rd birthday. I thought I wasn't going to design one this year because I couldn't figure any design that stood out. Then my mind was thinking  of "medieval Gothic". Already, I wanted the color of the cake to be burgundy. But I still thought it was impossible to do, but it kept bugging me, so I decided to check out Pinterest. I typed in two different designs. --Roman medieval style cakes and Gothic style cakes. I found a "roman princess 5 layered cake that had white roses on the sides with elaborate gold leaves and vines and I saw so many frills on the Gothic cake designs, so I thought the frills will be black on my cake. I thought to buy black and white pendants that would make it look even better. As so you can see, the design came out to be an unexpected classy Victorian theme. I got very excited about this one, because I didn't even plan it. 

Everybody enjoyed the cake and the design! 

Christmas Cookies for Piano Recital

I decided to decorate my cookies in a different way, instead of always using fondant. I used a royal icing by Alton Brown, from FoodNetwork, and I used a sugar cookie icing from Allrecipes.com. These are for my piano recital, which I am having today, and these cookies are kept sweet and simple this year. It took me 5 hours to decorate these, topping them off with edible pearls on the snow flakes. 

Christmas Cut Out Cookies Gluten Free Recipes and Gluten Recipes

Good day to you all! My favorite time of the year is Christmas! I know quite a few people that love cookies especially. To get ready for the Christmas holiday baking, I found these awesome cookie cut recipes that are going to leave your mouth watering. 

Gluten Cut Out Recipes:

Chocolate Flavor:                      

http://sweetopia.net/2013/12/chocolate-sugar-cookie-recipe-cut-out-cookies/

Peanutbutter Flavor:

http://sweetopia.net/2014/11/the-perfect-peanut-butter-cut-out-cookie/

Vanilla Almond Flavor:

http://www.chewoutloud.com/2014/12/18/perfect-vanilla-almond-cut-cookies/

Sugar Flavor:

http://www.inkatrinaskitchen.com/best-sugar-cookie-recipe-and-kitchenaid_28/

Gluten Free Cut Out Recipes:

http://www.southerninlaw.com/2014/11/gluten-free-healthy-cut-out-cookies-recipe.html

http://www.teabiscuit.org/gluten-free-dairy-free-perfect-cut-cookies/

http://powerhungry.com/2013/12/grain-free-cut-out-cookies-refined-sugar-free-paleo-gluten-free/

Last but not least. I have been baking these Vanilla butter almond cookies every Christmas for 3 years now, and the were always a hit! So I wanted to share this recipe with you. It's super easy to make:

http://www.food.com/recipe/vanilla-butter-cookies-62130?scaleto=105&mode=null&st=true

My holiday baking will be simple this year. I will be using these recipes I just posted. Enjoy!

Holiday Pumpkin Pie Recipes

Hey Everyone! This year I realized no matter what holiday it is, it is always important to stay healthy. Back in the day, when I was eating loads of sugary foods/desserts, I remember feeling fatigued, tired, moodiness, and headaches, every time I ate something that had excessive sugar.

One of my favorite desserts is Pumpkin Pie! When ever I go to the Organic Health Food Stores, even there pies have a lot of sugar too. So I was searching on Pinterest and found these delicious gluten free pumpkin pie recipes. Luckily there are a lot of people all over the world who care about they eat and are nice enough to post there awesome recipes online. Enjoy!

1. http://www.sugarfreemom.com/recipes/no-bake-sugar-free-pumpkin-cheesecake/#_a5y_p=2808955
2. http://www.howdoesshe.com/healthy-pumpkin-pie-gluten-free-dairy-free-sugar-free/
3. http://www.ancestral-nutrition.com/paleo-pumpkin-pie/
4. http://the-lowcarb-diet.com/low-carb-pumpkin-pie/#_a5y_p=2542805

Beautiful Dove Cake

A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to make a cake for my priests because I appreciate them a lot. I also wanted to come up with a religious design. So the first thing of I thought was adding a dove. I had to draw out a dove on paper, cut the dove out and then trace the dove on the cake with icing, remove the paper, then fill the dove with icing. This was my first try and it actually came pretty good. The black icing represents the priests cassok, the gold spray represents light, the dove holding an olive branch represents the Holy Ghost (Hope and Peace). "Quis ut Deus" means St. Michael, "JMJ" means Jesus Mary and Joseph, and roses represent the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost. This is a 6 inch butter cake with buttercream frosting. There are quite a bit of details on this tiny cake. The price would have been around $18.