A Baseball Birthday Party

July & August 2014 Wrap Up

I didn’t do a lot of baking and decorating this summer, so I am combining July and August into one Wrap Up post to share with you.

Breads & Muffins

I was excited to make my standby banana+ muffins for my sister (since she sees pictures and hears about them so often when she’s working on this website for me!) and the rest of our family when we were vacationing at my parents’.

I made another favorite muffin recipe that I hadn’t made in a while – chocolate chip zucchini muffins. My favorite is to make them with milk chocolate chips! I always make a few modifications to the recipe: ½ whole wheat and ½ all purpose flour, cut the sugar in half, and omit the nuts. Delicious!

I tried a new oatmeal flax blueberry muffin recipe this summer. They tasted ok, but I didn’t love them – it’s definitely a recipe I’d like to try to tweak a little so I could enjoy them more. Mine also turned out far from photogenic, so I didn’t even take a picture before taking them outside to eat by the pool!

Cakes & Cupcakes

I made some baseball cupcakes for our friends’ son’s birthday in July. They were a lot of fun to make!

To keep with tradition, I made Leighton a cake to celebrate his first day of school. I wanted to focus more on making a different flavor than any fancy decorating since we have so many chocolate and vanilla cakes and cupcakes at birthday parties. I had made this snickerdoodle cake with brown butter icing last summer, and he loved it so I decided I should make it for him again!

Cookies

To go with the cupcakes, I made some California Angels sugar cookies. I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to get the logo right, but they turned out really well.

Decorations & Toppers

To decorate the baseball cupcakes, I made three different sets of toppers: baseball gloves and balls, baseball bats and balls, and baseballs. I used fondant to make the base of the gloves and then piped on the stitching with royal icing. I also used royal icing on the large, flat baseballs, but I used an edible marker to make the stitching on the small, round baseballs.

I wanted to have something special and new to decorate Leighton’s 1st day of school cake with, but I wanted to keep it simple. I decided to try a sprinkle cake topper, and it worked really well. Unfortunately, I was only making a small cake so I had to overlap the letters on the cake a bit to make them fit, so it’s difficult to read the ‘1st GRADE’ message in pictures.

Scones & Biscuits

We love this maple oatmeal scone recipe, so it was an easy choice when I was deciding what to make to take to friends’ for a brunch while we were visiting my parents (and their large bottle of Canadian maple syrup!) this summer. My mom only had hard sticks of margarine and not butter, so I was a bit nervous they wouldn’t work as well as they usually do, but there was no need to worry – they were perfect. One note about this recipe: either reduce the baking temperature or baking time or both or you will end up with over-baked and dry scones. They way I cut them, 15 minutes at 400 is perfect.

Other Goodies

My mom was making homemade ice cream while we were visiting, so I happily used up her leftover egg whites to make pavlovas for everyone to taste one night after dinner!

4 Responses

  1. pollysplayground

    i loved the banana+ muffins… AND the maple scones… AND the pavlova! so happy that i was finally able to taste some of your deliciousness for myself (rather than drooling over my keyboard).

    • Becky {Rebecca Cakes & Bakes}

      I am sorry the sugar cookies didn’t happen. But, it leaves something for next time!

  2. Mom

    The maple scone recipe is still sitting in my recipe holder on the counter. I should make them…well maybe after the house renos are done because I am definitely keeping cooking to a minimum for awhile.

    • Becky {Rebecca Cakes & Bakes}

      When your house is back to normal, you should definitely make them!