May was non-stop action in the kitchen for me. I worked on several cakes, dozens of cookies, and even squeezed in some new recipes for blondies and scones!
Brownies & Bars
I was having friends over for a Mommy morning, and the date that worked the best turned out to be Cinco de Mayo. I decided to make a few different things that were slightly inspired by the occasion, and found this recipe for Churro Blondies on Pinterest. I had high hopes for them, but was disappointed by the texture. They weren’t soft like a blondie and were more like a dry coffee cake. The flavor was fabulous, so I’d like to work on the recipe a bit and try it again to see if I can get them softer and/or moister.
Cakes & Cupcakes
I went through a lot of flour and sugar on some cakes and cupcakes this month! The first was twin rainbow cakes based on this one. I loved all the rainbow colors on the outside, and I also baked rainbow colors into the cake itself. Next I worked on the art cake. The paint splatter and painters palette came from these cakes (1, 2, 3). I used all of the colors on the palette and splatter and then used them for the number 4 and the letters of Lily’s name. The two sets of cupcakes I made this month were some gender reveal cupcakes for Anthea and some Frozen snowflake cupcakes. There are so many gender reveal ideas out there, but I love baby feet, so when I saw these cupcakes, I knew exactly what to make! For Luke’s party, I made the circus tent cake for the guests and the circus tent smash cake for him. All of the details are in this collection. And my last cake of the month was this Transformers cake. I admittedly knew almost nothing about Transformers, but with a little guidance from Roy and the cake inspirations I linked to in this collection, it all came together!
Cookies
I did 7 different sets of sugar cookies this month!
- Melissa was helping to plan a surprise 50th birthday party for a friend and asked if I could help her with some champagne bottle sugar cookies. These cookies were huge! The design idea came from a mix of 3 pictures we saw online (one by the amazing cookies by Confections of a Cookie Addict, one by the etsy seller Palm Beach Pastry, and this image).
- Maeve was super excited to have some princess dress cookies for her birthday party. There are so many different princesses to choose from, and in the end we chose to do Rapunzel, Aurora, Cinderella, and Belle. Full details and inspiration photos are in this collection.
- Nash is really into Skylanders and these Skylanders elements sugar cookies were perfect for his birthday party. I made each of the white elements as royal icing transfers and placed them on the different colored bases. I based my cookies on these two (1, 2) fantastic sets of cookies.
- Megan thought that some spring flower sugar cookies would be the perfect way to show the teachers are her daughter’s school some appreciation.
- I also wanted to make some treats as part of Teacher Appreciation Week and decided to use some fondant toppers on a cookie for the first time based on this idea. I loved how these butterfly thank you cookies turned out!
- As part of the circus birthday collection I made for Luke’s first birthday, I made this set of cookies, including circus tents, lions, tickets, and bunting. The full details can be found in the collection I linked to.
- I was honored to bake some Frozen cookies for a very special little girl through Icing Smiles. After having so much fun with the princess dress cookies for Maeve’s birthday, I decided to make Elsa dress cookies and Anna dress cookies as well as some personalized snowflakes. The inspiration cookies were detailed in the princess dress cookie collection. This was the first time that I’ve ever shipped cookies, and I will be including some information and pictures about that in a blog post to come.
Decorations & Toppers
For the twin rainbow cakes, I made these rainbow name & age toppers and rainbow and clouds cake topper. For the art cake, I made this paint palette topper and then used the same colors for the number 4 topper and the paint splatter name topper. These pink and blue baby feet toppers were for Anthea’s gender reveal cupcakes. Luke’s circus cake was topped with this circus lion topper and I used a fun circus font for the circus font name topper and circus font age topper. I also made some simple yellow stars to use on the bunting. Lastly, for Barrett’s cake, I made a Transformer name, number 5 topper, and fondant flames and fondant gears. For both the circus and Transformers cakes, my sister was able to help out with the fonts for me to trace onto the fondant, so I was very thankful for that!
Scones & Biscuits
I love chai tea and have seen so many yummy recipes using brewed tea or a combination of spices that flavor chai tea, and I was really excited to make this recipe I found for Chai Tea Scones. I didn’t have this brand of tea – mine was the Trader Joe’s Chai, so I added in 1tsp of vanilla to incorporate the flavor. I really liked that this recipe used cardamom and cloves, so I decided to add those in as well. I have only ever baked scones once to be separated after baking, and I wasn’t sure how it would work out, so I attempted to cut triangles as I usually do with scones, but I quickly realized it was impossible with this sticky dough. I gave the round ‘loaf’ method a try and was pleasantly surprised how well they came out. The texture of these was really fantastic. I was in a rush and made my glaze far to thin, so you can’t really see it in the photos, but you could taste how delicious it was!
We all adore this recipe for sweet potato biscuits. I’ve made them many times and they are always moist and delicious. I highly recommend you try them!