This last week was probably the busiest my little business has had to date. I most definitely am not in the market to sell anything but cakes and cupcakes, but this last week I not only took on all my cakes but tackled decorated sugar cookies, lemon bars and macaroons as a favor for an old sorority sister of min. As fun as it all was, I sure have loved my down time since! There was a lot of playing at the park and Frozen watching going down today :)
First cake up to bat won’t make a photo appearance… because *I* didn’t decorate it. My husband did :) One of his friends had a birthday this past weekend and he thought it’d be funny if I made him a black fondant covered cake and let him go to town on it. I must say, he did well!
Then we have my niece’s smash cake. My sister ran across a similar cake, only in chocolate, on pinterest and asked me to whip one up for my niece’s smash cake photo shoot. Jeanne Hansen Photography did an INCREDIBLE job capturing that little cutie pie digging into her cake! Check out a sneak peek here!
The next cake I made was for a dear friend of mine. Her church was having a women’s retreat this last weekend and she wanted a cake for a table centerpiece. The theme of their table was “Our Lifesong Sings”, from the Casting Crowns song “Lifesong”. She saw a picture of another cake I was to make last weekend and knew a variation of it would be perfect!
The final order I had was for a darling 3rd birthday party: lemon bars, macaroons, sugar cookies, a two tiered cake, a one tiered cake and individually boxed cupcakes favors for the party’s littlest attendees. The boys got bowtie cupcakes and the girl’s got high heeled cupcakes. I forgot to get a picture of the lemon bars but… they look like lemon bars. Nothing fancy! Here is the lemon bar recipe I used though.
Crown sugar cookies! I love this recipe! Per the reviews, I added a cup of powdered sugar to them and also a tiny bit of lemon zest. If you want to learn how to decorate them, this is a great tutorial! There are a lot of tutorials out there showing you how to outline with a thick icing and “flood” the cookie in with a thinner icing but I’ve found it leaves a border around the cookie… which isn’t bad, but I prefer them without a defined outline. The tutorial I linked above allows you to do the outline and flooding all at once with one consistency of frosting and you avoid a hard outline! Win win!
The high heeled cupcakes! I’ll have to do a tutorial on these someday. Once I figured them out they were pretty easy to make (and to make sturdy!) They are basically just a cupcake, milano cookie, pirouette cookie all stuck together with chocolate and decorated with buttercream icing.
Sweet little bowtie cupcakes in the party colors- I love making these!
Finally the macaroons… these aren’t THE macaroons because I forgot to get any pictures of them too, but I assure you I made these :) This is the recipe I have been using for them. I will warn you, they are TEMPERAMENTAL! There is no real set method of making them because they are so effected by humidity, heat, you name it. Just an extra turn or two of your wrist when folding the ingredients together can ruin them! So… there are hundreds of ‘tricks’ and ‘tips’ out there but when it comes down to it you just have to experiment until you figure out what works in your kitchen with your climate and your oven. This website is also a great resource for trouble shooting.
And that’s that! I hope your weather is as beautiful as ours is here in Iowa! Happy April!!
the welch cupcakery 