I made this for my dad's birthday this year. he is a DIE HARD pink floyd fan so this was perfect for him. his fave album is actually wish you were here but i don't even know how i'd begin to recreate that with fondant haha. it was between this and the wall but i settled for DSOTM because it's a little more interesting.


It's a four layer vanilla cake with blackberry preserves between each layer then covered in buttercream and fondant. The black was such a nightmare to color and i never really got it an even shade but everyone liked the subtle marbled look.

thanks for looking
-karen

I've been wanting to do something with this table in my room for a while and this is what I came up with. It was supposed to be white but since I mostly used it to give myself manicures, it had every color under the rainbow spilled on it, oops! Anyway I sanded the surface just to get most of the spills off, traced HK in black then filled in the white, did the detailing, painted it pink, then went over the black outline again. I had most of the stuff and only had to get a pint of the baby pink color and a small angled brush so it was pretty cheap and I did it in about 2 hours.

These are some crappy "before" shots from my phone.




tadaaaaa!!! I LOVE ITTTT!!!!




Super kawaii!

Hello Kitty Table by lifelalife, on Flickr

Thanks for looking!
-karen

ok you guys have been warned...

this is seriously, no joke the BEST chocolate cupcakes ever. and the peanut butter frosting is just adding insult to injury. not only is it the most intense and chocolatey flavor ever, they also bake up beautifully with the most perfectly cracked domes that aren't too pointy. i have been meaning to find an awesome chocolate dessert that i can use some valrhona in and this might just be it. i used hershey's and nestle but next time i'm definitely whipping out the good stuff.


omg... i can't!



see how perfectly perfect it is?!!? the bubbles are just perfection. everything about it! mmm!



i didn't even eat four of these in the span of 2 hours...



you can obviously do any frosting you want but something about peanut butter and chocolate screams EAT ME NOW hehe. the recipe is originally from Cake on the Brain which you can check out here :http://cakeonthebrain.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-chocolate-cupcakes-ever-chocolate.html


you can see my adapted recipe on my blog: http://lifelalife.blogspot.com/2010/05/so-yummy-i-could-die.html
i tried pasting it on here but the bullet points aren't cooperating  

anyway i hope you guys give it a shot if you can stand to gain a few lbs...

love,
karen

Today is my parent's 22 year wedding anniversary and my mom wanted me to make her a mini wedding cake to celebrate. I used a cake mix but I made the frosting, fondant, and filling from scratch. I used the marshmallow fondant recipe and it was perfecttttt.


The flavor is yellow butter with cream cheese filling and regular buttercream frosting.


It took me about six hours to make the cake, frosting, fondant, cool, torte, fill, frost, cool, cover, and decorate. I was surprised at how much it didn't hurt to cut it.

Here are there recipes and some comments

Fondant Recipe from Whatscookingamerica .com - Peggy Weaver is a wealth of information. I love reading her recipes, tips, and tricks over and over. I made the recipe to the T and it came out perfect. It is SO much more delicious than Wilton and ridiculously cheap. I usually buy a 24 oz box of Wilton Fondant for $6, this recipe made 47 oz and cost me about $3. That's basically double the amount for half the price. Do I hear "Cha-Ching!"?
http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm

Buttercream Recipe from Wilton - I doubled the recipe but ended up with about 2 cups of left overs. I was about a cup shy of using the whole 2lbs of powdered sugar. I also had to add more liquid than called for because this recipe is usually on the thicker side and I needed spreading consistency.
http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Buttercream-Icing

Best Frosting Recipe from Tasty Kitchen/Pioneer Woman - I've made this frosting before and it really was the best frosting ever. I don't know if this is even proper filling material but I used it anyway and it was scrumptious. I did the recipe exactly the same but i also added about 4 oz of cream cheese because seriously what's cake without cream cheese somewhere in it, right?
http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/desserts/thate28099s-the-best-frosting-ie28099ve-ever-had/

You can check out a few more pics at my blog: http://lifelalife.blogspot.com/2010/04/22.html

thanks for looking!
-karen

My cousin and I are obsessed with Rupaul's Drag Race and since her bday is next week I made this cake for her while she's still in town. I used the frozen buttercream technique and it worked pretty well. The only thing is that the tip was a little thick so some of the white got onto what should be red and the red got a little bit out of the line as well. and it doesnt totally look like her but you get the gist



thanks for looking
-K

We got a bunch of blood oranges over the weekend and I was thinking of making something with them for VDay. Something about them being bloody red seems to scream Valentine's to me, don't ask. So that's how I came up with my Blood Orange Shortbread Cookies. Thankfully I took step by step pictures, you can check out the procedure on my blog: http://lifelalife.blogspot.com [sorry i just dont wanna upload that many pics!]

Here are the ingredients and the cookies already done, also some of my faves


yummmmm



i put chocolate on some.



i love how bright this one is



you can't beat love


!!!!!



the ingredients: butter, vanilla, flour, blood oranges, salt, powdered sugar


Blood Orange Shortbread Cookies
Yields: 4 dozen two inch cookies

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups of butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon blood orange zest
• 1 tablespoon blood orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1. Cream butter until soft and fluffy, about 3 minutes
2. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt
3. Zest and juice the oranges and add the ingredients to the mix.
4. Add flour and mix just until incorporated. Knead dough with hands, wrap and chill at least 2 hours
5. Once dough is chilled, preheat oven to 350º, roll out dough to about 1/4"
6. Cut and place on cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper
7. Chill for 15-30 minutes
8. Bake until desired brownness, 8-15 minutes
9. Remove from cookie sheet and cool completely on racks
10. Decorate and enjoy

For the icing mix 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar and 2-3 tbsp of blood orange juice


thanks for looking!
-karen

i made these for my aunt who's birthday is on tuesday. since it's close to valentines day i tinted the fluff pink and once it was set instead of doing squares, I cut them into little hearts. I was going to dip them in chocolate but that didn't turn out so I drizzled them instead. I didn't really like how they looked with the chocolate but they tasted really really good! i used the same recipe I posted a few months ago: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=312751.msg3594839#msg3594839


The only thing I did differently [besides adding food coloring] is that I poured it into a 10X15 pan instead of 9X13 so they wouldn't be so thick but they still ended up thicker than I wanted. If I ever cut them into shapes next time I might just use a half sheet pan or something


Lined up ready to get drizzled in chocolate


I didn't really like this look


don't they look cuter plain?

-K

Just wanted to show you guys these super cute cupcakes I made last night just for fun. I used a yellow cupcake mix and some of the left over frosting from my Hello Kitty cake as well as left over fondant for the toppers.



I used a cup of greek yogurt instead of water for the mix and added some almond extract, they're preeeetty yummyyy

thanks,
karen

I usually think it's a little sad/weird when people make their own cake but this year I ended up making my own haha. The only reason is that I really reeeeeally wanted a Hello Kitty cake and it would be fun to make something just for myself without worrying if other people were going to like it, it feels like i'm always baking for everyone else. So here it is, just a regular white cake mix and Wilton fondant. I traced HK's face onto some white fondant and just cut it with a paring knife, it was much easier than I thought. Other than that I just used circle cutters and shaped them, oh an also flower shapes of course.



thanks for looking

-karen

hey everyone! I just wanted to share some cookies for the holidays. I've made about 20 dozen of these in the past two week and it feels like my arm is going to fall off but the end result is so worth it!!! They're a basic sugar cookie recipe but the hard kind of sugar cookies not the soft kind and then with the icing, they're extra delish


the first couple dozen i made were mint green, baby blue, and white. Then my mom's friend wanted them in pink and i loved the look so i did pink ones with turquoise icing and i am so happy with them


there were some misses but also a lot of hits


these were my absolute favorite

thanks for looking everyone! if you want the recipe [kind of lengthy] and all my ramblings you can check it out on my blog: http://lifelalife.blogspot.com/2009/12/its-xmas-every-day.html

-karen