Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cheesecake Macarons

I made some more french macarons!

These little guys are strawberry flavored. I sliced strawberries thinly, stuck them into the oven on low for a few hours until they were dried out, then ground them up and put them in the batter. Pretty light flavor, but still tasty.

Some have cheesecake filling and some have strawberry-chocolate ganache.

I accidentally over baked most of these, so I brushed them with pink luster dust to disguise the dark color! Oops!

Still quite tasty, though, especially dipped in chocolate.

Halloween Cookies

I wanted to make Halloween sugar cookies. I did not want to buy more cookies cutters. Actually, I did want to buy more cookies cutters (because I always want more cookies cutters!) but I decided to be smart and use what I had.

Below are some Frankenstein's monster cookies, just made with simple rectangles. I love the hair and the cute little wiggly smile.

And some Candy Corn triangles. I used a big circle cookie cutter then just sliced it into 6 wedges. The candy corn cookies were the most fun to decorate!

You can see how there's quite a bit of size variety, but I didn't really care about perfection for this batch, just cuteness.



I love the cute wiggly smiles on the Frankensteins and the 3D effect of the eyes popping up.

Halloween in Maddieland is never scary.

And here are the ghosts. These turned your mouth black when eating them, but they're so much fun that on one really cared.

Happy Halloween!

BOO!

Oreo Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red velvet cupcakes with oreos at the bottom. Dipped in chocolate ganache. Cream cheese frosting on top.

Silver dragees and edible glitter to top them off. Why? Why not!

What more can you ever want?

Engagement Cookies!

My friend (and suitemate!) got engaged over the summer! Naturally, I made cookies.
 

These decorated sugar cookies had to be mailed from Los Angeles to Boston, but they were definitely worth it.

The bride-to-be has the most gorgeous red hair, so of course the cookies with the stick figure proposal had to include that personalization.

 These cookies were all pretty big - about 3 inches across, and I cut them nice and thick, too.

 I love the disco dust (rainbowy-clear glitter) on the details. It made everything seem that much more special.

And, of course, the ring. The little diamonds (actually dragees coated in luster dust and disco dust) along the sides were part of the actual engagement ring, so I tried to stay true to that as much as I could.

 Lots of pretty hearts and details.

By the way, I started using meringue powder for my royal icing instead of egg whites, and it's wonderful! The icing dries super strong and I have much less of a problem with bleeding when I use deep colors.

 

Anyways, much love and congratulations to you both!

Yummy Mousse/Chocolate/Cheesecake/Raspberry Thing

I don't really have a name for this fabulous dessert, so I'll just explain what's in it, layer by later. 

At the bottom, I cut out a ring of flourless chocolate cake.
 

Above the chocolate cake layer is a tin but decadent layer of dark chocolate ganache. 

The pink layer is a tart raspberry mousse, made with raspberry and whipped cream. That was my favorite and I used the leftovers to fill a cake. So tasty and it helped lighten up this super-rich dessert quite a bit.

The chocolate layer in the middle is a mixture of mini chocolate chips and chocolate ganache. This added some nice texture with a crunch from the chips.

The light layer almost at the top is vanilla bean cheesecake. Deliciously perfect. 

It's all drenched in gooey chocolate ganache. 
 

And drizzled with homemade raspberry sauce. 

I was happy with how all the elements went together nicely. Even though this was a very rich dessert, most of us completely polished off out plates! Next I have to try this with a layer of ice cream...

Carrot Cupcakes

These super tender carrot cakes are choc full of nuts and freshly shredded carrot. 

They're flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and get a molasses-like flavor from brown sugar.

They're covered in swirls of simple cream cheese frosting.

 Dusted with cinnamon sugar.

 And topped with a white chocolate carrot.

These were my first carrot cakes - simply delicious!

Vet Logo Cookies

These cookies were made for a new veterinary practice. They wanted a treat to bring to animals hospitals in the area to announce their presence, and I think the message came accross pretty clearly!

I was worried that the red, black, and white colors in the logo would bleed together, so I waited quite a bit of time between piping each layer. 

So that the cookies wouldn't get stale, I started by just piping all 125 cross logos in red onto wax paper. This was great because it let me fix my mistakes, but, most importantly, I had a printout of the logo under the clear wax paper, so I could trace the design. This helped me keep them consistent.

I waited a day before piping the black dogs onto the red crosses. 



 I baked the cookies, outlined them in red royal icing, and let the red dry a day. That same day, I painted the black dogs from the decals in silver luster dust to cover any imperfections and make them even more memorable.



 The next day, I flooded the centers of the cookies in white icing and while it was still wet, I carefully peeled off the decal I mad made and plopped it onto the wet icing, pressing gently.

Once they dried, my mom used an edible marker (basically food coloring in a marker with a felt tip) to write the name of the hospital on each cookie.  Finally, I boxed them up with layers of wax paper and tissue paper. Each dozen cookies got their own little box.

These cookies took days and an incredible amount of work! My kitchen was covered in cookies for days because they're HUGE and took up every available tray, tupperware, and surface. 

 But they're pretty cute, aren't they?