Gingerbread Cupcakes

Fine. I admit it. I only made these cupcakes because I wanted to make little gingerbread people out of chocolate fondant. No regrets there. That said, these cupcakes did turn out to be pretty amazing, with or without garnish.

I realized while taking these pictures that I was so excited for the finished product that I didn't bother taking any photos of the process. I don't know. If you're like me, I usually skip those pictures on other blogs and go straight for the recipe or other fun shots of the fully decorated, cutely arranged cupcakes or cookies. I mean, those are the ones I'm going to pin to Pinterest (am I right?).

Can I just tell you that these little round sprinkles used as buttons on the gingerbread people continue to haunt me? Sure, they're adorable, but they're so small...let's just say several were dropped and every once and a while, someone in my family randomly kicks one that was missed and you can hear it rolling all across the hardwood floor, mocking me for being clumsy in the first place. Would I use them again? Heck yes -- look at how cute!

Click here for the full recipe: GINGERBREAD CUPCAKES

40th Wedding Anniversary Part 1: Dark Chocolate Coconut Marshmallow Cupcakes

My in-laws recently celebrated their 40th (!) wedding anniversary and my dear father-in-law, one of my favorite people in the world, asked me to make some "coconut cupcakes".

I've made Almond Joy-inspired cupcakes in the past, and while delicious, I wanted the focus to be on his two favorite flavors -- dark chocolate and, of course, coconut. The result was messy deliciousness.

The 40th anniversary is the ruby anniversary, so I used some more of the red fondant hearts I made for the Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie-filled cupcakes my mother-in-law asked me to make. I like the way the red hearts pop on the white coconut marshmallow frosting and coordinate with the teal blue cake liners I chose.

The cupcakes were actually a little frustrating to make -- the frosting, while delicious, was just too runny and ended up spilling over the sides of the cupcakes. As a result, I've altered the recipe and, on my second try, it worked much better.

All in all, a very moist, dense dark chocolate cake that tasted eerily similar to a Snoball.

You can find the recipe here: DARK CHOCOLATE & COCONUT MARSHMALLOW CUPCAKES.

First Foray with Fondant

We celebrated my big brother's birthday this weekend, and, in true I Bake fashion, that meant making some of my favorite sugar cookies. Every time I make cookies, I look for new ways to decorate and this time, I went for gridlines and, for the first time ever, venture into the land of fondant.

We started by heading to the craft store and piling up on pre-made fondant, tools, and, Ingrid's favorite, disco dust.

For a first-timer, I may have gone a little overboard on fondant tools

Once we got home, we started baking, using our favorite sugar cookie recipe. Let me just tell you -- baking with an enthusiastic 4-year-old is incredibly fun, but also remarkably slow. What is normally a 20 minute process probably took double that, but hey, she had fun!

My (adorable!) assistant. Notice the apron...

While the cookies were baking, I set Ingrid up with the "edible Play-doh". She has a hard time rolling dough, so having an Ingrid-sized rolling pin and small amounts of fondant made her night.

We spent hours experimenting with shapes, colors, and stamps; we loved how easy it was to work with fondant. It's so forgiving -- if you don't like the way a piece turns out, you just re-roll it and try again, which is important to a Type-A personality like myself. The flower shapers were especially fun, but you definitely need more than one set if you want to do more than a few at a time. I really should have taken more pictures of the fondant process, but I was so engrossed that it slipped my mind. Next time!

Here are a few of the final products: