Giant Chocolate Chip Valentine's Cookie

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here is a quickie! Really this is something that can be made at the last minute!

All that is needed is a package of chocolate chip cookie mix and the ingredients that go with it, red buttercream icing, heart sprinkles, and piping bag with tips 3, 17, and  22. The pan that I used is by Wilton sold exclusively at Target, there is a cut out heart in the center that I filled with Cherry M&M's.

Prepare cookie mix as directed on package.  The pan is already non-stick, but I spread a little Wilton Cake Release in the pan and around the center heart stem for good measure. Spread cookie dough in pan. The dough was quite sticky and I had to sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough to be able to flatten it better with my hands. I sprinkled the heart sprinkles on before baking. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 20 to 22 minutes. This cookie is 1-inch thick, so it needs the extra time. I let the cookie cool in the pan on a wire rack for a full hour before removing it from the pan. It could have probably been removed sooner, but I didn't want to risk cracking it.

For the borders and writing I used buttercream icing. If you don't want the mess or don't have time to make the buttercream, canned frosting with some additional confectioners' sugar (2 to 3 tablespoons) mixed in to thicken it up would work as well. The outer border is the reverse shell with tip 22, the inner is tip 17 reverse shell. If you are going to fill the center with candy, it is best to do that before piping around the center heart. I finished by writing "Happy Valentine's" with tip 3.

 

While you are visiting today, why don't you share your Valentine's Craft Projects at the "Share the Love" party that I am co-hosting with Happy Hour Projects!

and also be sure to enter the "EB Mine" Eggland's Best Giveaway!

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I link up at these fun parties!

Mini Jack-o-Lantern Cakes

October 10th is National Cake Decorating Day!

What a great month for National Cake Decorating Day!

I have made these 6 Mini Cakes from a 1983 Wilton Mini Pumpkin Cake Pan that my Grandmother sent to me along with a bunch of other goodies this year, including the tip set that she used when she decorating Wedding Cakes many, many years ago! I can just imagine her, younger than I am now, piping away making wedding cakes, with her 3 children in the background, before fondant was even around! I am the oldest of her 7 Grandchildren. She was so supportive when I began baking and began taking all of the Wilton Decorating Classes. She used to teach cake decorating too! However all of this skipped a generation and I didn't know a thing about it until I actually got into decorating myself and we began talking and texting about it! Yes, I have one texting Grandma and she is super fast at it too!

These Mini Pumpkins are about the size of 2 cupcakes I would say.

I decorated them similar to the regular size Jack-O-Lantern Cake that I made a few days ago! The frosting is actually leftover frosting from that cake...so the big Jack-O-Lantern Cake had a family of Mini Jack-O-Lantern Cakes!

Of course the family loved them, each having there own little cake to eat and Grandma received her own Mini Pumpkin Cake over 900 miles away in the form of a text!

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These Jack-o-Lantern Mini Cakes are Shared with:

Sweetology: Tea Party Tuesday

Celebrating Family: Family Time Tuesday

These Cakes are Featured at:

Show Your Cake

Jack-o-Lantern Cake

Check out this pan! It is another for Target by Wilton product and unique with the cut-outs for eyes, nose, and mouth! Imediately I thought of putting Jell-O in those empty spaces.

For this cake, I used Buddy Valastro's Vanilla Cake Recipe, that was on the Rachel Ray Show. This recipe makes enough batter for 2- 9 inch cakes, so I used half the batter for my Mummy Mickey Mouse Cupcakes and the other half for this cake! As the Cake Boss says in his recipe, I allowed the cake to fully cool and reach room temperature while in the pan. After the cake was fully cooled, I traced the pan onto cardboard, cut it out, and covered it in foil to make my cake board. I liked how the rise in the top of the cake turned out, so I left the top of the cake the top.

For the Jell-O inserts: I used the opposite side of the Jack-o-Lantern pan and greased the openings with Wilton Cake Release.  I mixed one 3 ounce size box of Lemon Jell-O with 1 cup of boiling water, stirring until fully mixed. I then poured the hot Jell-O into the pan and refrigerated for about an hour and half. After the Jell-O had set, I loosened the Jell-O shapes with a toothpick and they fell right out.

To insert the Jell-O shapes, I flipped the cake over using another cake board covered in waxed paper and inserted the Jell-O pieces and then flipped it back over onto the first cake board.

I initially tried to use the Wilton #2010 Triple-star tip for the stars on the cake. I found the Triple-star tip difficult to use in tight spaces and around edges. After piping the stars on the side, I switched to Wilton star tip 17 (roughly the same size stars), it is actually much easier to use than piping 3 at a time and it looks a lot nicer!

The vines are with tip 4 and the leaves are tip 352.

Shaped pans are a really easy way to make fun looking cakes for any occasion!

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This cake is shared with:
Bacon Time: Party Mindie Style
Alli N Son: Sweet Tooth Friday
Happy Hour Projects: Freestyle Friday
Mangoes and Chutney: Fat Camp Friday
Tidy Mom: I'm Lovin' It
A Well-Seasoned Life: Sweet Indulgences Sunday
Blissful and Domestic: Let's Party!
The Kurtz Corner: Tuesday Tutorials

This cake is feature at:
Blissful and Domestic: Linky Party Features

Hello Kitty! I'm still learning!

As a mom of a little girl...I couldn't disappoint when she asked for a Hello Kitty birthday cake last month...this would be the first birthday for her that I actually baked a cake for her instead of ordering it...remember this hobby just started for me a little over a year ago and I have basically stuck to baking cupcakes. Anyway as a prelude to her birthday I had started with the Hello Kitty cake pops pictured in my last post about a week before her birthday. A day before her birthday I made my first Wilton shaped pan cake. I was a little nervous about it, but it wasn't as hard as I thought! So my fear of shaped pans, has now pretty much been conquered! By the way, she loved it!

However, I didn't want to stick a candle in Hello Kitty's face, so the next morning on her actual birthday I baked a 6" 2 layer cake, strawberry inside, that the actual candle to blow out would be stuck in...I had just come down with the flu and really felt horrible, so not only am I not a cake baker, now my head was splitting and I had a high fever. Anyway, by the end of the day I finally got the cake decorated, and at 9pm she blew out her candle! I originally had big plans for this cake, but given the circumstances, it just didn't work out. But, I did finally bake her birthday cake all by myself instead of ordering it from a grocery store, and she of course, loved it!

These were actually only the 4th and 5th cakes I have ever decorated, not counting my 15 year ago all vegan disaster cake for my son's 1st birthday, and then I tried once again the following year and that was horrible too, after that I ordered from the grocery store year after year until making the Halloween cupcakes for my oldest daughters birthday in November 2009.

Growing up, I never learned to cook, bake, or anything of the sort, so I am making sure that my kids can bake and decorate! We are learning together! So far so good!