Gum-paste and fondant decorations can be stunning, even on the simplest of cup cakes but they take a lot of time to make.  I feel that they are worth the effort for the beauty of the cake.  I still remember the hours I spent making hand made daises for my sister in law’s bridal shower cake.

And now I found the most amazing cake decorating tool EVER!  The Circut Cake is a new product (by Circut) that utilizes the precision die cut of the Circut machines that you may know from scrap booking and beautiful cake decorations that are almost fool proof.  Over at their site there is a great video that shows how easy it is to make and apply the decorations.

I have always loved the Circut machines even thought I am not a scrapbooker (but I wish I was).  Die cut paper makes me drool and custom die cut paper is amazing.  Because I am not a scrap booker, I have never seen the point in getting one of these machines.

Now that they have them for cake decorates, I so want one.  The only two things keeping me from running out and getting one right now is 1) It’s not out yet and 2) the price tag of $399.99 MSRP.  The good thing is, it uses both the Circut Cake cartridges AND the regular Circut cartridges.

Note:  I do not represent or have any relationship with Circut.  If they want to send me one for a testimonial, I will be more than happy to help them out. (Bats eyes and says “pretty please”).

Circut – Circut Cake

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This will be so much fun to do as soon as I get my hands on some puff pastry the next time I’m at the grocery store.

se7en.org ‘s Fortune cookies

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If you are thinking that you would like to send some home baked goodies but are afraid that they will arrive as a box full of crumbs or you don’t want the inside of your car decorated with bits of cake a way around that is to bake a cupcake in a jar.

From my research, I have found a few tips that seem to help the baking and removal process.

• Start with a sterilized jar.  It is possible that the cake can last for up to a year if the jars are sterilized and sealed.
• Use a straight side “Bell” style jar – the kind that you use for canning.  The pint is an ideal size and used in the recipes that I have found.
• Only fill the jar half way with batter.  This will give the cake plenty of room to rise when baking.
• Make sure the top and mouth of the jar are clean before baking.  This will make sure you have a good seal on the jar.
• Grease the inside of the jar with either vegetable shortening or a nonstick cooking spray to make removal easier.
• Please be careful removing the jars from the oven and while its cooling.

I have seen mixed results with traditional icing so for right now I’m just going to experiment with some recipes with either no icing or either a crumb topping or glaze.  Because its too late to really start this project for the holidays, I think I’m going to have fun with this when Valentine’s Day comes around.

Decorating the outside of the jar can be just as fun too.

Here are a few links to some yummy-ness:

Cooking With Ellen – Chocolate Cake (Yum)

Country Lore – Georgia Pecan Cake with Apple

Yankee Magazine – Pumpkin Cake (Because I have WAY too much pumpkin left over from the fall taking up room in my freezer).

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In the quest to not make the same cookies all the time I came across Gourmet Magazine’s site that has cookie recipes that go back as far as the 1940′s.  (I’m partial to 1944′s Cinnamon Sugar Crisps and the Irish Coffee Crunchies from 1977.)

I’m not sure which I’ll be making up this weekend and this coming week but I know they will be tasty!

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Part of my kitchen storage is dedicated to my baking supplies.  Making cakes, the bigger the better, is something I love to do.  I love looking at other people’s work as well.  I watch the Food Network’s shows on the cake competitions and have found some great baking sites on the Internet.

I found this site a few weeks ago.  I can’t even really remember how I found it but I have become a disciple of the site ever since.

Every day we are treated with some of the worst decorated cakes ever.  The witty commentary with each picture makes it even better.  Jen, the woman behind the blog, offers daily posts with cakes that you’re glad that you didn’t buy.

The cakes featured, with VERY few exceptions, are all professionally made.  They range from the grocery story or Cosco kinds of cakes all the way up to professional bakery cakes.  One some of the truly “wrecktastic” one, she tries to get as much story behind it or even a photo of the “inspiration” cake.

Since finding the site, I have looked at the cakes in the case at grocery stores and bakery windows much differently now, hoping to find one worth trying to take a picture of without getting caught by store security (or worse, the cake decorator who made the offending cake).  The funny thing is, I have seen some of the cakes that have shown up at Cake Wrecks at my grocery store and had to laugh that I either found the same cake or that someone back at the home office thought these would be big sellers.  I can’t wait to have my first Wreck sighting!

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Cherrapeno created these cupcakes that I can’t wait to try out.  I’m not sure if its the cute factor or the idea of melted snowmen make me think of Calvin and Hobbs and all their crazy snowmen they would make that makes me want to make a batch of them.

After looking at her directions on how to create the snowmen, I would think they are pretty easy as they are just a few balls of rolled icing (fondant) and poured icing.  The recipe for the cake part also sounds yummy but might get lost on the pre-school group (and probably the 3rd graders too).

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Every year the Food Network has “the 12 days of cookies“.  All the recipes are from the on air talent like Alton Brown and Paula Deen to name two of this year’s twelve contributors.

Cookies are good and this time of the year I’m aways searching for a new cookie recipe to add to the batches I will be making over the month.  Once signed up for the 12 days of cookies, you can let cookie inspiration hit you in the email in-box every December.

I am personally looking forward to trying out Anne’s Gingerbread cookies and possibly Giada’s Peppermint-Chocolate Sandwich Cookies.  I’ll be posting pictures of the cookie adventures soon, starring my wonderful KitchenAid stand mixer, named Clive.

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