Has anyone seen the movie Frozen?  In my house we are all in love with the movie.  Even my youngest son sings "Let it Go" (he's 2).

A friend of a friend of mine was having a "Frozen" birthday party for her daughter who was turning 6 and I decided to make some cake pops as a gift.  I got really inspired for this and went and got Disco Glitter and silver nonparelis to make the pops extra special.  Here are some photos of the process.  I hope you like them.

I like working with pretzels.  They're like the perfect canvas for many treats and they're bite sized.  Here I share another take at pretzel treats this time for Easter.  My son's school was having an Easter Day Hat Parade so my son and I volunteered to bring some sweets and a rocking Easter Hat.

For the pretzels I used Candy Melts and Easter Decorations and M&M.  I place the Candy Melts over the pretzels and placed in the oven for 2 minutes at 350º.  Place the decorations on top and allow to dry.

Well hello again.  It's officially been a long time since I posted anything on the blog I so enthusiastically created almost a year ago.  So I'm going to be posting some belated creations.  I'll start off with my Valentine Day's pretzels.  This one, just as many other of my creations can be attributed to Pinterest inspiration.  First I bought my pretzels, Kraft caramels and candy melts.  I melted the caramel in the microwave and one by one dipped half of my pretzels.  I lined the out nicely on some parchment paper for them to dry while I melted my candy melts.

Little by little again I half dipped the pretzel and covered with white candy melts over the dried caramel.  Sprinkled a little cinnamon and red decorations.

Tah-Dah…  Ready to spread some V-Day sugar.

I'm posting a link to the page where I got my inspiration from.  Be sure to visit and check it out.

http://www.nobiggie.net/white-chocolate-caramel-pretzels/

Father's Day Macaroons

Happy Father’s Day to all!!  On Father’s Day Weekend I wanted to make lots of projects.  I wanted to make cupcakes, cake pops and have my first try at French Macaroons.  On Friday I found out that our family wouldn’t be getting together this year to celebrate Father’s Day I thought it would be ridiculous to do so much baking when there wouldn’t be enough people to eat it all so I decided to do the Macaroons.  I did my research and decided to make my own almond flour. 

Let me tell you:  it was HARD WORK.  My food processor wouldn’t get the almonds small enough or dry enough so that they were easy to sift.  So I kind of gave up on them.  I sifted them once, but then I wanted to do it again with the sugar and it was an impossible mission.  So I combined them thoroughly and that was that.

Then came the egg whites.  I’ve done meringue before with no problem whatsoever,  but tonight, the eggs were against me.  The recipe I was following called for 3 egg whites and 2 tbps of sugar.  I ended up using 2 egg whites and ¼ cup of sugar and stiil didn’t get the stiff peaks in the meringue that I needed.

Through the process, I deciced that I would bake the cookies no matter what after I had invested so much time sifting and grinding and beating, so I finally folded the eggs with the almond meal and powdered sugar, put the mixture in a piping bag and let it sit on the counter for about 17 minutes.  Then I put the tray in the oven at 325º and let it bake for 18 minutes in the bottom tray and flipping it halfway through.

After letting them cool for about 15 minutes I removed them from the baking pan and filled them with Nutella (how can you go wrong with Nutella).  I wanted to do a raspberry buttercream filling, but since it was already 12:30AM and I was tired…..

The end result was not bad.  My macarrons had “feet”.  Some were a little lopsided, the color faded a little and the tops were a bit bumpy I guess from the rough almond flour that I put in, and I think some are bit hollow :-(.   However, this was just my first try.  I’m only getting started.  Of course I will try again.  Wish me luck for next time.

Here are the links to the recipes I used as my guides:

http://www.bakerella.com/tartelette-these-are-for-you/

http://www.tarteletteblog.com/2010/02/recipe-raspberry-mascarpone-macarons.html

http://sweetapolita.com/?s=pink+ribbon+frosting

Father's Day is Coming Up

Father's Day is coming up next Sunday and it's the perfect excuse to bake a cake or roll some cake pops.  Today I bought some ingredientes that I thought I'd need for cupcakes or cake pops.  I haven't decided which to do yet.  Perhaps both, depending on how much free time I can get.  What I want to do is practice decoration techniques with chocolate molds and fondant/gum paste (did I mention I'm a rookie self taught baker?)  My biggest challenge with cake pops is thinning out my candy melts and preventing the chocolate from melting once set on the pop.  My weather here is very hot and humid. Gggrrrrr…..

Meahwhile, I'm gonna share with you my latest project.  Last weekend I baked some cupcakes for my son's basketball team.  I decorated them with gum paste basketballs and star shaped sprinkles.  They don't look so bad, right.  So anyway, the important thing is to improve every time. 

Sorry about the picture quality.  I'll do better for new projects.

Welcome to my blog - Bienvenidos

Welcome to my blog. This will be the first time I’ll be writing in a public forum with free access to the general public. I decided to start a blog to share ideas on baking, sewing, crafts, sports, etc. I am married and a mother of 2 children ages 1 and 7.  In my free time I like to work on projects to entertain them or for their activities. I hope this new adventure is full of new experiences.  I may blog in english or spanish so feel free to use the translation feature or just ask me if you need anything translated.

Bienvenidos a mi blog.  Hoy me estreno escribiendo en un foro público con acceso libre al público en general.  Decidí comenzar a escribirlo para compartir ideas sobre la repostería, costura, manualidades, deportes, etc.  Soy casada y madre de 2 niños de 1 y 7 años y en mi tiempo libre me gusta hacer proyectos para entrenerlos o para sus actividades.   Espero que esta nueva aventura sea una llena de nuevas experiencias.  Me gusta escribir en inglés y español así que en caso de duda, hay un botón para traducir, o me pueden preguntar directamente.