Welcome to my Blog

Hey there! I am so excited to start this blog. I love baking and I hope to spread the love! I have been married for almost five and a half years, and I will admit, when I first got married I hated to cook anything! Especially bake something that was going to take me FOREVER to clean up when I was done. We were living in my husbands grandmas' basement, and I had to hand wash all of my dishes. And being so smart, I would let them pile up until they were about to fall out, instead of just washing them right after I was done. For dinner we would have frozen pizza, frozen chicken strips, frozen french fries...are you seeing the pattern here? Basically, I didn't cook unless I could pull it out of the freezer and put it in the oven. So cookies, cake, cup cakes etc. were out of the question. I would buy cookies from the store rather then bake them so I didnt feel like I was depriving my husband.

Our second Christmas together my mother-in-law gave me a Kitchen-Aid mixer. Now, you are probably thinking, "That's when she started getting into baking!" NOPE! I found a place in my kitchen where it looked really nice, and it sat there for almost a year! Eventually I would make the occasional peanut butter cookie, or throw a store bought brownie mix into the mixer. But nothing to fancy, or that required to much effort. Remember, I still had to clean all of these dishes my hand, and that ruined all the fun!

It wasn't until we moved into our current home(3 years later), and Pinterest came out(what in the world did we ever do without it!), that I started really enjoying baking! I felt so accomplished the first time I made cup cakes that looked like watermelons. Or when I made my first batch of "Home made Texas Roadhouse Rolls". To me, that kind of stuff tastes so much better when you make it yourself, from scratch. I am now to the point that I feel silly when I hurry and throw a box cake mix together. Like I didn't put any effort into it at all.

Here are just a few things that I have done and taken pictures of. I will admit that there are sometimes that I use a box mix because I want to put all of my effort into the decorating aspect. Now keep in mind I am no expert. I have never taken a class. I just follow instructions, or look at pictures and this is what I get.

For my little guys' second birthday party we did a cow theme with cookies and milk.(He LOVES cows!) I found a tutorial on Pinterest to make this cute cow cake. You use one round cake pan for the body and cup cakes for the ears, face, and feet. I used decorative icing for the pink on the ears, coco puffs for the spots, candy eyeballs for the eyes, a brown M&M for the nose, and pink sprinkles for the mouth. My sister thought it was a PIG! I didn't think so...but like I said, I am no expert so, maybe it is a pig looking cow:)

I made all of the cookies from scratch, (except for the chocolate chip. There will be a post about why soon:)) I made sugar cookies shaped like cowboy boots, cake batter, no bake, and cookies and cream. They were all a little TOO delicious!

For his first birthday we had a monkey themed, banana split party. I found a tutorial for this cake on Pinterest, and I actually baked the cake for the monkey head in a bowl! The ears are a cup cake cut in half.

I also couldn't resist these adorable cup cakes! They were so easy! The eyes are mini chocolate chips. The ears and mouths are vanilla wafers, and the mouth is gel icing. I was so happy with how they turned out!

Again I am not a professional! This is just something I enjoy doing and I do the best that I can at it! I hope that people can enjoy my blog and maybe learn tricks to help them enjoy baking a little more.