Oh What Fun, William is One!

My fabulous friend Carla's little boy, William, just turned one! Well, ok, it was a month ago, but things have been a little hectic in the Eat Your Sweet kitchen and I've been awful at blogging about all the treats I've been whipping up!  What am I? A full time working mom or something?? Hahaha.

Anyhow, I just cannot believe that this sweet little muffin is one year old.  I seriously remember the day he was born like it was yesterday....

The early morning text from Carla that something was happening, the anxious waiting to hear if baby was a boy or a girl, and then the fabulous phone call letting me know that William had arrived.

WOW, how time does fly! (I think my spunky little 3 and a half year old is definite proof of how time zooms past at a break-neck pace!)

Carla and I have been friends for years and she and her family are very important to me.  So when she asked me to make some cookies for William's big day, I was flattered and so happy to add something special to the event.

The color theme for the party was aqua and red.  Carla did such an amazing job decorating and making everything just so for the party...there were aqua streamers accenting every doorway...tissue paper flowers hanging from the ceiling...adorable little labels on the dining room table announcing to all what every delicious morsels she'd whipped up!

Even the cake had aqua and red decor on it.  She is such a planner!  I knew how special this day was for them and wanted my cookies to be just perfect!

For the first cookie, we stuck with the color theme and did a fancy W to go with William's name.

Here's a shot of one up close:

I was SO happy with how these cookies came out...I love doing lettering on sugar cookies!

And here's one of the rows all lined up:

In addition to the color scheme, Carla loved the idea of lions being incorporated into the party theme...think jungle chic! Haha!  So I did some lion cookies as well.

Here's the close up:

Look at that little face!  Seriously, how cute is he?!  Don't you just want to gobble him up!?

And here's the whole pride of lions, roaring and ready for action:

 This is the all the cookies on display, on display, on display...

 (sorry I can't let that joke die!)...for the party:

Leah approved these cookies whole-heartedly, and dove into a lion cookie head first!

Well, I am thrilled to say that Carla was more than pleased with the cookies and everyone else at the party loved them too!

The party was a great success (naturally as Carla is a wonderful hostess!) and a good time was had by all.

I hope you all enjoyed my latest sugar cookie creations - they were super fun to make!

And until next time...don't forget to eat your sweets!

Share the Love!

When you think of February, what's the first thing that comes to mind?  Valentine's Day of course!

While I do believe that we should appreciate our loved ones all year round, I think it's an especially nice day to  "share the love" with all those we care about - both family and friends!

Leah LOVES her little friends at school, so we made some special Valentine sugar cookies for them.  I thought it would be a sweet idea if I piped each child's first initial on them too.

Her class is learning their letters and they were all so excited to identify the letter on their cookies, and to eat them of course!

 

I also made some sweet treats for some of my friends at work:

....and they were definitely enjoyed by all.  There were only crumbs left on the platter at the end 

of the work day!  Empty plate = success!

In addition to Valentine's day, my fabulous sister Christine's birthday is also in February, so naturally that is a cause for celebration too!

We always gather at my mom's house for family birthdays.  It's a time with lot of laughs, all the cousins playing, and when it comes to my family - lots of eating!  I was excited to make some delightful bites for my sister's special day.

Now, whenever I made any desserts for an order (or even when I'm experimenting) I always send pictures of them to my family - they enjoy seeing all my latest creations.

So when they saw my latest sugar cookies I'd made for Valentine's day, naturally they wanted to sample some too!

Here they are...iced...piped...and ready to be gobbled up:

I also made two different types of cake pops.  The white with blue sprinkles was carrot cake. And the purple heart pops had chocolate cake inside.  Both were super scrumptious!

I wanted to try something new to share with my family as well. While flipping through one of my many cooking magazines I came across a recipe for chocolate cherry blondies.  What a happy coincidence - Christine LOVES the chocolate cherry combo!  It was like dessert destiny ;)

So I gave them a whirl and O.M.G....they were AMAZING!  Definitely a treat I'll be making again in the near future!

Thank goodness there were some extras because I got to bring a few home to enjoy...and yes, they're all gone by now!

Well, I hope you all had a super sweet Valentine's day with the ones you love and I hope you enjoyed seeing all my latest treats I whipped up too!

Stay tuned because more creative cookies will be coming your way by the week's end!

Until then, don't forget to eat your sweets everyone :)

It's All About the Ninjas!

So in case you are not (a) a parent of a young child, (b) an elementary school teacher, or (c) up on all the cool kids shows and toys...ninjas of ALL kinds are very in right now!

What is it about ninjas that are so enthralling to young children?

Could it be their stealthy demeanor? The super cool costumes and back stories?  Their delicious candy coating and moist cake-y center? 

Hmmmm.....I think the third choice just might be the winner.


Yes, you guessed it...I've been busy making birthday Ninja pops for several children lately!

Before this year I had never heard of Ninjagos before.  What are Ninjagos you ask?  They are little Lego ninjas....each with their own back story, color, outfit, etc.  This is a picture of just a few of them:

It's a pretty big deal in the world of Kindergarten boys.

So when I was asked to make Ninjago pops, I wanted to make sure that they were accurate and awesome to make this little Lego superfan happy on his special day!

The little friend that I was making these pops for has a few food allergies that I've never had to think about while creating dessert pops before, so I had to get creative with them. 

Since the cake pops I make typically contain dairy, gluten, and soy (by default in some ingredients), I decided to go with rice krispie pops for this order.  I opted to use Earth Balance Soy-Free Buttery Spread in lieu of butter in the rice krispie pops to totally adhere to all the dietary sensitivities I was working around.

Now, I had never experimented with rice krispie pops using anything other than butter, so I was a little nervous about how they would come out!


But thankfully, they shaped into nice little pops quite easily:

The melting chips that I typically use contain dairy and soy, so as an alternative I used Enjoy Life Allergen Free chocolate chips....which taste awesome!

Here are the pops dipped and drying:

Next, I had to figure out what to use for the little yellow Lego faces.  Starburst candies of course!


Here's what all my little Ninjas looked like dipped and with their chocolate faces piped on:

And here's a close up of one little Ninja friend:

I couldn't have been happier with how they turned out and I think that they look just like the Lego Ninjago figures!

The best part of making these pops was how happy the little boy at school (and his mom) were with the final product.  His teacher said he had the biggest smile when the pops were unveiled at his lunchtime birthday celebration! Success!

The next set of ninja pops I made were some crime fighting ninjas from my childhood that have recently made a comeback.  Who am I talking about you wonder?  Who else but everyone's favorite heros in a half-shell! Oh yeah...that's right...Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!  Turtle Power!

What a great show that was!  I can remember coming home from school and racing to the television (snack in hand) to watch Leonardo, Donatello, Rafael, and Michaelangelo fight crime and eat pizza....don't judge me...you all know you watched too! :)

So when I was asked to make some TMNT pops for a birthday party, I was excited for the challenge.

Here are a bunch of shots of the whole Ninja Turtle gang:

Aren't they adorable?! I was so happy with how they came out!  And so were the recipients!


What fun all these ninjas were to make! 


I hope you all enjoyed reading about my latest pops as much as I enjoyed making them! 

Stay tuned to see what delicious delights I come up with next!


And, remember, though the holidays are over and we're all trying to jump start those new years resolutions...don't forget to eat your sweets!


You only live once, you might as well live it sweet!  :)