The Cookie Counter

I have been so busy ever since Thanksgiving and I am hardly able to keep up! This is good for being my first Christmas taking orders but man it has been a lot of hard work!  Not only has it been Christmas orders but even Birthdays and Baby Showers; oh my!  I don't have much time for an update but I feel like I can't let the whole month of December pass me by without a blog update so here is a little glimpse of what I have been up to.... Whew! That is a lot of cake balls! I really hate to just do a dump entry but at least you have some sweets to drool over now! :D  I promise that I will update soon with a legitimate post.  Happy Baking!

Click here to download SMALL Batch instructions.    Click here to download FULL Batch instructions. Anybody ever head of this?!?  Well the other day I was in the break room at work getting water and saw three bags of cream colored mush... Now I had seen these bags several weeks back and didn't pay much attention to them, but these strange looking bags were back, so I decided to stop and read the paper attached to them and saw "Amish Friendship Bread" with strange instructions like "Mush the Bag." Well still not really sure what the bag of goo was, I went back to Google, and read up on it.  It is similar to a chain letter, in the sense that once you get it, you must pass 3 more along.  So this bag of mush is really an active yeast mixture that is supposedly passed down from generation to generation steaming only from the Amish. Now I don't know how true this is, but it has definitely been circulating around my office for a month or so now.  Even aft

Cake balls and Cake pops have swept the nation ever since  Bakerella brought them into the spot light. Everybody has there own way of making them, and personally I don't like the huge 2" cake balls that some people make. I would much rather have a manageable small cake ball, but I like all my sweets in "bite size" form! I have also considered making super tiny bite sized cake balls.... perhaps that will be my next experiment.  I wonder if peanut M&M size or Whopper size is too small..... I recently had an order of cake pops for an infant's birthday, but really the treats were for the Moms and not the children :) I was pondering how to package these cuties without damaging them, and then I realized I had tons of these cupcake containers!! These may not be cupcakes but they can still nestle into this container for safety during transportation. :) I made three flavors: chocolate, strawberry, and good ole red velvet!

I have never been much of a thrill seeker or scary movie watcher, but I still love Halloween! I may not enjoy the spooky creepy crawlies of the night, but I sure do love the SWEETS that come along with Halloween!!! I am a week behind on the post but I hope that you all can still enjoy some of the fun treats that I made for Halloween. The first order of business was eyeballs with a gooey center!  I got this great idea from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen . The idea is absolutely brilliant, gushers and all! I did however use strawberry cakeballs instead of the peanut butter truffles that she used.  Any truffle type treat should work here.  I thought that the pink of the strawberry cake would add to the gross factor of biting into an eyeball :) For Halloween, the boyfriend and I had some bonding time over cookie decorating :)  He is very artistic and loves stepping up to show me that he is a better artist than I am.  But I don't mind because we are doing something that I lov

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I did make it back from Vietnam alive with no major scratches :) So how was it, you ask? Very very good!! It actually exceeded my expectations, which were very low because, well I was scared of the whole trip! But thankfully, I was there with my family who really helped me along the way considering I know the least amount of Vietnamese in the family and most would agree that my Vietnamese is damn near impossible to understand when I do try and speak it.... I guess I missed that boat growing up as the baby in the family and never having to speak it.  But like I said, my lovely family took care of me <3  We have even discussed making the trip on a regular basis, eek! Coming back to work (crunching numbers, not baking) was very very difficult to do!  I am still trying to get back into the "work hard" mentality.  But on the bright side, my baking fun was very easy to get back into :D  Let's start it off with a classic Black & White

Starting tomorrow, I will be out of the country for 2 weeks.  I will be on vacation with my family in Vietnam.  It will definitely be an adventure, to say the least.  None of my siblings and I have ever been to Vietnam, and my Dad has not been back since he escaped in 1979.  I am not sure what to expect and am actually quite nervous about going.... I am too American to "fit in" there. I will spare you my nervous blabbering, and just want to let you all know that I will be temporarily unreachable.   I will be returning to the States October 15th  , and I will be in full swing with orders once I get back! Jack & Charlie - Love them! Now time for me to share a super cute picture of my puppy; who is not really a puppy anymore but he will always be "my puppy" if you know what I mean. I love my little Charlie! Because I will be out of the country for two weeks, I had to leave my puppy with somebody and who better than stepdad (aka the bf)?!  Of course that also

I have been getting TONS of requests to make Cake Ball Gift Boxes, which are super cute and good for any occasion! From "Hello" to "Goodbye."  From "Best of Luck" to "Thank You!"  From "Happy Birthday" to "Congratulations!" Here are some of the latest gift boxes that I have made.

This past weekend, I went to the Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show.  I had a blast and got some really neat products!! But the best part of it was seeing PAULA DEEN and getting an autographed cookbook!!!!!!!!!!! :D I have always loved her show, and she always seemed like such a fun person to be around, and omg in real life she is just as hilarious and witty as she is on tv!  She walked out on stage with this "cane" and my sister and I were wondering what happened to her, maybe she hurt herself? Then sure enough 15 minutes into the show, she stops to address this "cane" of hers and reveals that it is really a "boot saver."  I did not really get it at first until she put the "cane" in front of her and lifted out this cone like part and explained that it was used to help men from peeing on their boots..... ya know saving their boots from being ruined. A boot saver, lol. She is one silly lady!

In order to promote my new blog and to officially kick-off The Cookie Counter, I am giving a 25% discount to my first 25 orders !! The first seven discounts are already taken, so stop ignoring that sweet tooth and place an order before this special ends!

I had a request for a sample order of cake balls and mini cupcakes. The client had never tasted my sweets first-hand but had heard rave reviews from her sister.  Therefore, she requested a sample order so that she could taste for herself the deliciousness of The Cookie Counter! ;p The client was not specific in flavors, but just said I could make any flavor(s) that I was in the mood to create.  She is a lover of all sweets and flavors.  I decided on chocolate cake balls (everybody loves those!) and red velvet mini cupcakes, both with cream cheese frosting. And of course, she loved them (and hesitantly admitted to eating 6 cupcakes in one sitting, sshh don't tell), and she purchased a full order of four dozen Cake Pops for a friend's birthday!! :D

"Yes, bake my daughter's birthday cake" :) My wonderful co-worker Katherine asked me to make her daughter's 7th birthday cake, and I was very hesitant at first, but after lots of helpful nudging (thanks Xavi!) I accepted the challenge!  And with that my first order was born :D The first thing we did was have a "consultation with the client."  Ms. Madison described to me exactly what she wanted, and this is the sketch that developed from our consultation. She wanted a square chocolate cake decorated in all yellow with a big peace sign and hearts. Disclaimer: Please do not judge this terrible sketch with my artistic skills with sugar.  Trust me, I am much better at sugar art than real art! :)

The other day my co-worker sent me this link of Sesame Street's "Cookie Counter" clip and I thought it was super cute and it makes me giggle every time I see it! I feel that it is a necessary post on my blog! hahaha "Don't tickle, just point!" :D  Thanks Austin, love this clip!

I am very happy to unveil my adorable new blog design courtesy of the lovely Jennifer Gilbert over at Trendy Girl Designs !! Thanks to my beautiful new blog design, I feel like I am officially ready to get this baking thing started! I am still trying to complete all of the links on my page, but in the meantime, go visit my facebook page and twitter (links in the sidebar), or grab a button! Please feel free to browse the new site, and look forward to some great updates coming soon; including a post on my first official order!! I am also hoping to get some portfolio pictures up soon under my "Cupcakes, Cookies, Cakeballs, and more!"

I have been itching to make cut-out sugar cookies since, well December when I missed my normal Christmas cookie making.  But its okay because I spent the holidays in the Dominican Republic with my family instead which is way more amazing than making sugar cookies at home.  Regardless, I have been in the sugar cookie mood for awhile now and just haven't found the time to make them because lets face it when you factor in all the decorating time, they take a very long time!  But finally, I was able to find some time to make them but then I realized that there was no current holiday to celebrate....but then I remembered seeing some really cute "popcorn" cookies while I stalking my fellow bloggers.  I "borrowed" this idea from The Decorated Cookie . My cookies don't look as realistic as her's but I gave it my best shot.  I used my good ole trusty sugar cookie recipe which can be found below and my delicious almond cookie icing (recipe also below

Working in the corporate world, especially the accounting industry, can be rough sometimes when it comes to taking vacation.  However, I am fortunate enough that my company likes to give us surprise "extended holidays" and so we get a FOUR day weekend this weekend to celebrate the FOURth!! :p In celebration, and in preparation for my mini-vaca to Tampa tomorrow morning, I made festive CAKE BALLS!  These are all the rave nowadays, but I find it hard to bring myself to make these... probably because I am not a fan of them **gasp** They are just too sweet and rich for my liking.  For those of you who have been buried under a rock for the past 3 years (uh hmm W. Xie) I will provide bakerella's "recipe" here.  And I say "recipe" because it is rather an equation not exactly a recipe. You will need: Favorite cake recipe (or box mix) plus all ingredients called for to make the cake Favorite frosting recipe (or fluff in a can) Melting chocolate (or &qu

We all know that Memorial Weekend is coming up and lucky for me that means 3 day weekend!! In addition to it being Memorial Day this long weekend, I have two lovely co-workers who are celebrating birthdays as well, and since many of the people in the office also took off Friday, I decided to make cupcakes tonight in lieu of a triple holiday weekend.  I felt like going for something colorful for the occasion and what is more colorful than confetti?!? C o n f e t t i Cupcakes adapted from I Heart Cuppycakes Ingredients: 1 1/4 cup flour 1/4 tsp. salt 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder 3/4 cup sugar 6 tbsp. butter, softened 1/2 cup milk 3 large egg whites 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 tsp. almond extract 1/3 cup multi-colored sprinkles ("jimmies")

One of my favorite ice cream flavors has always been Cookies n' Cream, and it is one of the most popular flavors out there.  Now how delicious would it been in a cookie form!??!!  Maybe even served with some Cookies n' Cream ice cream!! Ingredients: 1 cup butter 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp. vanilla 1 package of instant Oreo pudding mix 2 1/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp. salt 1 tsp. baking soda 2 Hershey's Cookies n' Cream candy bars, broken into chunks 2 cups of Oreo cookies, crushed into pieces Recipe adapted from Food .com

My company is having yet again another fun cooking/dessert contest, and this time it is a team competition!  I wrangled a team together to celebrate the Houston Rodeo with our company's Annual Chili Cook-Off.  We had a chili dish in mind but we needed a good dessert to go along with the chili, but what kind of dessert goes with chili?!? We spent the first couple weeks preparing for the cook-off with our focus on chili, we had several chili samples come through over the two weeks leading up to the cook-off and with only a few days to spare, we took a vote and collaborating to get the best of all the chili samples that were brought in.  But with only a few days for the cook-off, we still needed a dessert.  It had been decided that I must make the dessert for the contest, but I still had no ideas of what to make.  I did some google searches for dessert compliments to chili and somebody mentioned cinnamon ..... so then I thought snickerdoodles but I had already done that

Lately, I have been itching to make something red velvet (maybe it is because Valentine's Day is right around the corner), but I wanted to try something out of the norm.... I was not in the mood to deal with frosting and piping and all that typical cream cheese frosting jazz.  So then I thought how can I incorporate the cream cheese frosting part without having to pipe it.  I thought about injecting the cupcakes with frosting but that just didn't seem creative enough, so then I thought: cheesecake + red velvet cupcakes = :) Ingredients: Red Velvet   adapted from Bakerella 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon cocoa powder 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature 2 large eggs, room temperature 2 tablespoons red food coloring 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract