Local Yummies: Mazzetti's Bakery

My boyfriend Broc loves the ocean. So for his birthday at the end of June, I thought what better way to celebrate than taking him to the ocean? So I planned a weekend getaway to Pacifica for us to celebrate, relax, and enjoy the beach. In addition to scoping out beaches and restaurants for us to try, not surprisingly I also scoped out any local bakeries. There I found Mazzetti's Bakery.

Ta-da!

I liked this place because it is easy to locate and it has EVERYTHING. Honest to blog, it had muffins, breads, cookies, cakes, donuts, and even stuff I didn't recognize. It was all quite overwhelming. What to get? So many decisions....can I just have one of everything please? I ended up going back to the hotel with a cannoli, and Broc a strawberry popover. One of my favorite things about this bakery? The packaging:

I don't know why, but I find the fact that they boxed and tied up my cannoli just adorable. If it weren't for the fact that there was something delicious waiting inside for  me, I wouldn't have wanted to open it. Good thing I did...

Um...YUM.

This cannoli was just freakin' fabulous. The cream filling was nice and light, the chocolate dipped shell hit the spot and the cherries on the ends were a cute touch. I'm a sucker for cherry anything. Satisfying for the girl with the perpetual sweet tooth.

This, folks, is Broc's popover. All I can say about this is: flaky. Fruity. Goodness.

You should really check them out. Check out their website here, or if you're in the Pacifica area, stop in and get some goodies! You won't be disappointed!

SSSsssSSSuper Cute Creeper Cakes

Another geeky post again, folks! As I've said before, my boyfriend and I are kind of...nerds. We both play a variety of games, and we don't necessarily have the same taste in games. But one of our favorite games to play together is Minecraft. If you're not familiar with Minecraft, it is basically a game in which players can build anything they imagine out of cubes in a 3D world. The concept is simple (Read: sounds dumb), but it's a lot of fun! There are also monsters in the game, and probably the most well known are the creepers. Here's what a creeper looks like in game:

Terrifying, isn't it? ;)

So for Broc's birthday, I decided to replicate these creeper cupcakes I found on Pinterest, originally created on the Candy Bar Cupcakes blog. Here's how my cakes turned out:

Do you see the resemblance? Instead of using chocolate cake, I just made a white cake and colored it green to match the face. The black for the face is made from sugar paper- I used a square paper punch to cut out the eyes and totally free-hand cut the mouth. My favorite part about making these was the technique used to make the different shades of green on the icing (Also explained in the original blog post- check it out here). It's so simple, if you guys ever find an opportunity to try this kind of technique, you so should. To shade the cupcakes, I made a template out of a piece of cardboard and cut out squares and pixel-y (is that a word?) shapes. Then you put your template over the cupcakes and give it a quick spray with green Wilton Color Mist. So. Simple. Anyone else tried this technique? I can't wait to try it out again!

So there you have it! Easy creeper cupcakes for my awesome gamer boyfriend. =)

Happy Birthday Jake!!

I love sprinkles. LOVE them. Do they add anything to the flavor of the treat? Not necessarily. But they ARE super cute, and they add a nice crunch, which I like. So when I found these adorable dinosaur sprinkles, I just couldn't wait to use them. I found the perfect opportunity when one of our daycare kids, Jacob, asked for "pops" (cake pops) for his third birthday.

Gah! Aren't they so cute?? I seriously need to find a giant jar of them so I could use them all the time, they are just too dang cute. To make these I dipped white cake balls in chocolate melting chocolate. This is actually probably one of my favorite combinations so far...not too surprising considering my all-time favorite cake flavor is yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

All the dino pops!

Does anyone else have a major slight sprinkle obsession? Or is it just me? I love stopping in craft stores and grocery stores to see if they have any cute sprinkles I could possibly use...Even if I CAN'T possibly use it, I buy them, you know, "just in case". =)

Happy Birthday Jake!!

Cookies for the Color Run!!

As some of you know, besides baking, one of my favorite things to do in what little spare time I have is run. This is a fairly new obsession- my family started running last November, my parents started training for a marathon, and my sister and I ran to support them. Before that time, the only way in hell you were getting me to run was if you dangled a cupcake in front of me. Or if I was running for my life (maybe). Now it's totally different. I love to run. Don't get me wrong, running sucks WHILE you're doing it. Feeling like you're gonna die is no picnic. But the feeling afterwards is TOTALLY rewarding.

So this Saturday family is taking part in a 5k called the Color Run! And it's not just your basic 5k, oh no. At every kilometer you run, you're doused in a different color! It looks like so much fun, and we are so excited! If you want more info on The Color Run, check out their website here.

To celebrate this event, my mom and I came up with the idea to make Color Run T-shirt cookies. These were so simple to make and turned out exactly how I wanted them to. I knew I wanted to make plain white T-shirts (cut out with a homemade plastic template) with splatters of color on them. I used my usual cookie and icing recipe, and I learned how to do icing splatters on cookies from this post on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. Here's the shirts with each color splatter addition:

Pretty cool, right? The splatter technique was super simple and the result was fabulous! On a side note, sweet picture, right? A HUGE thank you to my awesome photoshop-savvy boyfriend for making this awesome pic, because I haven't yet mastered the picture-taking side of this blogging thing yet. Anywho...

I must admit, I am utterly tickled with how these turned out! They make me even more excited to get some color on my actual T-shirt tomorrow!! Wish us luck, it's almost time to get colorful!! And afterwards we'll celebrate with more color and cookies!

 

 

GO TEAM GOOF TROOP!!

Local Yummies: Nothing Bundt Cakes

This post is waaay overdue. Due to wrapping up summer school, there was no time for me to blog or bake. *Gasp!* I apologize for the short hiatus, but two 17-week classes crammed into 6 weeks? Yeah, I was working my butt off. But I'm done with school (for now)! You know what that means...YUMMIES!!! Woo!

So, here's the skinny: I don't really like red velvet cake all that much. I know, that's such a freakin' travesty. My problem with it is...it just tastes like chocolate. I mean, really, I've bought that Duncan Hines box of red velvet cake mix a few times, in hopes that maybe it'll turn out different, tasting like something AMAZING.... No dice. Tastes like chocolate, sorry.

And the thing is, I always try it at different places in hopes of finding one that I actually like. Red velvet cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory? No thanks. Red velvet cupcakes from Icing on the Cupcake? I'll pass. Mini red velvet cupcakes from my work? No. Just...no. You'd think I'd learn by now, right? My problem is I want to like it, really I do. But nothing I've tried so far has lived up to the hype.

Until recently.

This my friends, is the red velvet cake in question. And not just any red velvet cake. No, this is a baby bundt red velvet cake. AKA- "Bundtlet". Freakin'. Adorable. My family got free bundlet coupons from running our first 5K back in April, for a local bundt cake shop called Nothing Bundt Cakes. Apparently they have stores all over the states, and let me tell you, you MUST  give them a try because their cakes are soooo TASTY. And the shop itself is so quaint and adorable, I could spend FOREVER in there. 

Gah, they're just too cute! Here are the red velvet, marble and chocolate chocolate chip bundlets we got, and boy were they all delish! Too good not to share with you guys!

There you have it, witnessing my change from red-velvet-skeptic to "believer" in the tasty red velvet....however rare such an occurrence may be. If you come across a local Nothing Bundt Cakes, stop in and give them a try!! I totally recommend the red velvet bundlet!

Doesn't hurt that it's cute. ;)

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy Independence Day, America!! It's time for fireworks, nice cold drinks, BBQ, and, at my house, patriotic ice cream sandwiches! I've seen these pinwheel cookies on Pinterest and I've been DYING to try them out myself. So I made them with two bags of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix (yes, I totally cheated, sorry), following the directions on the bag, but adding Wilton food color gel to each batch of dough, one red, one blue. After letting it chill in the fridge, I rolled my dough into little balls. I then rolled one blue ball and one red ball together and rolled them into about a 12 inch cane. then you twist them into coils and bake for about 10 minutes (Or whatever...the directions said 5-7...I had to eyeball it because that just wasn't cutting the mustard). And the fun doesn't stop there. Oh no. I had to put some softened ice cream between those bad boys to make them into ice cream sandwiches. Hello, this is sunny California. It's like, 93 degrees outside, people. Cold treats are a MUST.

They turned out a bit "Seussical", but that's totally fine. You know why? Because they're freakin' ice cream sandwiches (I like to bake, but ice cream is my weakness).
Until next time-It's time for me to go eat these bad boys! Everyone have a fun, SAFE holiday!

Kae's "Pur-tle" Cake Pops

My cake pops are pretty popular at my house. I mean, I think they are. This is just a shot in the dark, but I think it means they're pretty popular when one of the two-year-olds my mom watches comes up to me and demands purple cake pops for her upcoming birthday. Of course, I was happy to oblige, especially since it's so cute when she says purple, or "pur-tle." And perhaps it's genetic, since her mom (the recipient in this post) is freakin' obsessed loves my cake pops too. So here they are, pur-tle cake pops, just what the birthday girl ordered. They have pink and yellow sprinkles. But wait. There's MORE.

They have tags!! TANGLED tags!! When we found out she was having a Tangled party, I knew the purple pops would go PERFECTLY. So this is what we did. My mom bought some Tangled stickers at our local Wal-Mart. Then, she and I cranked out these bad boys. She cut out the stickers into circles, I cut out the purple scallops and slapped the stickers on, and she punched holes into the top and bottom. INSTANT. CUTENESS. They totally tied the pops in with the theme of the party. And now I have so many opportunities!! Want Mickey Mouse & Friends pops? Done. Want Disney Princess or Tinkerbell pops? Done!!

These were a huge hit at Kae's Tangled party. And the birthday girl totally approved of her pur-tle pops.

Happy Birthday Kae! <3