Southern Charm

You gotta love that southern charm! After you meet this bride, it is plain to see the southern charm everyone talks about and that fun accent just adds to her sweetness.    She is planning a wedding for the fall and wanted to let her bridesmaids and close family know that she was thankful for their love and support through life and especially now, while planning for her wedding.   As a surprise treat, she decided on some of her favorite cookie designs to have sent to these special people in her life.

Her mother came out from North Carolina to help with some wedding planning and I was lucky enough to meet her. We had such a nice time discussing the bride's plans.   It made it that much more exciting knowing we were going to create these cookies and send them across the country to such wonderful people. 

The bridesmaids dresses for the wedding will be green and these little dresses were perfect to send to the attendants.  The Mothers of the bride and groom received the pink dresses, Dad got the tuxedo heart, and Grandma got the "XO."  The bride was so thoughtful and wrote them each a nice personalized note which we dressed up in a cute card and enclosed in the packages.   How special is that?!  We look forward to making more treats for the wedding in October!  ~K

Happy Planning ! 

XOXO

One Fish, Two Fish. . .

Another BABY is expected, and soon-to-be Auntie Meegan ordered some custom decorated cookies for her little sis's baby shower.   The theme was Dr. Seuss!  We immediately knew the colors had to be bright primary colors, and it wasn't long before we settled on our strategy.  We decided to expand on one of the Doc's most popular books - - Who wouldn't get the connection when they saw red and blue fish?!

The faces on these li'l guys cracked me up.  Such silly fish, and such a tall and crazy striped hat!  We were truthfully stumped when it came to finding a cutter for the cat's hat, but where are you if you don't have a Cat's Hat when you are saluting Dr. Seuss!?    

We decided we needed to think outside the box once again, so Kimi took another critical look at our drawers of assorted cookie cutters (that's when it gets fun).   She pulled each one out, turned it over a couple of times and squinted real hard as she tried imagining one of them revealing itself as a cat's hat!  

I was asking my handy hubs if he could design a hat worthy of Dr. Seuss, when Kimi's eyes lit up and she produced a graduation scroll cutter.  Hmmm.... not what I had in mind. . .  but wait!   I see it!  We turn it vertically, cut it off here, tweak it there, and voila' ~  a hat fit for the most distinguished Cat of all.  Brilliant!

We used the cover of One Fish, Two Fish as inspiration for another cookie, and when they were finished, we couldn't resist posing the fishies for their photo shoot.    Congratulations to the soon-to-be Mom and Pop.   Happy thoughts for a speedy delivery and a healthy future reader!   

And of course, Best wishes from the Fishes!

xoxo

Go Fourth and Celebrate!

One of the best days in the year!  Relaxed, non-hurried, picnic-filled Fourth of July!  The day holds special significance for our family, as Daughter Number Two joined our family late one summer night, 27 years ago.  She waited just long enough for us to enjoy some backyard fireworks (some of us 'enjoyed' the show more than others), then made her entrance ten minutes to midnight.  Things haven't changed much over the years.   She still delights us all when she enters the room, and her sassy sense of humor punctuates family conversations like the fireworks do the night skies.   

Since she missed out on the 'bee pops' her big sis and I created a few weeks ago, we decided to make some cake pops for our Day-Before-4th-of-July BBQ/birthday party in the park.  Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, covered with a layer of chocolate and festive sprinkles - yummy.  

We toted them into the evening's baseball game (Rattlers vs. Another Team) and even had enough to share with members of the dug out.   The pops are just big enough for a few polite bites, but we found most of the guys happy to pop the whole thing in their mouth at once!  

Happy Birthday, Lindsay!  We love you in all your silliness!

XOXO, Big Sis and Mom

The Sweet Taste of Summer

After enjoying a Mediterranean lunch in town with my husband and sister, we headed off to the Avila Valley Barn in search of fresh berries!   We thought a weekday would provide a less busy atmosphere in the Central Coast orchards.    Were we surprised when we found the parking lot FULL of carloads of families.  The ice cream shop was surrounded with ice-cream covered kids waiting for their turn to go pick berries.   Not the quiet walk through the country that we expected, but we had fun just the same.

With baskets in hand, the little kids scurried to the tractor as it rounded the bend. Everyone jumped on as it slowly pulled away from the barn and headed for the orchards and berry patch.  The ripest peaches were atop the tree on the highest branches.   With no ladders in sight, we had to get creative with what we had!    My husband was the first to volunteer!

Freshly picked Olallieberries and Amber Glow Peaches signaling the beginning of summer.   I must admit, some of the berries never even made it to the baskets.   So, so sweet!   ~K

Don't Worry, BEE Happy!

These fun little cake pops will be perfect to take to the concert tomorrow for father's day! Carrot cake has always been a favorite and now dressed like a BEE, it can't get much better than that. 

Everyone gets to enjoy their own bite size BEE. 

Wrapped up for his big debut!

"If food is the body of good living, wine is its soul"

Quote by Clifton Fadiman

We are lucky to not only live on the coast by the ocean, but we also have beautiful wine country at our finger tips.  Many people love taking wine tours by bus, limo or even bikes.  These cookies were made for a wine tasting bachelorette party.

Each bag had a little dress and a wine glass. The lucky bride to be got a wedding dress cookie and a wine glass.

Triple Chocolate Fat Pants Cake

With a name like " Triple-Chocolate Fat Pants Cake" how can you go wrong?  Sarah had given me a book called Babycakes,  which is a bakery in New York that specializes in vegan, gluten-free and (mostly) sugar-free recipes.  She had pointed out this particular recipe in the book as a possibility for her wedding cake, and I decided that this would be the best way to try our hand in vegan cooking.  I have eaten vegan before but never baked anything so when I looked at the ingredients I just laughed.  I had never heard of most of the ingredients before!

Sarah and Greg own a great health food store on the central coast and as I stared blankly down the aisle looking for arrowroot and garbanzo-fava bean flour, Greg was right there to point me in the right direction.  Check out their store:

Sunshine Health Foods - Shine Cafe

The cake turned out great.  Even my meat-eating dad loved it!   It was decorated with blackberries and mint leaves to match the cupcakes below.  (Amy Bakes Cupcakes baked the vegan cupcakes and they were polished off within minutes.)  Sarah and Greg dug right into the cake but forgot that they were supposed to feed each other.  After everyone started saying, "feed each other!" they figured it out.  :-)  

This was one of the most beautiful, touching weddings I have ever attended and I was so happy to have celebrated with such amazing people.  ~K  

Congratulations!! 

xoxo

Rehearsal Dinner Favors

Congratulations to my good friends Sarah and Greg who just tied the knot! The mother of the groom ordered these cookies for the favors to be handed out at the rehearsal dinner. She wanted red and white to go with the Texas theme of the dinner and we went from there.

After finishing up the cookies, putting them in bags, and delivering them the next morining, it was time to finish up the cake. Our first crack at a vegan cake at that!!

Peace, Love and Cupcakes!

A gorgeous Memorial Day weekend in California!  Just the type of weather you wish for when you plan your wedding, right?   Well, the stars were aligned when Heather and Cory picked this weekend to enter the world of marital bliss.  High in the Southern California hills overlooking lush avocado groves, the bride and groom proclaimed their love, and the warm breeze ushered in a celebratory evening of food, drink, dancing and CUPCAKES!  

On the Menu: 

• Orange Dream cupcakes with orange filling
• Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling
• Lemon cupcakes with chocolate filling

We were distance-challenged for this one - how do we bake, decorate and deliver 120 cupcakes  250 miles away from our home base?   Once we had decided on the menu (or I should say, our "Taste Testers" decided), we felt it was smart to bake the cupcakes before we left town.  The next morning, we packed up the cupcakes in these handy dandy cupcake trays and headed south.  We filled and frosted the cupcakes, attached the ribbons to the cupcake tower, and had a mini dress rehearsal/photo shoot in the living room of the beach house where we stayed.  Then back in the boxes and ready for delivery! 

On to the Main Event!  ;-)

Congratulations Heather and Cory!   With XOXO's to you for a lifetime of blessings!

Surprise Birthday Party!!

My good friend is turning 30 today! Her sweet sister is planning a surprise birthday party for her this evening.  We are in the process of baking cup cakes for the wedding this weekend and her sister decided she would like some made for the birthday party as well.  We have been up to our elbows in cup cake batter and icing! I took a break to join the sisters for lunch and am so happy that she really has no idea what lil sis has up her sleeve.  Happy Birthday!! ~K 

The surprise was a success! After a little bit of shock, the birthday girl enjoyed her friends, family, and a cupcake with a few candles in it.

Cupcake Display in the Works!

Just how CREATIVE is my husband?  Check out the newly renovated Cupcake Tower he has designed for the weddings we have in the next few weeks! He had made the Tower for the wedding shown in an earlier post, and since its debut, it has been used for several other happy occasions.  But one thing always bothered me. . . the Tower was always fully assembled.   Ready for action, yes.  A beast to store, YES!   

It also meant that the lucky delivery person had to maneuver this bad boy through sometimes narrow hallways, and then precariously situate it in the back of their awaiting coach.  Okay, sometimes it was a li'l hatchback - get the picture?   The result was that part of the Tower got tweaked, the wood split, and the weakened top was eventually taken off to avoid further damage.  So I got to thinking. . .  

  

What if we made a new similar structure that could be dismantled for delivery?  And further. . . 

What if we could switch it up so that for smaller events, there were only 3 levels?

Enter Tom, the wizard of wood and tools and all things hammerable.   (Seriously, Martha Stewart has nothing on this man!) It took a few prototypes to get exactly what he was after, but just how amazing is this!?    A few coats of protective coating and this baby will make its grand entrance adorned with ribbon and treats.   Just wait for the transformation!   ~ S

Let Them Taste Cake... CUPcake, that is!

We're going to a wedding!   Our cousin is getting married in San Diego next weekend, and we're looking forward to attending the reception and partying with ALL the cousins we rarely get to see!  And we are honored to be able to supply the wedding cake(s).... Heather is going to have a cupcake tree!   

She has left the details up to us (daring girl) and we want to make the best cupcakes ever, without going too far outside the box.   So for the past few weeks, I've been testing recipes.  Some have been really good, like the Orange Dream Cake recipe I found.   While the Chocolate Mint Brownie cupcakes were delicious with the Peppermint Patties in the middle, they were just too heavy for a full size cupcake.   But boy, were those li'l bite size ones a hit around the house!    And then there were the Chocolate cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting..... yowza.  Best frosting ever, but probably not a great choice for transporting 5 hours away.    Darn.   I think we'll have to eat these ourselves.   Thankfully, we have willing 'testers.'   Jessica was quite cooperative as I snapped these pictures of her enjoying her treat.  In fact, when I missed the first few pix, she happily agreed to take a second mini treat!  You know, you must have a quality control designee, and I think we've found one!   

Countdown to Wedding Day, Heather!   See you soon ~

 

Happy Mother's Day

I hope all you moms had a wonderful Mother's Day this weekend.   In celebration of the moms in our lives, XOXO Cookies made some fun photo cookies and delivered them to some special Moms and Grandmoms!   Now we just need to convince them to take a bite.   And thank you again to my own special crew for making my Mother's Day the best yet.   ~ S

Just can't get enough of the X's and O's

Cooking with wine and music

So I will admit, it is not always easy to escape from the craziness of a normal work day and switch gears to baking and connecting with my creative side.  A glass of wine and a quick crank to the stereo volume will usually do the trick. It may take twice as long if I decide I need to take a dance break with the rolling pin in hand.  I escape to whatever memories come with the song.  Today's escape was to the beaches I visited this winter in Nicaragua and Costa Rica! ~ K