Christmas is Coming!

YAY! It's almost December! Which means, CHRISTMAS BAKING! Sadly it also means eating the Christmas baking and gaining 50 pounds, which I do not need to gain. I have so many things I want to try this year too! Guess lots of people are just going to be ending up with goodies on their doorsteps!

Tricks or Treats?

I vote TREATS!
So Halloween has come and gone, but I still had to share my fun baking adventures!

These cute little cookies were so easy! Mainly because I didn't have to bake the cookie! To make these little guys, all you need are Nilla cookies, a can of pre-made icing, and edible ink pens. I melted down the icing to make it nice and runny, dyed some of it orange, then drizzled it onto the cookie. I followed the same steps with the white, except for the dying part of course. Once the cookies were dry, I drew on the cute little jack-o-lantern faces and of course little ghost faces. EASY! And so cute! Personally I didn't find them all that tasty, but I would be all over using them as a decoration.

Of course I couldn't just stop with one Halloween themed treat. So of course I turned to bakerella.com for some more inspiration. And I definitely found it! First off, Cheesecake Pops!

Now, Bakerella had made these for Valentines' Day by adding cute little heart sprinkles to them, but I thought, why not make them a little more ghoulish. I found these amazing Halloween sprinkles at Michaels which were
perfect! I think the best part of the Cheesecake Pops is that they are made from a store bought cheesecake. So no hassle of making the cheesecake! Using a cookie scoop I got my little cheesecake balls made. I rolled them in graham cracker crumbs to help them keep the shape. I put them in the freezer for a little while after that so that they would be easier to attach to the sticks. Next step, the candy melts. I found black ones (special for Halloween of course!) and melted those following the directions on the package. Yep. That's all the instruction I'm giving on that one. After taking the slightly frozen cheesecake balls from the freezer I dipped the end of the stick into the candy melts and then pushed on the cheesecake ball. Then the fun part of covering the entire pop with the candy melts. I can't tell you how to do this. It's more a trial and error of finding what works best for you. Then sprinkle on some sprinkles and pop them back in the freezer for a couple minutes to make sure everything is set. And can I just say... YUMMY!

These are very very tasty! I love them. Perfect bite sized cheesecake.

So now that I had Cheesecake Pops, I moved on to Bakerellas Cake Pops. She had all sorts of cute Halloween ones, but I decided to start simple. I went with ghosts and pumpkins. First step: Bake a cake. Second step: Let it cool. Third step: Crumble it. Fourth Step: Add a container of pre-made cream cheese icing. Fifth Step: Make into little balls.

Then follow the same steps as with the cheesecake pops. Make sure they are fairly firm prior to putting them on the sticks.

For the ghosts however, you do have to change the shape slightly from balls to more of a cone shape. I covered them in white chocolate then using mini chocolate chips and regular chocolate chips, I pushed them into the cake pops, pointy side in. CUTE!

For the pumpkins, I used sour green apple sticks that I cut to make the cute little stems. ADORABLE! Oh, and the flavor of the pumpkins and ghosts was devils food. Yum. Chocolate!

Then of course, it's all about the presentation. Individually wrapped with a cute little black or orange ribbon tied on. Put into the cutest pumpkin shaped baskets I've ever seen. I found them at Michaels, and I also happened to find them on sale for 50% off. So that in itself helped to up the cuteness factor. Now they are ready to be enjoyed!

I have to say, I was quite impressed with the tastiness and cute factor.

Photographs of these creations were done by Chelsea Belle Photography. (She's fantastic!)