Christmas Cookies 2013

Here are some of this year's Christmas cookies.

Yet another Red Sox cake

Here's yet another Red Sox cake. I made this cake for my Grampy's birthday.

The cake is chocolate and filled and frosted with chocolate ganache. The cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

The homemade fondant only took me a little over an hr to make. So all in all,the entire cake only took me about 10 hrs to make,10 hrs of nonstop work that is.

The red socks were freehanded from a small patch on my red sox baseball hat,as I had no printer or internet at the time to trace the socks from,that was half the battle haha. The socks were traced out of rolled out fondant with my exacto knife.I only had to remake one of the socks,due to the fondant cracking on me,after relentless kneading and having cornstarch being infused into the red fondant over and over again, I can understand why the sock cracked under pressure.

The baseball bats were made using a cool fondant wood marbling technique.
I used my handy dandy clay extractor for the stitching on the baseball cake. A wise investment, but extremely painful to use after awhile.

My cousin and her husband were visiting from Massachusetts and my sister came over from South Florida,so it was nice having everyone together for my Grampy's birthday.

Chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting.

I made some cupcakes to bring to my Grampy's Oncology office in hope that the cupcakes will bring a smile to all of the other chemo patients .
Chocolate cupcake
2 c sugar
1 3/4 c flour
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 ts baking powder
1 1/2 tsbaking soda
1 ts salt
1 c milk
2  eggs
1 stick unsalted butter (melted)
1 c hot coffee
Mix first 6 ingredients (the dry)
Add the milk,eggs, and melted butter and beat the mixture for 2 minutes.
Add the coffee and mix in until the batter is smooth.
Bake on 350 for about 20-25 minutes.
Cupcakes will be done when a toothpick is inserted into a cupcake and comes out clean.
Buttercream Frosting
2 sticks salted butter (room temp)
4 c powdered sugar
1 ts vanilla
3 TB cream
Beat your butter until the butter is smooth.
Mix in vanilla.
Add a cup of powdered sugar and mix until incorporated.
Mix in a TB of cream.
Mix in a cup of powdered sugar.
Mix in a TB of cream.
Mix in a cup of powdered sugar.
Mix in a TB of cream.
Finish with mixing in the final cup of powdered sugar.
Add any food coloring that you'd like.