Lyme Awareness Treats

I have an awesome sister. She rocks. Most of my life she has had undiagnosed Chronic Lyme's Disease. She was finally diagnosed about 5 years ago. Chronic Lyme is awful. She is miserable and suffering all the time. So we are doing some fundraising to help her seek treatment at a special facility. I don't have much to contribute, so I made some Lyme awareness cupcakes and cookies to sell at her fundraiser yard sale this weekend.

I am really pleased with how they turned out and hopefully they will help her raise some extra money for her treatments.

Update: they were a big success! Also, I've had lots of requests for the recipe for my lime frosting, so I'm posting it below:

Laura's Lime Frosting

2 cups white shortening

1 tsp. clear vanilla extract

2 tbs. meringue powder

2 lbs. powdered sugar

5-8 tbs. Lime juice (maybe a little more or a little less, depending on what consistency you want)

Mix shortening, vanilla & meringue powder on low for about 30 seconds or until blended. Alternately add powdered sugar and lime juice until all of the powdered sugar is blended and frosting is desired consistency. For stiff frosting, stick a knife in the frosting and slightly jiggle the bowl. If it doesn't move, your frosting is stiff. For medium consistency, the knife will move a little bit when the bowl is jiggled and be approximately at a 45 degree angle. This is the perfect consistency for the cupcakes and cookies pictured above. Enjoy!

Gingerbread House

As a Wilton Method Instructor, I frequently do demos at Michaels, the store I teach classes at, and Christmas was fun last year because I got to demo their gingerbread house kits! The gingerbread house kit comes with everything you need to create this awesome gingerbread house. It was super easy, and fun because I got to talk with customers while I was creating.

Pie!

Okay, so I realize that this is a cake blog, but last year for my niece's birthday, she asked for birthday pie instead of cake. so I took the challenge and made several pies for her birthday party.

Key Lime

 OMG, I totally forgot what this one is called...fancy chocolate?

 Lemon meringue

 Cherry

Geology birthday cake

I have the coolest nephew on the planet - so it only makes sense that I would make him a cake that looks like our planet, right? My nephew is a super incredible genius child. I am not just saying that. He is 5 years old and does 3rd grade math...for fun. He is truly a unique child, and I love him. So was I surprised when he wanted a geology cake for his birthday? Not really. I had a lot of fun making it too.

Fondant/gum paste flowers

As a Wilton Method Instructor, I make lots and lots of flowers: buttercream, royal icing and fondant/gum paste. I like taking pics of them just so I have a record, I guess. But they are so pretty, so it's okay.

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

Baby showers rock! Especially when they are for good friends! I made these mini cupcakes for a good friend of mine's baby shower. They are so cute :)

 By the way, this frosting has actual raspberries in it, making it soooo delicious!

Cupcake Bouquets

I just have to say - this was the most difficult and time-consuming project I have had so far cake-wise. I spent 3 days making these gorgeous bouquets. It was definitely well worth the effort. Look how amazing they turned out!!

Here is a pic of how I transported them. I found this idea on Pinterest. Genius!

Here I am slaving away and loving every minute!

Polka dot cupcakes

 My husband is the cub scout master at our church and we were hosting a Pinewood Derby, so I decided to make these cute cupcakes to bring along. Half of them were blue raspberry cupcakes with blue raspberry frosting and the other half were funfetti-style cupcakes with whatever frosting I felt like putting on top :)

They were a big hit!

Lazy Daisy

I was asked by a woman from my church to provide a cake for an event we were having with the women from our church. I am always excited to do this because she always wants something beautiful, and this year she asked me to make the cake look like spring since we in Minnesota have had a horribly long depressing and cold winter this year. I am a Wilton Method Instructor and had been teaching the daisy gum paste flower that week, so I decided to make a bunch and stick them on a cake. By the way, this cake had a blackberry filling - yummmmm!

Ping Pong, Anyone?

A very close friend of mine was throwing a surprise baby shower for someone at her work and there was a joke about everyone calling the baby ping pong since the mother didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, so my friend asked me to somehow incorporate a ping pong ball into a sheetcake, and this is what I came up with. I had a lot of fun thinking of ways to make the large flower big enough so that the ping pong ball didn't look weird in the center. I am really happy with how it turned out.