Thursday, April 4, 2013

Food Crafting

So I have three (yes three) quilt tops that I am working on right now. I take turns with them and work on whichever one is interesting to me at that moment. I should have one done next week as it's an upcoming class and I need to get the sample done!

But last week was all about sweets! For Easter we had two church services, one in Sindelfingen in the morning and one in Lauchhau in the evening. So I did baking for both and had enough for the girls at work too!

I didn't take photos of all my cookies, but I made bunnies, chicks hatching out of eggs, decorated eggs, a couple of tulips and some birds. I used the candy eyes on the bunnies and the chicks and they were super adorable! I'm still learning the elusive art form that is cookie decorating.
I had trouble finding the original source of these nest cupcakes, but (surprise, surprise) I saw them on Pinterest. They are red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The nest part has cocoa added to make it brown. I wish I had gone darker. The eggs are Reeses Pieces eggs and are delicious!!
Have you used these foil lined baking cups? The one above was given to me by Mary before she left. These are great! You can actually see your design instead of your greasy cupcake showing through! My non-baking friend did not understand the significance of the foil lined baking cup, so please take another moment to soak it all in.

The candy coated strawberries were also huge on Pinterest! Funny thing was before I made these I saw them on Pinstrosity! I've worked with candy melts enough now that I wasn't worried. I washed and dried the strawberries really well before dipping. You can see on the plate that they dribbled a little juice, but they held up for days. I kept them in plastic ware with paper towel between the layers and they did fine!
They were actually a lot of fun to serve to my German friends. They hadn't seen the candy melts so everyone thought they were marzipan. (blech) Once they tried them they were gone in minutes!

Speaking of not knowing what something is... April Fool's Day was this week too! Whoever decided to have Easter and April Fool's right after each other was not a baker! Just sayin.

Don't these tiny hamburgers look amazing?!
Yep, that's a cupcake! I've had this one pinned for a YEAR just waiting for April Fool's Day! It's yellow cupcake cut in half. The "meat" is brownie and the condiments are frosting. The original used sesame seeds, but, ew. I used crushed candy pearls for the white flecks on the top.

The joke ended up being on me. Since Ethan was sick (bronchitis) he was SUPER UPSET that I served him a cupcake instead of a real hamburger. Poor baby. He wasn't thinking straight. Oh, it makes me chuckle remembering. Poor thing had a nervous breakdown right in the kitchen! He finally came around and ate one, but I don't think he enjoyed it. 

And lastly, last week we had this guy visit the base. 


It's called an Osprey and it's some kind of helicoptor/plane hybrid gyzmo. All the military people can now correct me and shudder at my ignorance of important transportation innovations. So it landed and they let whoever wanted to go through it. They just asked us not to take pictures on the inside -  you know for national security and everything. 

Oh yes, that's snow. Germany has a sense of humor too and played an April Fool on us by dumping another ton of snow. Boo. They cut off all the heat in the buildings at the end of March so tomorrow I'll be working with fingerless gloves and a campfire. But I think there is hope. The sun came out today and I actually wore sunglasses! 

Happy Spring!

4 comments:

Adrienne said...

Cool! The goodies all look delicious...and now I want a cupcake *and* a brownie.

And when you said "this guy" visited the base, I started looking in the picture to see what VIP was standing in the doorway of the plan with all the people crowded around him. I gave up and then kept reading...and realized that the plane itself was the guy. Oops. :)

I am going to stop complaining about it being in the 40's and 50's here. After all, it could be snowing. Stay warm!

Tina said...

I love your sweet creations. They are adorable and most likely were delicious. Sorry about the snow.

Corinnea said...

You are amazing! I'm not sure that cookie decorating or any type of decorating/craftiness can elude you for long. Can't wait to see your quilts.
So sorry Ethan was not feeling well. Respiratory sickness has been rampant all over apparently...
How fun to see the osprey up close. I miss the accessibility to cool military stuff. I forget we even have two bases here!
Sorry about the extra snow.... I think our few beautiful cooler bugless days are over... we were being eaten this evening during dinner.

Jessica said...

Oh my goodness that is so funny about ethan ... Poor kid. That is an awesome april fools joke though.

Osprey is awesome. They never did anything like that when we were there... One of the places we kayak is next to a base and some days you can watch all sorts of neat things take off and land while you're on the water. Its fun.

I forgot about heat shut off. You should try making some of those handwarmers on pinterest!!