Bakes by Beth

No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks! Tomorrow is the last day of school! I am looking forward to having my son home but I'm wondering if and when I'll change my tune. My kids argue and fight a lot, haha.  My son was in kindergarten this year and to be honest, we weren't quite sure how it was going to go. He often had some difficulty with drop-off in the morning at the babysitter/daycare and I was worried it was going to carry over to school. He did great and all my worrying was for nothing.  It didn't hurt that Jack had a great teacher this year and he loved his bus driver! We did a little batch of cookies for Jack's bus driver as a thank-you for a great year. She is at the top of his friend list, he always lists her name along with his school buddies and cousins. It's so adorable. One of the more funny school stories from this year was when Jack fell out of the car and underneath the door in the rain (ok, don't...

I swear I can do understated, muted color... but... don't you just love these brights?! Cupcakes and cookies for an eightieth birthday party and you know what, life is too short to be boring. And so I give you lots of greens, oranges and bright blues, swirls and polka dots, candies. Why take yourself so seriously I ask. I looooooved decorating those cupcake-cookies swirled frosting, cherry on top, and the sprinkles. Hope the guest of honor is impressed with his treats!   In retrospect I went a little heavy on the color, I meant for there to be more white than color in the swirl. Here it is more half and half... but I had couple extras (we love extras in our house) and my oh my, I am telling you, that buttercream frosting... delicious!

Flashback: When my kids were going to the local daycare, I was so appreciative of the ladies that worked there. They were caring for my kids for 10-11 hours a day... plus the rest of the kids in the classrooms. Miracle workers I tell you. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with just two kids, thinking of keeping 15 kids in one room gives me major anxiety. But not these girls, they were awesome. I decided to bake some colorful treats for the girls as a "thank you- we appreciate what you do" token. This is what I came up with... Love those colors! The multi colored flowers were my favorite and after I had seen how cute they turned out I wished I'd done all the flowers that way. They look great mixed together though! The finished product. Happy baking!

It's finally *almost* May! Thank goodness! I think I can speak for most everyone that April and it's variety of weather was just unrelenting and... I'm not too sorry to see it go. Peace out, April. You teased us early on with a couple beautiful, warm, sunshiney days and then you brought the ugliest, rainiest, coldest weeks that just kept repeating themselves. But May, well, I have high hopes for May and if these bright, fun Cinco de Mayo cookies have any say about it... it's gonna be awesome! Pinatas, hot peppers, cactus, sunshines, limes and margaritas... what's not to like?! I put a bit of granulated on the margarita glass rim to give it a little something extra. And let's be honest, a margarita with no "salt" on the rim just isn't a margarita, is it?  I'll be honest about those margaritas. I didn't have any kind of glass shaped cutter but I did have a trophy. So I trimmed the handles off the trophy and thought, yea, that ...

Cakes and cookies for a gender neutral baby shower! I was commissioned to do about 4-dozen cookies and a two-tier cake for a friend's sister's baby shower. Gender neutral is hard to do when picking colors. I wanted to do something unique and fun.  Orange, yellow, teal, and gray. I wasn't originally sold on the gray but loved it by the time I was finished. Onesies are so fun to decorate, so many different things to do but again, wanting to keep it gender neutral I stuck with dots and stripes and some solids with either buttons or the random heart. Cutest baby bottles! I wish I had a close up of this cake, guys. It turned out beautiful! Top tier is chocolate and bottom is white both with chocolate frosting between the layers. Covered in buttercream rosettes, feathered strokes, and various sizes of swirled color. May be my new favorite look!!

It was awfully chilly this morning, so after I got one sent off to school, my daughter and I decided to craft a bit. I also enjoy sewing and decided that I needed to kick up my boring old apron. I actually never wear this one because it's just plain white and grab a bright pink and green Vera Bradley one instead. My mother-in-law gave it to me years ago and it's still my favorite... but it might be a tie now! We did some laundry, we mowed the grass, and then... we baked... Remember those roses, Mason jars, and polka dot sugar cookies from earlier in the week... well, it was time to knock out the cake to match! I hope the guest of honor loves this as much as I do. It looks like a springtime bouquet! One more to whip up tomorrow, I have an idea in my head, we'll see if it works out to plan!

In March I had the pleasure of baking for my sister's wedding. She was probably the easiest person ever to bake for (perhaps because she is my sis and because she's been eating things I've made since we were kids... admittedly probably some better than others!) She was so relaxed and laid back. She had a few ideas but mostly let me run with it (I did get confirmation from her about what I was planning, I'm not that crazy to anger a bride!)  She requested cookies and cupcakes. Fortunately the cookies freeze awesome, so I was able to bake and decorate the 180 cookies ahead of time and pop them in the freezer to later concentrate on the cupcakes. The navy royal icing tinted great, no after taste that sometimes quite a bit of food coloring can make.  Navy, light blue, white... yellow flower accents. Love! I just love the "dot" accents around the perimeter of the designs. Cookies drying everywhere awaiting wrapping! We found these awesome wr...