exciting new things!

Today has been aaawweessooommmeee! My mom and I spent the whole day together and did fun things! First, we went to Chili's (don't judge... my mom, my sister and I have a tradition. We go to Chili's and get quesadilla explosion salads.) then we went to Target just to get some teeth whiting strips. You can't walk in to a Target and only get one thing, am I right? We were looking in the section at the front of the store where everything is $1-3, and went CRAZY! We got stupid little heart shaped measuring cups, a cute cupcake oven mitt, some baking spoons with cupcakes on them, a heart shaped mold tray, and many more exciting things! Then, we went to Michael's since it was right next door and got a ton of cute baking cups. We also got a fancy cupcake stand which was the high light of my day! I had to come home and try out all of my new things, of course!

I made these bad boys!

I made fondant, like real fondant for the first time! And, it tastes like something you would actually want to eat. These are chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate coffee ganache and marshmallow fondant. 

Cakes

Same chocolate cake recipe as below

Ganache

1/2 cup heavy cream

8 oz bitter sweet chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon instant coffee grounds (I used way more than this)

In a double boiler dump everything in, let the chocolate melt stirring occasionally. That's it!

Fondant

12 oz marshmallow fluff

6-8 cups powder sugar

1-2 teaspoons of any kind of extract

food coloring (if desired)

Mix the fluff and extract together. Dump a bunch of powder sugar in the mixture and mix, and mix, and mix... Keep adding sugar until the mixture is like a bread dough, mold it with your hands and if it is still sticky, put more sugar in it. Add food coloring whenever you want.

It's all pretty plain and simple. I'm not creative enough to make every one of the cakes different like my mother. She insisted that they all be different... of course. She helped and it was so much fun! But... next time I will just do a simple pretty flower on all of them.