My Valentine's Day started a few days before.. actually the weekend before. I began baking for my customers and preparing for all the orders. I also baked and froze cupcakes for National Cupcake Day coming up on the 26th. My boys will be each bringing in a dozen cupcakes to sell.
Then I had to try to catch my oldest when he was home to ask him what he wanted to do for his class valentines. He had cadet winter survival camp, and then worked Monday and Tuesday and had cadets on Wednesday. I'm really missing him, he needs to stay home more! So the kids told me they wanted to do the same thing as last year... So I had to take their pictures to make it happen:
It makes me sad to know that this will very likely be the last year Tyler will hand out valentines. Where did the time go? How is he heading to high school already? :( He told me his classmates were pinning the card to their shirts... LOL!
I still have a few years with this cutie-pie though... his valentines were a total hit! And why not? Who can resist that face? Definitely NOT his mom! LOL
I didn't get to take pictures of the Valentine production line, it was just too busy. But the promotion was a big success, and I will likely run something similar again in the future. It was fun to do something like that... brings me back to the days I worked in the bakery when I had multiple orders to fill. Much more enjoyable doing it at home though!
Before Valentine's Day, I had a few ideas in my head and decided to make them a reality. I created some white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate icing. They were scrumptious!
It's hard for a chocoholic to venture out of her chocolate haze and make something different, BUT... I enjoy doing it because it shows versatility and gives me a terrific opportunity to try, and offer, something different!
This cake was mostly chocolate with white chocolate drizzle and trimmed with pretty cream-coloured lace ribbon and bow. Simple elegance!
Then I did a trial run for a strawberry cake that is on the menu for a little girl's birthday next weekend. My family loves when I do trial runs... they have no shame in being my guinea pigs, none at all! I was playing with two ideas for this one... the strawberry cake, and the white chocolate icing.
The white chocolate icing is made up of two ingredients, butter and white chocolate, but it's cooked. It's a process of melting the butter and mixing in the chocolate and letting the blended mixture get cold in the fridge overnight. The next day, you put it in your mixer and beat it. This mixture becomes light and fluffy and so easy to pipe. The only tricky part with this icing is that you need to pipe quickly. The heat from your hands warms up the icing bag, and the icing, and if you aren't quick, it becomes too soft and won't hold its shape after awhile. I definitely will NOT be using this recipe for any summer cakes... it will just end up being a melted mess. But for winter, it's out of this world.
If you'd like to check out the recipe, I found it here.
I didn't make anything special for my honey for Valentine's Day. I know, terrible of me. But, I have plans for a chocolate trifle for when company comes over for dinner this weekend, and I'm going to try something new with my chocolate cupcakes to help a friend celebrate her birthday on Tuesday. Stay tuned for that.
If you've been wondering how my experiments with my new toy, the Cricut Cake, have been going, I'll be honest... it's not even out of the box yet. Here's why! The SAME weekend I bought it, I sliced my finger open on my Pampered Chef slicer while cutting vegetables to make homemade chicken soup. I was SO angry at myself because I decided against using the safety guard... and wouldn't you know it, it's actually provided for a very good reason. >:( Not one of my brighter moments, that's for sure. Anyway, it took forever to heal and I wasn't about to play with fondant in that condition. Note to self, don't think you're too smart to use the safety guard! Anyway, I am all healed now and hope to crack that baby open VERY soon! Maybe this weekend!
Happy Family Day to my fellow Canadians... enjoy your weekend with your family!
Stay sweet!
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