heart candy pops

these are the candy pops i made for my daughter to take to her friends at school for valentine's day. they turned out pretty cute and they were not hard to make at all. :)

birthday cake for mother

birthday cake i made for my mother- written in bulgarian. it was yellow cake, since this is what she likes, with fluffy vanilla pudding frosting and flowers made from butercream.

dinosaur cake

the inside was: chocolate, marble and yellow layers with vanilla pudding in between. frosting was buttercream in various colors.

gingerbread house

this was a "joint" project between my kids and me :) it was a lot of fun!

christmas eve bread

i have to say, this was actually made by my mother, but i had to include it in this blog- it pays tribute to my bulgarian heritage. this is traditional bulgarian chirstmas eve bread decorated to honor God, the house, the people in it and the garden. my daughter had a lot of fun adding the decorations! :)

Annual Christmas Cookie Extravaganza :)

Every christmas, I drive myself and everybody in my family crazy when I start baking my Christmas cookies... :) Because I don't just stop at one or two, or three kinds, I have to bake hundreds of cookies every year! And when you have only a few days to do the job in between going to work full time and taking care of three little kids, it can get pretty stressful. Yet, I love it. I know, I'm strange. :) The few pictures below a small sample of all the cookies that left my house this Chirstmas (because as you may have guessed, more than 90% of these are gifts- my own homemade gifts of love :))

Cherry Pie with Lattice Top

This is was my first attempt at making pie- ever. Of course, I had to make the crust from scratch. I had heard horror stories about the finicky nature of pie crust, so I set off on this adventure with trepidations (to say the least). However, I was pleasantly surprised and quite satisfied with the final end result. Here is the recipe I used for the pie crust:

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup water

Directions

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water until mixture forms a ball. Divide dough in half, and shape into balls. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Roll out dough on a floured counter. Don't over work it. Use half for the bottom and the other half for the lattice top.I did use ready cherry pie filling but I wanted to take it one step at a time with the "first ever" accomplishments. :)

I admit, it went pretty straight forward, and even the lattice top was not as complicated as I thought it would be. And it sure looked beautiful, especially for a first try. :)

Courtesy:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-ever-pie-crust/detail.aspx

Apple Pie with Lattice Top

I am a cake girl, I confess. Pies are not my "thing". But for the sake of American tradition, I had to make a couple of pies this Thanksgiving. :) So, this is how it went...

 
Ingredients

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
(for the recipe I used, click here: http://4goodnessbake.blogspot.com/2010/11/cherry-pie.html)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.

Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.

Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

I was actually quite impressed with myself, being as this was the first time ever I made a pie- I made the pie crust and the filling from scratch, and I also did the lattice top. My guests loved the pie by the way... :) So, it was worth it after all.:)

Recipe adapted from:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/apple-pie-by-grandma-ople/detail.aspx

butterfly cake

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sugar cookies

these are the butterfly sugar cookies i made for my oldest daughter's butterfly birthday party. i baked them and decorated a few, and then let the kids have fun decorating the rest.

strawberry poke cake

another cake decorated by my 5-year-old daughter. :) the interesting part was the inside- it was a strawberry poke cake. once you dig into it, it looks- and tastes- pretty good...

Peach preserves

I know, this is not strictly speaking baking, but actually I like to use my home-made preserves as fillings for my cakes. So here you have it: homemade peach preserve.