Cute Little Muffins is Moving!

Hi muffins! Thanks everyone for following my blog for over the last year! If you are new to my site, feel free to browse through past posts. But from now on, I will be blogging over at the new Cute Little Muffins website. This site will also be where you want to go for products and pricing and to learn all about Cute Little Muffins! Thanks again! @--,--

Maxine 60th Birthday Cake

Maxine said it right! If you follow me on Facebook, you've already seem my Maxine birthday cake. This was a yellow cake with a pastry cream filling. Buttercream frosting, and marshmallow fondant to make Maxine!

I'm kind of loving making things out of fondant! I'm getting the hang of things and it is becoming less intimidating. How I made Maxine was by printing up a picture of her. Then I traced her on wax paper, cut out all the individual pieces, and traced the fondant around the wax paper pieces. I believe she came out pretty decent for my second fondant endeavor!

Maxine is always being a crabby patty. I don't believe she has any right to complain about birthdays though, seeing as she never ages. C'est la vie! Either way, there will always be cake!!!

Random birthday cream puffs on the agenda for this week! Cake pops at the weeks end as well! Stay tuned, friends!

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Birthday Pie!

There are a crazy amount of peanut butter pie variations on the internet. And you know what? They all consist of the same ingredients. 

And yet, some looked more promising for me to try than others, ha! 

Honestly, pictures really influence me trying a recipe. Unfortunately, I took a bunch of pictures of this chocolate peanut butter pie I made yesterday, but lost them all today.  =(  Amazingly enough, we didn't eat the whole pie yesterday, and I had a last minute chance to snap pictures of this sweet beauty! =)

I always like to find different crusts to try as opposed to graham cracker crusts. I think it's because people are just expecting that for a pie such as this, so I like to surprise. I myself was really surprised to find that there were no solid chocolate short dough cookie recipes on the internet, so I used one from class last year and rolled it out for the crust in this 8in foil pie pan. 

After the crust baked and cooled, I added something more to the crust before I spread the filling into the pan. I used some hot fudge topping (by Smuckers- I've been meaning to do homemade, but that hasn't happened yet) and spread a layer on the crust before I added the peanut butter filling. 

The basic peanut butter pie filling you'll find on the internet is peanut butter, cool whip, and confectioner's sugar. I added some vanilla to it and a little extra peanut butter than what it calls for. After popping it in the freezer for a bit, I topped it with a thin layer of whipped topping, then drizzle more peanut butter and hot fudge sauce on top. 

In a pinch, you can freeze this for a a couple hours, and then it will be ready to slice in to! 

 
Love! My most favorite muffin loves peanut butter and chocolate, so this is my go-to for his birthday! Happy Birthday to JP! =)

More birthday things to happen later this week! Stay turned for more blog catching up soon! 

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Pink Ombre Swirl Cake- CLM's style!

Slowly playing catch up! 

Over the course of this year, I'd like to take as many birthday opportunities as I can to practice different kind of cake techniques. I took a quick twist on some Pinterest inspiration to create this pink ombre swirl cake for my grandma's 75th birthday cake!

Seriously, the most time consuming part of frosting was dying the buttercream different shades of pink. Making swirls with a star point wasn't nearly as scary or intimidating as this picture seems!

Looks just as yummy from the top view, no?!

The inside was a white cake, 4 layers, with two layers of pastry cream filling and a single layer of strawberry sauce in the middle. I really need to start trying different cake recipes, as well as buttercream recipes. My go-to is a bit sweet, and it's time to start searching around for the perfect frosting for each ocassion!

Can't wait for the next! More exciting birthday posts to come!!!

Hope you aren't on a sugar load from Valentine's Day! Love!!! It's safe to say I need a quick sweet time out.....  ;-)

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Penguin Pops

Happy February!!!

 

These little penguin dudes are fighting the cold by flying west! Long overdue special delivery for one of my most special little muffins!!! <3

Birthdays and baptisms and communions....so many orders coming up! While you are waiting to thaw from the last few winter months, considering something to keep your tummy sweet and happy! 

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Monkey Baby Boy Shower!

 

This weekend I had the awesome opportunity to make a baby shower cake. Upon casual mention of being in need for a cake for a special occasion, I turn casual browsing of cakes into obsessive compulsive searching for something spectacular, to see if I can execute cuteness! 

This occasion's adventure involved mention of monkey cake pops. After establishing a theme, I saw these standard monkey decorations and decided I would turn it into sugar! It turned out to be the perfect time to try making homemade fondant, which I've been wanting to tackle for awhile. I know very little about fondant still, except that it tends to taste like nothing or blah, and usually can be a little pricey at the store. I take a lot of pride in doing things from scratch as much as possible, so I searched for fondant options and found things here and there about marshmallow fondant.

And oh my goodness, it was completely wonderful! There were a lot of rules and long winded explanations of how to go about this process on the internet, but seriously all it consisted of was microwaving a bag of mini marshmallows with a couple tablespoons of water, until it become damp. I mixed for a little, then tossed this in my Kitchenaid with the dough hook and powdered sugar. I didn't really measure too well, just kept slowly adding the sugar until the mixture formed a solid mass that came off the side of the bowl, similar to mixing bread dough.

Then, voila! You end of with this little beauty!

Crazy, right?! 

As an extra added bonus, it tasted great! How can you mess up marshmallow and sugar though, right?! Well, you probably can, but I've been fortunate to not have any issues with that yet.... ;-)

Unrelated to the fondant directly, the mat that the fondant is sitting on top of is a pastry mat from The Pampered Chef. No words can express how much easier this makes rolling out fondant, cookie dough, pie dough....sometimes I feel like a baking snob with all my kitchen gadgets, but honestly, it just makes things so much easier, and if it makes it easier to do what I love, then I don't think there is anything wrong with that! =)

Then, this happened....

This will give your fingers a work out, but it's fun to watch the dye mix into the fondant. A little color dye will really take you a long way! Then, this is how the magic happens....

I had my fondant, my color dye and the picture I was hoping to replicate. Time to do my thing! Definitely the most creative I've had to get in this whole cake making journey of mine. It was delightful! 

Another great thing about this is you can make it ahead of time and store until you are ready to use. If you wrap it up really good and keep in a dry spot, it will last you up to 3-6 months. 

I felt pretty proud of my first fondant go around! There is always so much I learn every time I bake, and once I finish one project, my mind is right on to the next! Yes, I have two and a half months to plan a super cute, yummy Christening cake for a cute little munch and over half a year for a special little peanut's first birthday cake, but I just can't help it, the possibilities are endless and it makes me so happy to be doing something I love!!!

The saddest part of all of this? When this happens....

Okay, not sad, but bittersweet maybe? Ha! I can't help it, I spend so much time planning and baking and creating, and then it is gone. Which is the point, but it becomes a part of you. Happy that it was fun to do and people enjoyed, but sad that it's all over....

I don't mean to toot my own horn or anything, but I really wish I had a piece of that cake right now! HA!

Okay cake lovers, it's birthday cake time now!!! Stay tuned for what's to come after this weekend!!!

Goodbye for now, from all my little monkey pop friends!! Creating some little penguin pop friends for them sometime this week...  ;-)

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2012 Christmas Cookies

Happy New Year!!! I hope this post finds you well in 2013, warm and cozy and stuffed silly of Christmas cookies! I sincerely have been missing those 4 days straight I spent baking cookies...

Italian Christmas cookie platter- Italian Twists, Ricotta Cookies, Almond chocolate chip biscotti, almond spritz and cuccidati.

I'm working on creating a link to a picture page of cookies, as I've done for the cake pops. Because everyone knows that just because it's not the holidays anymore, doesn't mean that sometimes you still don't need a delicious, comforting platter of all your favorite cookies!

The festivities began with some cream cheese cookies, which is a pastry type cookie filled with preserves (here I choose strawberry and pineapple preserves). The recipe came from my grandma.

My most favorite cookie, the peanut butter blossom! Always a mistake not to make a double (or triple!) batch.

Grabbed this ginger cookie recipe from my #1 muffin at my Christmas cookie swap! Smaller and less chewier than hers, I'll work on perfecting the deliciousness for next year.  ;-)

Grandma's sugar cookie recipe here. Always a crowd pleasure! The delightfulness of my airbake baking pan bakes a perfect cookie every time!

Strawberry preserve thumbprints here. Melted in my mouth shortly after getting out of the oven- the chopped up peanuts and strawberry jam are a perfect pb&j moment!

Only the beginning, the first tins of cookies to be delivered!

Grandma's Italian Twist cookies came next, decorated with a buttercream recipe from class.

Followed by more decorated sugar cookies.

My first "out of class" attempt at biscotti. I went with almond chocolate chip. Would love to make again soon!

Almond spritz cookies, made with my electric cookie press. Totally fun to make these, but a tad bit of work!

Speaking of a cookie that takes some work, the Italian cuccidati was last! Imagine fig newton-y. Not for everyone, but definitely for meee! =)

  

The cuccidati were for an order, as well as the Italian cookie platter at the top of this post. I'm already looking forward to next year and what other cookies I can add to the mix!!

So much to look forward to in 2013, so many baking intentions I have! Excited to see what my next baking year holds! Thanks so much for reading my blog, and for your baking business- it brings me so much joy in my life! 

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