A Holiday Treat-ing We Will Go

Once again I had only moments to come up with a treat for Eli's class at school.  The other night, during a quest to find out how to make poinsettias out of fondant, I saw a video on piping Christmas trees onto cupcakes.  It turned out absolutely darling...so of course I HAD to try it!

Yikes!  That did not turn out like I imagined!  My first attempt was an utter failure.  Man did that lady make it look easy!  That was when I started experimenting with other ways to get this tree done in seconds. 

Second attempt: 

Much better, but a little on the CHUBBY side :0)  BTW-I hate to show you how skimpy that bottom frosting was, but I just could not bare to put another drop of sugar on the darn thing :0)  In fact, the video I saw, she didn't even frost before the trees.  I did at least put something on. 

Finally I took the base in a little, making for a slimmer tree, and was thrilled with the results. 

As you can see, you just work the icing in a swirl like they do ice cream cones at the drive-thru.  I made buttercream icing and piped it on using my all time favorite tip, Wilton no. 21.  I made an O on the bottom, filled that in, then swirled up, getting narrower as I reached the height I wanted.  I cut out the gold stars from gum paste.  I used straight gum paste because I needed them to dry right away.  For the ornaments, I wished I had the nonpareils.  I had sprinkles and tried to just sprinkle them onto the frosting, but it had already hardened and the sprinkles just bounced off and hit the floor.  I ended up using these candies cut from a candy necklace and smooshed them into the frosting. 

Multiply all that by 30 and you get... 

While I am at it, I wanted to show you the gingerbread houses we made Sunday.  It was soooo fun!  I bought a kit from a local bakery and soon after regretted that I didn't just get a Wilton kit that came with frosting and candy.

  Then I was at Walmart buying the missing items I found one kit that had 5 mini houses!  Perfect!  I am embarrassed to admit that I bough that one too.  I am glad I did though cause everyone was able to make their own and then we all worked on the big one together.

My girls are such candy artist!  Eli too, but he has always been more interested in the theatrics of things than the actual science of it all. 

 

Emmalee was so cute loading her house up with candy that I let her decorate mine too.

Do you like how all the red frosting she poured on the front of the one is sliding to it's floor :0)

I wanted to show you this.  We are not fabulous gingerbread house designers, but I pulled my melt-hard-candy-in-the-oven thing again.  I took a pile of butterscotch candies and arranged them on the back of this cookie sheet, covered in foil, to make the walkway between our gingerbread village.  I set the oven at 400degrees and put the candy in.  It was totally melted after 8 min.  When you pull it out of the oven you can use a knife to move the candy around to where you want it.  So AWESOME!  I really wanted the red cinnamon candies, but they were all out.  The yellow makes me think there might have been little gingerbread puppies around :0)

I did the same thing with the peppermint candies, but I didn't put them close together.  I kept them a good 2-3 inches apart.  I also used a knife to make a couple more square once they were melted.  I used those as the door mats.  p.s. disregard the stray piece of pine on the walkway.  I guess the little gingerpeople don't sweep their walk :0)

I didn't know where else to put our lovely candy village so I decided to scoot the candy topiary balls over and make the top of Em's kitchen a total sugar wonderland :0)

Next up were Madison's melted snowman cookies.  I saw this post the other day on Crazy Domestic and just couldn't wait to try them!  We made a batch of sugar cookie dough, squished it ball the handful onto the cookie sheet, and baked.  We frosted the cookies while they were still warm to give it that "freshly melted" look.  Madison did the marshmallow heads and all the other decorating by herself while I snuck a little snooze.  Didn't she do a fabulous job!?!  I loved these cookies!  So easy for being so much fun to eat!  Mads took them with to go caroling tonight with the church youth group.  What a funny thing caroling is in Arizona :0)  It is still quite warm.  My neighbor was mowing his lawn the other day while I was painting nativity scenes :0)  Seems like a contradiction.

Upcoming madness!!!  Bunco prizes, teacher gifts, and church party centerpieces!  It makes me tired just looking at them.  I am totally excited to get any of it finally finished though.  I can't wait to show you :0)

I guess that means I better get back to work.  Merry Christmas everyone!  Only moments left.  I hope you are enjoying every one of them :0)