Free Birthday "Sweet Treats"

I had a wonderful weekend celebrating my birthday with family and friends.  Who knew that there were so many perks to having a birthday! I have come across a number of "free sweet treats" that you too, can get on your birthday.  All of these freebies will definitely apply to Torontonians (and most Canadians) and I hope that a few will also apply to those of you in the United States and in other countries.

Baskin Robbins - Join the Birthday Club to get a FREE 2.5 oz. scoop or 3oz. soft serve cone. An e-mail will be sent to your account a few days before your birthday to be printed and can be used until the date of expiry on the coupon.

Dairy Queen - Join the Blizzard Fan Club and an e-mail will be sent to your account on the morning of your birthday with a printable coupon for a FREE New Mini, Small or Medium Blizzard Treat when you buy a medium Blizzard Treat.

Lollicakes - This is by far my favourite cupcake shop in Toronto! Join the Birthday Club on their website to get a free cupcake on your birthday. Lollicakes products are not only delicious, but they are nut free, (perfect for me) dairy free, and kosher. This cupcake shop is located at Mount Pleasant and Eglinton.

Orange Julius - Join the Quench Club and an e-mail will be sent to your account on the morning of your birthday with a printable coupon for a FREE Julius Fruit Drink or Premium Fruit Smoothie when you buy one 20 oz. Julius Fruit Drink or Premium Fruit Smoothie.

Second Cup - I was walking home from the gym the other day and noticed a sign on the door of The Second Cup on Eglinton near Dunfield Avenue that said, "Come visit us on your birthday and receive 1 small FREE birthday beverage!" No sign up required. I would imagine that ID would need to be presented. ***Since this is a franchise, this may not apply at other locations.***

Starbucks-Buy and/or register a Starbucks gift card to get a free drink on your birthday.  A post card will be sent to you in the mail during the month of your birthday.  Present the post card at any Starbucks location and redeem it for any sized beverage.

I hope that you will take advantage of some of these fun perks on your special day.  I certainly enjoyed a cold Frappuccino from Starbucks on Saturday!

Happy Birthday those of you who celebrate a summer birthday!

Hedy's Mars Bar Ice Cream Cake

For my dad's birthday last week, I made my friend Hedy's famous, "Mars Bar Ice Cream Cake!"  She has made it many times before, but this was my first attempt to make it as well as she does. 

To make this cake, here is what you will need:

For the crust:

-1 1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs

-1/4 cup sugar

-1/3 cup butter melted

For the cake:

-2 x 1.55L tubs of your favourite vanilla ice cream softened
-8 Mars bars
-1 jar or squeeze bottle of chocolate fudge sauce

First, make the crust in the bottom of a spring form pan as though you were making a pie crust, using graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar. Let cool completely. Hedy likes to use Oreo cookie crumbs, but I used my favourite, graham cracker crumbs. Click here for more details on how to make the crust.

Next, freeze Mars bars for at least a half hour.  Break in half and crumble in food processor using the steel blade. Set aside in a bowl.

Let ice cream soften in tubs. Use half of one tub of ice cream.  Place in food processor and blend. Add half a cup of crushed mars and fold in by hand. Pour into a large bowl. Repeat for next three portions of ice cream. Pour half of the ice cream mixture onto the crust. Use a spatula to even out the softened ice cream mixture. Next, add a layer of chocolate fudge sauce.  Then, add the remaining ice cream mixture and top with remaining crumbled Mars bars. Finally, fill a piping bag with the rest of the chocolate fudge.  Drizzle over crumbled Mars bars.
Let set in the freezer for at least 24 hours.

If this is not delicious...

I don't know what is?

Happy Birthday Daddy. 

Enjoy everyone!
A perfect summer treat.

Thomas the Train Cake Pops

I made a train of cake pops for a birthday party this weekend.  They complimented Thomas' colours. Since it was a second birthday party, each pop was finished with a number 2.

To make these cake pops, begin by baking a white cake and let it cool for a few hours. Break the cake into crumbs and add your favourite frosting.  Using the back of a spoon, mix the icing and the crumbs together.  I added chocolate frosting to the white cake crumbs.

Use a mini ice cream scoop to scoop balls that are even in size.

Then, roll the balls with your hands and set on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Place in the freezer for about 20 minutes.

To make the pops, use 6 inch lollipop sticks.

Dip in melted candy and tap off excess coating. Place in a styrofoam tray to set.

Melt red candy melts and spoon into a piping bag.  Pipe the number 2 on each cake pop.

Place in the boxcars and add a Thomas train at the front. To make the boxcars I used shoeboxes and filled them with styrofoam. I covered the boxes with fadeless red paper as though I was wrapping a gift. Using a wooden skewer, I punched holes in specific places so the cake pops would easily fit in.

Package each pop individually by placing a clear cellophane bag over top each one, bunching the bag together at the base of the pop. Tie with light blue ribbon. Curl ends of ribbon with the sharp edge of a pair of scissors. 

Bring to a party and give away as loot bags.

For a more detailed tutorial explaining how to make cake pops, click here.

Happy Birthday Oliver!

Cake Pop Bouquet

I made these cake pops for a first birthday party.

I used chocolate and blue candy melts.

First, I dipped the vanilla cake balls into the candy melts and attached the sticks.  Then, I set them in a styrofoam stand to dry.

To decorate, I used the leftover candy melts of the opposite color and drizzled a simple design.

To learn how to make your own cake pops, click here.

This order turned out perfectly!

To package the cake pops, I filled a silver plant pot from Ikea with styrofoam.  I topped it with blue and brown tissue paper and poked the cake pops into the styrofoam.  I added clear cellophane to cover up the arrangement and delivered it to the party. Everyone was thrilled and confused at the same time.  They had never seen or eaten a cake pop before!

Have you tried a cake pop before? If so, where was it from and what flavour was it?

Camera Cake

It was Rich's Uncle's birthday yesterday.  Since he is a photographer, Rich commissioned me to make him a camera cake! That husband of mine...he has so many good ideas! 

Let me remind you that I am not such an experienced cake maker/designer. The first fondant cake that I made was a Montreal Canadien's Cake for Rich's birthday last year.  The second one that I made was a cake for my mom's 60th a few months ago. So...I guess this would be my third attempt at being the Cake Boss. This project was different though.  It involved making a cake in the shape of an actual camera. Here's how I did it.

First, I traced my own camera on a piece of green cardstock, cut it out and made it into a stencil. Next, I placed it on top of the rectangular cooled cake and cut around the edges of the stencil with a knife.  This created the first layer. I repeated this step to create a second layer. I smeared chocolate fudge frosting on the first layer which acted as glue that held the two layers together. To create the "camera lense," I cut out a circle using a circle cookie cutter and attached it to the main part of the cake with toothpicks.

Dirty icing the cake adheres the fondant to it.  This part was really messy!  Note to self, when dirty icing a cake, stick to vanilla frosting!  The chocolate frosting seemed thicker than vanilla, and made a big mess! While the cake chilled in the fridge, I prepared the fondant.

To make black fondant, I added about 2 teaspoons of Wilton black Icing Color to white fondant. Remember to always wear gloves to colour fondant!  

I melted some white candy melts and put them into a piping bag to pipe some other details.

The cake really began to take shape.

For an amateur, it looked alright!

Rich was really impressed.

But George's reaction was priceless!  He was thrilled and did not want to eat the cake!

The photographer in action!

Have you seen any of George's work before?  He is a very talented landscape photographer. Check out the trailer for one of his DVDs, Unforgettable Canada.  The photos in the DVD are from his best seller, "Unforgettable Canada" that sold over 50, 000 copies.

It was hard to cut into the cake, but we managed!

Happy Birthday George!

Elmo Cookies

I did it! Thanks to Sweet Sugarbelle who made a video tutorial showing how to decorate sugar cookies without using a fancy tracing projector, I made these cute Elmo and number 2 cookies. 

In this post, I will walk you through the steps to making more challenging cookies, minus the fancy projector.  (In the future, however, I may invest in a Kopykake projector.)

Items you will need for this project:

-sugar cookies

-printed image(s) of Elmo and the number 2

-black edible ink pen

-royal icing

-#1 Wilton piping tip

-squeeze bottles

-toothpicks

Bake sugar cookies and let cool. Print an image of Elmo onto cardstock and cut out around the face. (I found this image on Sugar Envy's Flicker photo stream.) Cut out mouth and poke holes around nose with a toothpick. Place printed image onto cookie and trace around Elmo's face with an edible ink pen to create the border. Since I was going to pipe the outline black, I used a black edible ink pen. Always try to match the color of ink to the colour you will pipe as the border.

Next, trace the mouth and the dots of the nose.

When the dots are connected and the eyes are joined, the face begins to take shape.

Next, pipe the drawn image with black royal icing using a number #1 Wilton Piping tip. (I used a #2 tip in the pictures. In retrospect, I think that a #1 tip would have been better.) Fill in the mouth with the same black icing. Repeat steps for remaining Elmo cookies. Let set and dry overnight.

The next day, flood the face with red royal icing. Use a toothpick to spread the icing into corners or hard to get to areas on the face. For the recipe that I use to make royal icing, click here.

Flood the nose with orange royal icing and the eyes with white royal icing. Let dry overnight. 

Use a black edible ink pen to draw and colour in the eyeballs.

Ta Da!

For the number 2 cookies above, print the number 2 image onto cardstock. Cut out, trace onto cookie and pipe with royal icing. Let dry overnight. Flood with coloured icing and let dry overnight.

The Lexie cookies were first outlined with black royal icing. The next day they were flooded with coloured royal icing and left to dry overnight. On the third day, the names were piped on top.

Happy Birthday Lexie!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Happy decorating,

Melissa ;)