Tutorials — Page 9

Shark Cake Pops for Discovery’s Shark Week

August 9, 2014 by Jenn

It’s time for Discovery’s Shark Week people! Get your life preservers, and water wings out as it’s time to head to the ocean! Or maybe not. With Shark Week all over social media and television, heading to the ocean right now is not at the top of my list. I’ll head out later once the images of razor sharp teeth, wide hinged jaws, and hungry feeding sharks have faced from memory.

Discovery contacted us to make something to help them celebrate shark week, so I thought that making some cute shark cake pops would be less traumatizing for some of our younger viewers. Shark week was originally started “to raise awareness and respect for sharks”. I guess shark week was the answer to the terror that Jaws created in the 1975- lets be friends instead!

If you want more information on Discovery’s Shark Week, check out their Facebook page and their Twitter feed.

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Filed Under: Cake Pops, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake pop, discovery, discovery shark week, jaws, ocean, ocean cake pop, shark cake, shark cake pop, shark cake pops, shark fin, shark week

How to Make a Marshmallow Shooter

July 30, 2014 by Jenn

What could be more fun than a marshmallow shooter?!? Getting to use POWER TOOLS to make the marshmallow shooter!

This was a super fun project to work together with Colin of WoodWork Web on. I haven’t been in a real woodworking shop in a long time. I used to be quite the avid woodworker in my high school and college years, but without the access to a wood shop for the last 15 years, I was a little rusty!

The shooter is pretty simple if you have access to some basic woodworking tools. If you don’t, Colin gave a great suggestion for a way to make one without having to have any of the wood tools. Instead of cutting out a complicated gun stock, you can use a simple 1″x1″ piece of wood to attach the shooter portion of the gun to. I would imagine you wouldn’t even need that though if you were comfortable enough just holding the PVC portion.

My favourite part of this entire video shoot was when we were finishing up the video, and we were to both shoot the marshmallows at the camera. Instead of putting the marshmallows into the shooter, Colin put them in his mouth and ate them, without even realizing what he was doing! You can see that blooper at the end of the video. I laughed so hard at him!

We also filmed a collab over on Colin’s YouTube channel, WoodWorkWeb. I spend hours on Pinterest, as you might imagine, and I continually see pallet projects in the DYI sections. Colin was able to show me how to make a pallet bookcase to store my cookbooks in, AND it is even the perfect size for wine bottles!

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Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: marshmallow, marshmallow fight, Marshmallow Gun, marshmallow rifle, marshmallow shooter, pallet, pallet bookshelf, pallet project, pallet wood project, pvc, pvc pipe, pvc shooter, recycled pallet, upcycled pallet project, woodwork, woodwork web, woodworking

Sand Dollar Sugar Cookies- Backpack Baking at the Beach Recipe

July 26, 2014 by Jenn

Recently, we went to Vancouver Island, which is about a 10 hour drive west, plus a two hour ferry ride from our home. As much as we would have liked to have been able to call this a vacation, we were working throughout the couple of weeks we spent there with our friends. We are fortunate enough to have the type of job that allows both of us to travel and be able to work while doing so. YouTube is the best! Both Paul and I were also lucky enough to have lived in Victoria for a period of time, and I was born on Vancouver Island, so heading back to the Island was something that we were both really excited about doing.

As soon as I knew we would be travelling to the West Coast, and the Pacific Ocean, I knew I wanted to bake something that would be “ocean” themed. What I remember very vividly about the Island from being a child (not so much as a University student) was looking for seashells, sea stars and sand dollars on the long beaches . . . and the idea for sand dollar cookies was born!

These cookies can be made at home, and like our other Backpack Baking recipes, you don’t have to have a backpacking oven. These cookies can be made in the comfort of your kitchen with you following the same directions. I can’t promise you the beautiful sights along the way though!

The beach that we hiked down to was along the start of the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, which is a 47 km hike along the western edge of Sand Dollar Cookies. We started at the China Beach trailhead, and hiked two kilometers down to Mystic Beach. It was stunning coastal scenery along the way. The trail was in fabulous shape, and seems to be well maintained. There were many man-made walkways, staircases, and there was even a suspension bridge! The best part of the hike down to the beach is the final decent as you walk along a huge fallen tree that opens up to a beautiful view of the Mystic Beach. This hike is definitely worth it and it can be done by people of all ages and fitness levels.

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Filed Under: Backpack Baking, Cardio, Hiking Tagged With: Backpack Baking, baking on the beach, beach baking, cinnamon cookies, cinnamon sugar cookies, Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, Mystic Beach, sand dollar cinnamon cookies, sand dollar cookies, sand dollar sugar cookies, sand dollars, snickerdoodle cookies, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Stuffed Triple Peanut Butter Cookies

July 23, 2014 by Jenn

If you are a peanut butter lover, you need to add this to your list of MUST make recipes.

Are you ready? These cookies have peanut butter, peanut butter chips, Reese’s Pieces, and all of that deliciousness is wrapped around a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!

Obviously, if you are NOT a peanut butter fan (what is wrong with you?) these are not the cookies for you. I apologize to you for having to lose out on the amazingness of these cookies. If you’re allergic, how to do you live life?!?!? I really feel for you. Seriously. No sarcasm. THAT’s how bad I feel- bad enough to not be sarcastic! I would guess that you could substitute the peanut butter portions for a nut free alternatives, but I haven’t checked that out yet.

This is a pretty straightforward cookie recipe, so following the steps to combine the ingredients is relatively easy. When baking these cookies, you want to make sure that you wrap the dough entirely around the peanut butter cup. This will prevent any of the peanut butter cup/chocolate from escaping during baking. I didn’t have that problem, but if you do freezing the peanut butter cups ahead of time might help as well.

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Filed Under: Cookies, Videos Tagged With: cookies, peanut butter, peanut butter chips, peanut butter cookies, reece's peanut butter cups, reece's peanut butter cups stuffed cookies, reece's pieces, stuffed, stuffed cookies, triple peanut butter

Transformers Cake- Using a Shaped Cake Pan

July 5, 2014 by Jenn

Learning how to use a shaped cake pan was how I learned to decorate cakes- so therefore, it’s how you should learn to! Hahaha!! Just kidding. Using a shaped cake pan is ONE of many ways you can learn to decorate, and since it’s the way that I’m familiar with, I chose to show you in this tutorial. When using a shaped cake pan, the lines and indentations are made for you, so the spatial piece that comes with design isn’t as tricky. There is still some amount of challenge as you have to figure out where each line is connected, but all in all, it is way easier than free-handing a complicated design.

When baking the cake batter in the cake pan, I will be honest and tell you that using a box mix is probably the better choice. For whatever chemical/preservative reason, the baked box mixes come out of the cake pan much easier than a cake from scratch does. I’d rather not think anymore about what that reason is!

There are many ways you can go about decorating a shaped cake, but I find it easiest to start with the outline, and then do the little areas that are other colours, or specific shapes etc, so once those are all done, you can quickly fill in the rest of the cake with the main colour(s).

There are a number of companies that sell shaped cake pans, but Wilton seems to lead the way in shaped Character pans. A simple Google or Amazon search will offer you hundreds of choices of characters! Garage sales or yard sales are also an excellent source of cake pans. Cake pans sometimes serve a one time birthday purpose, and then collect dust in the bottom of a cupboard. If you are lucky like me, you head to a garage sale from a former cake decorator and you hit the mother load of shaped cake pans! That is how I acquired the many shaped pans that I had, but when I stopped decorating cakes as a business, I sold them on an online site- which brings me to the point that online buy and sell sites are also great places to get cake pans. There’s no need to pay the full amount (usually $25-$50) when you can get it for $5 second hand.

As when exploring anything as a beginner, reaching perfection takes time. Don’t give up. Practice until you’ve got it perfectly decorated. And then you can thank me later. Haha!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Videos Tagged With: beginning cake decorating, cake, cake decorating, decorating, easy, easy cake decorating, Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime Cake, shaped cake pan, Transformers, Transformers cake, wilton, Wilton Cake Pan, Wilton shaped cake pan, WIlton Transformers

Giant American Flag Candy Bar for the 4th of July Dessert

June 28, 2014 by Jenn

The American’s are coming! The American’s are coming! My brother and his family from Minneapolis are coming! They’re “the American’s” in my world. I can wait to see them and celebrate Canada day AND the 4th of July!

Since we have family, friends and lots of viewers from the United States, I wanted to do another 4th of July video for all of them. Last year I did an American Flag surprise inside cake, so I knew topping that would be a challenge. What’s better than cake? CHOCOLATE!

In Canada we call small bars covered in chocolate “chocolate bars” but my research told me that in the States, they are called “candy bars”. They’re the same thing though. This candy bar uses my sugar cookie recipe for the crunchy base, and a chewy nougat for the top. Cover the entire thing in chocolate, and you have your own giant chocolate bar!! I found red and blue M&M’s easily (they come in the regular pack of M&M’s), but I had to order the white M&M’s off of Amazon.

I had never experimented with making candy before this recipe, so I was a little intimidated. Turns out, it’s only a lesson in patience! Watching the candy thermometer slowly climb seems as effective as watching paint dry. It takes a long time to get to 250F!! Ok, well, maybe it was only 10 minutes, but it seemed like a long time. The only caution I have is that the candy is HOT, so be careful.

Since this is a chocolate bar of sorts, I strayed away from my usual candy melts, as I wanted to have a true chocolate coating. Working with real chocolate (as opposed to the candy melts) is a little bit more tricky as the real stuff takes longer to solidify, so time in the fridge was necessary when I was shaping the sides to be vertical. Cover, swipe sides, fridge, repeat.

When you’re ready to serve your guests, slice off a piece of the candy bar, and each person will get their own American flag!

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Filed Under: Holiday Baking, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: 4th of July, 4th of July dessert, American flag dessert, American Flag M&M, blue, candy bar, chocolate, chocolate bar, forth of July cake, forth of July dessert, red, red white blue, USA, USA bar, USA cake, USA dessert, white, white M&M's

Canadian Flag Cake for Canada Day (Surprise Inside Cake)

June 22, 2014 by Jenn

“The flag is the symbol of the nation’s unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion.” Honourable Maurice Bourget, Speaker of the Senate, 1965

In Canada we celebrate our Nation each July 1. Our Canadian flag is a very simple design . . . red panels on each side of the flag, in the middle white with a red maple leaf in the centre. I THOUGHT this would be an easy cake to make. I thought wrong. Very wrong.

After the success of our American Flag cake tutorial that we put out for the Forth of July last year (2013), I knew that this year, I HAD to make one for my country! When I started out, I thought it would be super simple, and I would find success the first time out. Not-so-much. 6 practice cakes later, I had finally nailed it, and it was ready to be filmed for YouTube stardom!

I wanted a very distinct maple leaf in the centre of the flag, and with that, I caused myself a problem. The maple leaf kept coming out of the second bake missing sections of the leaf, or looking like a red blob. I tried cutting the maple leaves out of regular cake, using cakepop mix, and I tried prebaked sugar cookies, until finally, when I had almost given up, I thought I would try freezing the section I needed for cutting the leaves out. Thankfully, it worked!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake, Canada cake, canada day, Canadian cake, July 1, red and white cake, surprise inside, surprise inside cake

The Fault In Our Stars Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

June 20, 2014 by Jenn

I loved this book despite the fact I used up a box of tissues while reading it! If you haven’t heard of The Fault In Our Stars, you must get to the library/bookstore/iBooks now! It is a super easy read, and despite the heavy underlying storyline, it remains somewhat light and fun to read.

I heard rave reviews about the book on Amazon, but the aspect that made me want to read it the most was that it was written by a fellow YouTuber!! John Green and his brother run the channel VlogBrothers, where they are “raising nerdy to the power of awesome.” Obviously with the success of TFiOS (and his other novels) he is a New York Times Bestseller and an award winning author.

I received a TON of requests for TFiOS cake on my YouTube channel, and knowing that I couldn’t let my YT subscribers down, I had to come up with a way to make the story into a cake. At first I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make a book cake, but it just wasn’t interesting enough. I still plan to make a book cake tutorial, but it’s on the back burner.

Being that I was constructing a cake about a serious topic (cancer), I wanted to keep it light and hopeful– no sense of pulling the tissue box out when there is cake around! I’ve been wanting to make a pull apart cupcake cake for a while, and with the black and white clouds on the cover of the book, making the pull apart cake was the perfect match!

Filming the video was slightly awkward as I couldn’t pipe the words upside down, so you’re probably going to have to turn your computer around to see me working on the piping portion of the cake. When we build our new studio, I will have to make sure we have somewhere to place the camera over my shoulder! Sorry ’bout that!

I haven’t been to see the movie yet, and I’m not sure if I will. I am always disappointed when I go to see movies that have been made from books!!! Is that bad? Or do you feel the same way? Let me know I’m not alone!!! If you haven’t read the book yet, you can get it HERE

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Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: blue cupcakes, cupcake, cupcake cake, John Green, pull apart, pull apart cupcake, pull apart cupcake cake, TFiOS, The Fault In Our Stars

Shark Cake Pops for Discovery’s Shark Week

How to Make a Marshmallow Shooter

Sand Dollar Sugar Cookies- Backpack Baking at the Beach Recipe

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Stuffed Triple Peanut Butter Cookies

Transformers Cake- Using a Shaped Cake Pan

Giant American Flag Candy Bar for the 4th of July Dessert

Canadian Flag Cake for Canada Day (Surprise Inside Cake)

The Fault In Our Stars Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

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