Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio

No Bake Oreo Marshmallow Bars (Cookies and Cream Bars)

February 19, 2015 by Jenn

Oreos and marshmallows make a great combination . . . who would have thought? I’m making these bars, which are super simple, as I have a big cake project in the plans, and you need to know how to make these before I get to the special video!

There is a lot of flexibility when it comes to these bars. You can add extra marshmallows, or extra cookies to change the way that the bars taste and feel. The more cookies you add, the crunchier the bars will be. And vise versa, the more marshmallows you add, the chewier the bars will be. I would also take a guess and say that mixing in a different flavour of sandwich cookie would be good too. Maybe any cookie would work!?! If you try that out, let me know!

Melting Candle Rainbow Cake

February 14, 2015 by Jenn

This is such an amazing birthday cake idea . . . in my humble opinion! Sometimes when it comes to decorating cake or cupcakes, you need to make sure that you are precise and perfect, but with an idea like this one, you can be as messy, aka artistic, as you want to be!

I searched all over town for all of the candles that I ended up putting on this cake. Whatever you can find, however crazy looking, buy them and put them on this cake! It was tricky to find enough of the purple candles, as for some reason that colour isn’t included in some of the candle packs. If you’re in Canada, I found the candles I used in the video at Bulk Barn and Target (RIP).

Popcorn Cake (No Bake)

February 11, 2015 by Jenn

I love popcorn. It’s my vice in the evenings. Really, it’s probably a habit that I should quit, but I just can’t quit it. Yet. But I should try. Soon. Maybe. But I like it! Years ago, my friend Kim introduced me to the wonders of popcorn with Smarties. Say what? Popcorn and chocolate? OMG, Everyday I curse and applaud her for this. Thank you dear friend.

Well, now that you have direct proof of my mental struggle with food, I will move on to the actually reason you are here reading this, and that is for the Popcorn Cake!

If you love a salty and sweet combination, which I also love, but we don’t want to get into that, this is the perfect no-bake cake for you! Start out with a basic recipe that you might find for rice krispies treats (marshmallows and butter), and add in any of your favourite small candies or chocolates, press it into a cake pan, and ta-da! A popcorn cake!

Heart Shaped Kit Kat Cake for Valentine’s Day

February 4, 2015 by Jenn

Whether you are a lover or hater of Valentine’s day, you’re bound to love this cake because it’s full of candy, and lined with WHITE Kit Kats!

For whatever reason, I wasn’t able to find the white KitKats in Canada. For those of you that might find yourself with the same problem, I got the white KitKats on a recent trip to the US. Being so close to the border, I find that it’s super easy to order things that we don’t have in Canada, and have them shipping to a shipping outlet five minutes from the Canadian border. It’s awesome. And deadly at the same time. It’s quite an addiciting habbit. With Target pulling out of Canada, shopping is incredibly sparse in my city, so if it means I have to drive an hour or so to pick up packages from the USA, I’m willing to do so. All for the sake of the videos. All for you. ALL FOR YOU PEOPLE!!! Hahaha . . . that is true, but I might have an obsession with online shopping. Maybe. Why do they have to make it so easy!?!?!?

For the candy topping, you could use whichever your favourite candies are, themed with Valentine colours. Of course, you could make this for another occasion, and it would look just as awesome- I’m thinking Halloween, Easter, Christmas, or even a rainbow theme!

For the heart shaped cake, I used my favourite cake recipe, divided it in half like I would for any 8″ or 9″ pan, and baked them for about 45 minutes at 350. I think I had too much batter in the pan which is why I had to bake them for so long. The heart cake pan comes in a variety of sizes, so when you’re working with your batter, I just advise you to start watching it at 30 minutes.

When I’m choosing ribbon to use with cakes, for something like this, I went with a larger sized one. I also stay away from the ones that are “Wired”, since they tend to crinkle, and don’t lay flat on the cakes. They might be better for making bows, but aint’ nobody got time for that!

Giant Ferrero Rocher Cake

January 30, 2015 by Jenn

Imagine this . . . hazelnut core, nutella hazelnut wafers, chocolate hazelnut coating. You with me?

Sound familiar? Like a Ferrero Rocher you say? Well, it is, but in GIANT form!

I’ve been wanting to make a homemade ferrero rocher every since I made homemade nutella. But, rather than making regular sized ones, I opted to go big. “Go big or go home” is what my brother used to say. He was referring to hockey and not chocolate, but that’s not important. When I’m referring to chocolate, I’m always referring to going BIG.

Hazelnuts are the main flavouring component to a ferrero. I find it next to impossible to find hazelnuts already roasted. To roast the hazelnuts, simply line a baking tray with parchment paper, and toast for 15-20 mins at 325F. Once the hazelnuts are fragrant and toasted, allow them to cool, and peel the skins from the nuts. They’re now ready to use!

To make the giant ferrero rocher, the general idea is to encase a hazelnut/hazelnut butter mixture, nutella wafers and coat the entire thing in chocolate and crushed hazelnuts.

If you prefer to stick with the smaller, traditional size, you can definitely do that with this recipe too. Instead of using the hazelnut butter and hazelnuts to make the core, simply use a single hazelnut. Wrap the hazelnut in the nutella mixture, roll into a ball, roll in nuts and finally melted chocolate.

OPI Nail Polish Bottle Cake:3-D Nail Polish Cake

January 10, 2015 by Jenn

We’re back!! We took a short break to recover from the excitement of 2014, and will be slowly getting back into the swing of things this month. To start off with our first video upload of 2015, I have a super fun 3D nail polish bottle cake to show you. I’ve recieved many requests for this type of a cake, so I’m happy to finally be able to bring it to life.

If you’ve been watching my YouTube channel for a while, you know that I always have my nails done. Some days are better than others, but they’re polished 99% of the time. Don’t check my old videos out though . . . I prove myself wrong in those. Teaming up with a fellow YouTuber for nail polish bottle cake was a must for me! One of the channels that I have been watching for quite sometime for nail art ideas, is IHaveACupcake! What a perfect name for a collaboration! Elizabeth has a fabulous channel full of beautiful nail art ideas. She explains everything so simply, that it makes me think I could actually do my nails myself! Make sure you check out her channel, subscribe to it, and you can also check her blog out here.

In Elizabeth’s video, she shows you how to make cupcake nail art and in mine, we show you how to make a carved nail polish bottle. You can follow the technique that I show you in the video to match your favourite nail polish brand. I just happen to have a lot of OPI bottles around, so I chose to go with that type of bottle. Customizing the nail polish bottle colour is totally up to you, and I went with purple as it’s my favourite colour.

Fireworks New Year’s Cake

December 28, 2014 by Jenn

I think this year will be a great year for a NYE celebration! Paul and I had so many wonderful things happen to us in regards to YouTube in 2014 that we are super excited about what 2015 will be bringing us! We finished off a six month YouTube program in February with our third trip to YouTube Space LA, in the summer we took a two week working vacation to Vancouver Island and caught up with family and friends and filmed a fun video on the beach. October brought us to Toronto to take part in Buffer Festival, and that was a great experience to see how Canada’s YouTube branch does things. We celebrated 500K subscribers in the fall and hosted a giveaway that shut our blog down!! Lesson learned- we’ll have it ready for the 1M giveaway that we will be hitting sometime in early 2015. I can’t wait for that milestone! If you’re reading this, let me know in the comments what you think would be a gigantic way to celebrate it! We are very grateful for everything that has happened to us, and are so excited to plan 2015.

On to the cake for our New Years Eve celebration:

I purchased all of these New Year’s eve decorations at WalMart. Before Christmas had even happened, the stores were filled with NYE decorations and were pushing us onto the next celebration they could sell us stuff for. The candles and sparkles are available all year round, and I found those in the birthday section. The glitter ribbon I found in the crafting section, and it would be my guess that it is also available year round.

The fireworks are really easy to make and don’t require any templates. They are easy to freehand. The key to the fireworks is to make the centre the brightest, and to add the small dots and dashes around the outer rim. I practiced them a number of ways, and I found that those were the key to making it look most realistic.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December 24, 2014 by Jenn

Thank you for all of your support by reading my blog, watching my videos, and following me on Social Media sites! Cheers to more success in 2015 for each and every one of you!

Filed Under: Randomness Tagged With: christmas wish, CupcakesandCardio, happy holidays, Merry Christmas