Give Away! With Ché and Fidel

As much as I'd love to be giving away something, it's not yet my time... I'm just not that organised! But Jodi over at Ché and Fidel is! Oh my how she is! Have a look at this line up! Quick go enter now! Entries close tonight at 9pm.

Apple Cookies

Ready for the oven... minus a few bites!

I got my very first real deal cake decorating piping set and have been itching to use it for months! And thanks to the inspiration of one superb sugar cookie decorator Sugarbelle; these apple cookies have been my maiden voyage so to speak.

I got my sugar cookie recipe from Sugarbelle too. It's especially simple, and  with a few little tweaks for my temperamental oven, I think my cookies turned out quite well. On with the decorating!

I decided to make apples, as another gift for the wonderful staff at Day Care. All teachers should receive an apple from the kids (or their parents) don't you think?

I piped the outlines first.
White for the whole apples and red for the cut apples.

Flooded (filled) in the rest.
A couple hours later piped in the stems and seeds and hastily  popped on the little leaves.

Popped each one in a little celo bag and tied with a bow! Whaa-laa!

Chocolate-chip cookie dough truffle pops!

Cake pops are so hot right now it seemed only natural I give them a go. It's only been a few months worth of dreaming about them and wondering what excuse I might have to make some. Then a delightful double banger of an excuse popped  into my Facebook inbox: Baking Our Blues Away.

Not only would I get to finally make some pops, but I get to make them for someone else and hopefully make their day! How could I refuse? Challenge accepted.

I chose to make the pops for the beautiful, caring and passionate teachers at my boys Day Care. Even though I don't think any of them are technically "blue" it seems like a very thankless job - taking care of other people's children all day. Which seems like a ridiculous concept, but it's very easy to have tunnel vision when it comes to your kids. I know I'm guilty of forgetting what their teachers do each day and thanking them regularly. I will remember to do so more often from now on.

  
 To the pops!

The chocolate-chip cookie dough truffle recipe (sans egg for eating raw) was courtesy of Bakerella. I spotted it on Pinterest, where I find most of my mouthwatering cooking temptations. This one actually came to fruition a lot quicker than most! Simple recipe. Totally fun to make. Absolutely delicious! Teachers at day care, you are very lucky I didn't eat them all! Plus I had to smuggle them out of the house quick smart or I would have had cookie-dough-flavoured-chocolate-covered-kidlets (and husband).

Since I am not a cook. I won't go into the details and how-to's. (Bakerella does a fine job of that anyway.) I will simply note a couple things that made my pop experience work (or could work better).

• Make extras. As I mentioned above I was very tempted to eat as I worked, which would have resulted in minimal produce.
• Make them out of sight of children and husbands, or any other strays in your house at the time for fear of the same result as above.
• I made them a couple days in advance and they kept fine in the fridge. Hidden.
• Plain sticks look much better than coloured. But I didn't have any, hence the coloured sticks.
• Little celo baggies and ribbon turn them into very cute individual gifts. Perfect for this situation.

Hope you try your hand at making some pops, they are the bomb!