Mini Cherry Pies

I am a sucker for Homemade gifts! I love getting them and I LOVE to make them for people. Every year I try to come up with something new to make for my grandparents for Christmas. They typically have everything material that they want, so rather than just buy them something new, I like to go the goodie route.

Let's talk about these cherry pies!

My grandpa is a diabetic who loves cherry pie. He absolutley refuses to eat the sugar free pie, and can only eat the regular stuff a little at a time. In the past, I've made him Cherry Pie Pops from Bakerella's website, so this time around, I wanted to do something a little different.

A friend of mine told me about a website she had stumbled on: NotMartha.com and they had posted these adorable little pies, baked in 4 oz. glass jars! That's right BAKED IN THE JAR! No mess and easy to transport! So I couldn't pass it up!
I looked all over Omaha for the jars, but it was already after the canning season and they were hard to find. I actually found the jars at a Walmart down in Tennessee over Thanksgiving while visiting my parents. Now, for the pie part, I cheated like crazy! I bought a refrigerated pie crust and cut it to size, and I bought canned cherry filling. Next time, I'll try from scratch, but these didn't turn out half bad for cheating ;)

After they cooled, I put the lids on and tied each one with a cute Christmas goodie ribbon, put three of the jars in a basket with some Hot cocoa mix and tied the basket witha Homemade By Me ribbon and off we went! The grandparents LOVED them!

Christmas cookies!

So this year, I decided to try something new. I decided to jump onto the Royal Icing bandwagon! And I gotta tell ya, I don't think I'll ever jump back off! I LOVE working with Royal Icing and I don't know why I waited so long to try it out!

It just makes everything so much easier to decorate and to transport!

I made a basic sugar cookie and then followed the recipe and steps for the icing found on fellow nestie Annie's blogsite: http://www.annies-eats.com
Super easy recipe and tasty too!

It was a long process for decorating, but honestly, I enjoyed every minute of it!

Now that I've gotten the hang of it, I have so many ideas I want to try out on cookies! Look for those to come in the new year!

Tree makeover

Not that they needed it, but for something a little different, I gave my christmas trees a bit of a makeover and I almost think I like these better than the previous trees! Plus they didn't crack near as bad! What do you think?

Thumpity Thump Thump, Thumpity Thump Thump...

Look at Frosty Go!

These are my cute versions of Frosty the Snowman! While I would love to take credit for the idea of them, I just can't. Credit goes to: Leslie Salazar DeMedicis. I found her picture of them on the Bakerella fan site on FB. I did make a few changes to make them my own. She had used jelly beans for the nose, where I used an orange rainbow chip and she had used red candy melt for the hats and I used green on mine.

All in all, I thought she had a great idea, and everyone that I have made them for have said that this one is their favorite! So thanks Leslie for the great idea!

Frosty is just a plain pop dipped in white. I attached a chocolate candy wafer to the head right after I dipped it, then spooned some green candy melt onto the wafer and attached a Rolo candy to that upside down. Touched it off with decorative sprinkles, a small rainbow chip candy nose and used my Americolor pen for the eyes and mouth!

Santa needs a helper!

Sorry it has taken me so long to get some of my Christmas posts up and running! Christmas was a very busy time for me, not only for my own baking, but for many large orders of cake pops for other companies and clients! I'd like to give a huge THANK YOU to all who ordered during the holiday and look forward to working with all of you in the new year!

Now, back to Santa's lil helper!

Where would Santa be without his....ELVES! I figured, hey, if i can make Santa, surely I can make an elf!

So here he is with pointed ears and all! I absolutely adore him! And he was sooo easy to make! I made skin tone candy melt again, much like I did for Santa, and then dipped a left-over cake ball into it. Let that sit to dry and then dipped the top half of him in the green, let that dry, then dipped that in red, leaving a little green, then once that dried, you guess it...dipped it back in the green again and topped it with white candy for the puff on the top of a hat!

Then, using the skin tone candy melt that was hardening just a bit, I put a nose on him and some pointy ears! Then I used my Americolor edible pen and drew on eyes, freckles and a mouth! He is so neat and he turned out exactly like I wanted him to!

Here Comes...

SANTA CLAUS!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so I know I've said this in the past about various other cake pops but....

This one HAS to be my all-time FAVORITE cake pop ever!

Not only because I am a huge fan of Santa and Christmas, but because he is just soooooo flipping cute! I never in my wildest dreams thought he would come out as cute as he did.

I was working last night on some cake pops for another couple of mug arrangements for the same client from the below post, and this time she has a snowman mug and a Santa mug. I thought, ok, I can do another snowman and I could do a Santa hat and that would be good, but then I thought, why not try out an actual Santa?

So I mixed up some white candy melt with a chocolate candy wafer for the skin tone, dipped the cake pop in that and let it dry, then I dipped the top of his head into the red candy melt and let it dry. I then used the end of a lollipop stick to create his beard and hair in the back, used left over skin tone color for his nose, used a toothpick for his mustache, and then glopped a little more red candy melt on top. I used a white sixlet for the ball on top and used a black candy writer for his eyes!

Sounds like a lot of work, but isn't he worth it???? I think so! ;)

Gift baskets and Cake Pop Cups

Still keeping up with the Christmas Spirit, I recently had 2 new orders for gift sets! YAY! I love doing gift baskets and gift sets! So much fun!

The client for the gift sets bought some really cute Christmas mugs and asked if I could arrange 6 cake pops in each one. Of course I said I could do that! So, since each cup had a snowman on the outside of it, I decided to make a little snowman cake pop for each cup! 2 girls with snowflake bows and a little guy with a striped scarf! The client was happily surprised!

Here's an above shot, looking down on the mugs. You can see their cute bows better at this angle!

Now this next one, my husband actually asked if he could order cake pops for a business gathering he was going to. Silly man, like I was going to take his money (considering his money is my money too! lol).

I went ahead and made him 2 dozen to take with him, mixing it up with reindeer, snowmen/snowgirls, christmas trees and santa hats. I arranged them in a basket I happened to have around the house and then tied it off with an adorable ribbon I picked up at Hallmark. The ribbon says "Handmade Just for You!" Perfect for Christmas goodie baskets!

They all loved them and he came back with an empty basket! Yay!

UPDATE!

For those of you who would like to get an order in for any Christmas or Holiday festivities, please have your order in by Dec. 18th. I will fulfill orders up until the 20th of December and then will be taking a break from the 21st until the 28th as I will have some of my own Christmas baking to do and will have my family in town during the holiday. Thank you so much for all of your continued support and for your orders! Have a very safe and Merry Christmas!