Red Velvet Valentines

Valentines day was wonderful…any excuse for me to decorate cupcakes or cake is a good day in my book. I went all out since I could decorate them however I wanted. Now that I know my full potential I decided to invest in some extra decorations, but I literally had no idea where to get them – so, I obviously turned to Amazon.

First of all, fancy decoration can be pricey, but they are very neat. I wound up with some metallic silver and pink heart sprinkle (more like the consistency of sequins though) and light pink metallic food paint. The paint can apparently be airbrushed, but I really didn’t want to get that involved. SO I used it to mix with some white frosting and brushed it on top after it had hardened a bit. I also used it on my pièce de résistance, the white chocolate hearts.

I got this idea after watching my sister make some nonpareils. First of all you have to work quickly – they aren’t lying when they say chocolate is hard to work with, especially white chocolate. We got our method of dispensing the chocolate from our friend’s blog, Rachel Passing Notes. Basically used regular white chocolate chips and a little shortening, melted them at intervals of 30s at a medium power and them somehow got it into Ziploc baggies that we snipped on of the corners off of. Homemade piping!!! Luckily, I had watched my talented sister fail, so I was prepared for chocolate piping speed.  I made some purple and pink hearts simply by adding some food coloring to the chocolate before I put it in the baggie.  

The first round wasn’t quite as successful, I tried to cut the white chocolate with a cookie cutter, but it was pretty heard to get it at the right consistency, that’s when I just straight-up piped the hearts, and they turned out a little kitschy, but perfect. I admit, this time I used a boxed red velvet mix. The Duncan Hines actually yields more than the regular box, so I got A LOT of cupcakes. For the baby cupcakes I used some frosting left over from another cake, that turned out to fade in the sun – actually looked better. But the end result was AMAZING, if I do say so myself.




I would say my best delivery was to my beautiful sister. She had an early train on Monday so I left her treat where (I hoped) she wouldn't miss it.

And here is a sweet (both meanings) slideshow of my cupcakes. Lucky for you I edited it down from 52. Imagine how many photos there will be when I have children.

Mmmm, cake!

Who doesn’t love cake? I actually prefer to bake them, as you’ll see. A Foley Family tradition was started this year – no more buying cakes. First all, you saves loads of money, but there is also something about homemade cakes – even if they are made with funfetti. This new tradition is right up my alley, I love putting things together (i.e. legos) and crafts, this brings together both ‘brains’ so to speak.

It started with my sister, who seems to love rubbing my mother the wrong way. Jen wanted a funfetti cake for her birthday, I was more than happy to oblige. My mother on the other hand NEEDS to buy cakes from White’s Bakery and we have to have a special dinner, but the special dinner has to be on her terms. I distinctly remember asking for Dinty Moore Beef Stew (if you don’t like it, go jump off a cliff) and she refused, because it wasn’t ‘nice’ enough. Karma is a bitch though, because she made American chop suey and as I was putting it on the table, the plate went where it was supposed to, but the suey went on the wall. Inertia is a funny thing.


Anyway, back to cake. It was my mom’s birthday this week and my
sister and I decided to compromise – we wouldn’t force her to have Funfetti, but she wasn’t allowed to have a store bought cake. So I made red velvet her favorite, and my first cake from scratch (aside from angel food cake). It was beautiful…and really, it isn’t so fancy, just loads of food coloring and bit of cocoa powder. I struggled a bit with the design for this, because I just had to trump my last big cake for my brother’s birthday. Jake’s cake had his favorite stuffed penguin on it, definitely a challenge. I love flowers and all, but I needed to open up my repertoire and I like to have each cake specific to the birthday boy or girl. My dad’s was perfect; you’ll see it in the slide show below.

Mom’s cake ended up being lime green frosting, nice and funky with the red velvet, with a camera. My mom loves photography, but it took me quite a while to get that shit on the cake. The end result was really masterpiece; I just sent a picture to the Louvre.