Homemade Sprinkles

You know how much I love holiday themed baking, be it cupcakes or cakepops or full on cakes. Holidays just don't seem complete without customized treats. This morning I stumbled across a blog tutorial showing how to make your own sprinkles. Never more will I have to visit every store in town to find just the right color! And just think how far you could take this with flavors!

Homemade Sprinkles

8 ounces powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla, or other extract
Assorted food colorings
As many piping bags as you have colors, each fitted with a small pastry tip

Mix the first four ingredients until a semi-thick paste forms. Divide the paste into as many portions as you have colors, tinting each batch with the color of your choice.
Put the colored paste into a piping bag and, on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, pipe out long, thin lines. Take care the lines do not touch each other.
Repeat the process with the remaining colors and allow the piped lines to dry for 24 hours.
After the time has elapsed, use a bench scraper or knife to scrape off the dried sprinkle lines and then to break/chop the lines into little pieces.
Store in an airtight container, indefinitely.

(Photos from The Kitchn's version of the above recipe)

A Belated St. Pattie's Day

My coworkers had been giving me a hard time about not bringing them any baked goodies lately (it had been since Halloween!) so I promised them St. Pattie's Day cakepops. But, I wound up being out sick with bronchitis most of that week and it didn't happen. I decided to make it up to them with a belated batch of vanilla-almond cakepops dipped in green chocolate and topped with sugar crystal sprinkles. 

Better late than never!

Happy Halloween!

I'm usually far more fun for Halloween than I was this year. Between feeling a little under the weather and work having been extra intense the last couple of weeks, I just didn't get into it. That being said, you know I never pass up an opportunity for holiday baking! A handful of us ladies at the brewery decided to dress up for work, and I couldn't help but add to the festivities by treating them to cakepops! 

Sunday I stayed in my jammies all day, cooked sourdough french toast, sipped mimosas, watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," and baked. Despite not feeling so great, it was pretty ideal.

 

I found some fun decorating ideas online, which were harder than I expected, thanks to the major fail that is Wilton edible ink pens, but I managed to knock out a bunch worth sharing. If I was going to do these designs again I'd probably cut out stencils for the jack-o-lanterns and use cake graffiti spray. For the eyeballs, it would have been easier to toothpick on red food coloring and let dry, or even pipe on really thin lines of red chocolate.

Spice cake pumpkins, White cake eyeballs and mummies

 

Michael's Coupons

I am by no means an extreme couponer. In fact, I didn't really start using coupons until Safeway began their "Just for U" campaign, which allows customers to go online and attach coupons to their club card. The only store I really hunt down discounts for is Michael's, because being crafty sure is expensive!

I'm not sure if it's the approaching holidays or if they just love me that much, but Michael's is running a ton of great sales in-store and putting out some serious coupons. Yesterday I walked into their Colma store armed with a lengthy shopping list and a "20% off entire purchase" coupon, and walked out an hour later with $90 worth of goodies for $50. Heck yes. Picture frames are 40% off, baskets are 50% off, .59c paper is 4/$1, ribbon is on various %-off sales depending on size and type... and so much more. It's too bad none of my Halloween cakepop supplies were on sale, but I hardly minded spending $8.99 on an edible ink pen set when I was scoring so big on everything else!