Spinning Creme Brulee into COOKIES!

Hi Spin-Sters!

Melanie made some yummy cookies for one of her best friend for her birthday, who also had a buffet of sushi for her birthday dinner. Her friend, Cheri, loves crème brulee. 

PINNED: Christmas Trees

Today we bring you another edition of PINNED.  This is our on going series where we try out photo tutorials on Pinterest.  This time we are going to do two different types of Christmas trees. You can do these trees in fondant like we did, gum paste, or even polymer clay.

Gingerbread Disaster

 

Turning a negative into a positive.

With Christmas looming Jenn has lots of Shriner events to attend, and this one required her to whip up a quick dessert.  She chose to make up an old-fashioned gingerbread cake.  She found the recipe in her old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. 

Chocolate Holiday House

 

This year we decided to bring you a different type of decorated holiday house.  Instead of gingerbread, we are making a CHOCOLATE house.  We used a kit that Melanie bought at her local mega store.

Peppermint Crispie Treats

 

Over Thanksgiving Melanie made these delicious Peppermint Crispy treats to share with her family.  So we decided to make them for you as well.  Too bad you can’t taste them, he he he…

Playing with Isomalt

We were so lucky to attend an Isomalt class offered by SimiCakes.  They came to Jacksonville, and taught us how to make flowers out of Isomalt.  Which is cool for us, because we don’t usually get classes this advanced in our area.

Happy Thanksgiving

What to do with Left over Pineapple

As floridians we love to eat our pineapple fresh.  Jenn had this left over pineapple hanging out in her fridge, after a week she decided it was time to give it a spin...

Back-to-School Cookies

Back-to-School Cookies

Hey Spin-Sters!!

It is that time of year again where the kiddies go back to school.  Some parents are rejoicing, while others (Jenn) are not so thrilled of another year of homework…

In any case we decided to bring you some cookie ideas to make the Back-to-School season fun. Enjoy.

Decorate a Cake Series Summer 2013 Tulip

Decorate a Cake Series Summer 2013 Tulip

Hey Spin-Sters!!

Here it is, our final cake decorating video for the summer.  This is a tulip tutorial we found on Pinterest that was only pictures.  

Obessed with Chai

Hi Spin-Sters!

Today is all about our obsession with Chai.  Our drink of the day is Vanilla Chai tea, and we are spinning Chocolate Chai Spice Cupcakes. We have been following The Cupcake Project for a while now and have fallen in love with the cupcakes she made on her first post, Chocolate Chai Spice cupcakes.  We put our on spin on it, as we do here at Cake Spinners, and added an Amaretto Chai Marshmallow icing to give it a little more Oomph, and used a darker chocolate.  

Crafting For The Fair, pt 2

Peanut Blossoms
Hi Spin-Sters!

As stated in the Pumpkin Spice Meringue post, Jenn also made Peanut Blossom cookies for the craft fair that just passed, and they sold out the first day.  She made 3 trays that contained 35 cookies on each. This recipe has been in Jenn's family tradition for more than 30 years. It also is a tradition for other families too, as the recipe comes from the back of the Hershey kisses bag.

Crafting For The Fair

Pumpkin Spiced Meringues
Hi Spin-Sters!

Today is all about preparing sweets to sell at a craft fair that benefits the Morocco Shriners this weekend. Since it is fall season, and so close to Thanksgiving, Jenn has decided to make Pumpkin Spiced Meringues and Peanut Blossoms, which will be in the next post. These little puffs of air and sweetness have that flavor that you would associate with the flavors of Thanksgiving. She used her favorite swiss meringue recipe and to give them some flavor, she let 3 whole cloves and 1 stick of cinnamon steep in the egg whites and sugar mixture while it came up to 145* F.

Road Trip with Melanie!!!

A Gem in Orlando

    In Jacksonville, there are no stores dedicated to cake decorating. There was once a cake supply store but that closed down a couple of years ago. Sure, you have the typical crafts stores, like Michaels and Jo-Anns even stores like Walmart or Target, that sell a limited supply of cake decorating items. You also have online stores that are amazing in providing decorators with a superb amount of tools, resources and mediums for the art of cake. I love to look online for the items when I can't find them in my usual local crafting stores. But my true nature wants to see the items in person before I purchase.

Drowning in Red Velvet

Written By Jenn

I don’t know if it is just living in the south or what but, by golly there is a lot of Red Velvet lovers out there.  My son has become victim of thee Red Velvet frenzy, and has adopted the flavor as his favorite.  Today we celebrate his birthday by having a few of his friends over to paar tay.  So I have been busy whipping up my most requested cake of course the Red Velvet.

Cupcake Cheater

 Written By Jenn

Well, It is inevitable for most chefs and creators of perfect baked goods… There is a time when we have to step out of ourselves, and use other sources.  Yes I am guilty as charged.  I am a big fat cupcake cheater… Today is my youngest birthday, I usually make cupcakes for his class, but today is different.  As we like to say here at Cake Spinners life happened…  I was swamped with homework this week and yesterday between class, and everything else the cupcakes fell through the cracks…  When hubby tucked in the little guy he said, “ I hope mommy can still make the cupcakes…” Guilt… Guilt… Guilt…

Tea Time

 Black Chocolate Tea

We loved this tea from The Spice and Tea Exchange.  We added a little bit of sugar to our tea to bring up the sweetness of the chocolate.

Click here for the VIDEO!!!!

 This tea is a black tea and contains caffeine. It has chocolate flavoring added to it which makes it yummy.  The smell of this tea hints at the sweetness that will soon explode on your tastebuds.  Melanie thinks this would be a great dessert tea.  While Jenn would prefer this one for breakfast with a little cream.  

We hope you are enjoying our Tea Time, and if you would like to see anything let us know...

SPPIINNN!!

PINNED: Rose Tutorial & SPIN the PIN

PINNED
This past week we have been working on this rose tutorial we found on Pinterest.  It has been out there a while and looked fairly easy so we though you might like to see it. 

Drink of the Day

Drink of the Day

Tea Tasting Time

Twinings Herbal Revive

Twinings has a whole line of Herbal Revive Tea, I just so happened to have the Cherry and Madagascan Cinnamon in my pantry.  We loved this tea, so yummy and sweet.  The tea is naturally sweet with the cherry flavor; you don’t need any added sweetener.   We did choose to add a tad of honey to ours which made the cinnamon flavor pop.  These teas are readily available.  I couldn’t find it in my Walmart this morning, but you can order off the internet with no problems.

Check it out we would love to hear what you think...

See ya next time!!

SPPIINNN!!

Drink of the Day

Drink of the Day

Citrus Breeze

This time when brewing The Citrus Breeze tea we added dried cranberries to the water before heating it.  We both drank ours unsweetened.  This is our favorite from The Spice and Tea Exchanges spring collection.

This tea is still on their website for purchase.  It is a Limited Edition flavor, and we highly recommend this one.  The citrus flavors come through so well and it has a natural sweetness that dances on the tongue. It worked very well with the cranberries and would be great in the mild fall days to come.  Order it before it goes away.  We are.

****UPDATE  The Summertime Limited edition teas are sold out!!!  We will be waiting anxiously for next June for them to be back!******

We truly enjoy bringing you our picks for Drink of the Day, if you have anything you would like us to try please comment below.

SPPIINNN!!

Apple Cider Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting and a Cider Syrup Drizzle

 

Hi Spin-Sters!  

Drink of the Day

Drink of the Day

A’Lotta Colada

We added some fresh pineapple to our A’lotta Colada tea from The Spice and Tea Exchanges spring collection, and we both sweetened it with a little bit of honey.

Unfortunately the pineapple flavor didn’t come through at all even with the addition of the fresh pineapple. We would just consider this to be a coconut tea.  We do take the title to mean “a lot of coconut” instead of taking on a true pina colada flavor profile.  Jenn liked this tea and would recommend it, however Mel is not a coconut fan, therefore she is going to pass on this one.

Coming soon to Drink of the Day, Citrus Breeze.

SPPIINNN!!

Drink of the Day

Drink of the Day

Berry Lemon Drop

We loved this tea from The Spice and Tea Exchanges spring collection.  Melanie added their Blueberry Sugar to her Berry Lemon Drop tea as well. Jenn doesn’t love blueberries, so she just added honey.

This tea is chocked full of berry yumminess. It would be great on a nice hot summer day.  Melanie loved the Blueberry Sugar and thought it made an awesome flavor combination with this tea.  We highly recommend both products.

Stay tuned for A’lotta Colada.

SPPIINNN!!

Decorate a Cake Series Summer 2013 Billows

Decorate a Cake Series Summer 2013 Billows 
Hey Spin-Sters!

Today we are billowing!!!

It is our second video in our summer cake decorating series. We hope you like this video and are enjoying the series.  There are two more videos coming, we decided to bring you some flowers.  Here is the Pin we will be doing.  It is a very detailed and lengthy tutorial.  Jenn seemed to pick this one up very quickly.  This technique is easy to do in various colors and will be very easy to bling out. Enjoy it.

Decorate a Cake Series Summer 2013 Ruffles

Decorate a Cake Series Summer 2013
Hey Spin-Sters!

Its ruffle time!!!

Here is our first video in our summer cake decorating series. Enjoy the video and stay tuned for more.  Remember we will have a completely decorated tier when the series wraps up later in August.  We tried to show you what it would be like to try to work out the Pinterest tutorial live in two different ways.  We each do things different, so therefore we found we were interpreting the tutorials different.  So we felt it would be better to troubleshoot on video instead of practicing to show you a perfect version.  Here is the Pin we will be doing.

Our Day Off Haul

Hey Spin-Sters…

Today we are bringing you our haul for Our Day Off trip.  Enjoy the video as we continue to learn more about videography and blogging skills. 

Our Day Off

Our Day Off

Hey Spin-Sters, This week we wanted to show you where we live.  We decided to take you on a road trip to St Augustine, Florida.  We live in Jacksonville, but we needed to run some errands to pick up some more tea.  Here is a glimpse of our day off. Enjoy.

Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July...

With Love, The Cake Spinners

Drink of the Day

DRINK OF THE DAY

 

Today we technically have 2 drinks of the day, because Melanie didn’t buy enough of her new favorite drink, Bolthouse Farms Vanilla Chai Tea, to share with the rest of the class.  The Vanilla Chai Tea soy beverage has a delicious blend of flavors, from cinnamon to cardamom, from ginger to cloves.  It was surprisingly light due to the soy milk in it.  (Melanie very rarely likes anything with soy milk in it.  She’s picky.)  The Vanilla Chai tea that we had after, was Bigelow’s Vanilla Chai Tea. 

 

 Jenn added honey to her tea, while Melanie added honey and creamer to hers.  Both were served over ice, because let’s face it, Florida is too hot and humid in the summer time, for hot tea.  And we are Southern ladies.  And Southern ladies always drink iced tea in the summer.

Drink of the Day

Carrot Cupcake Tea

The Cake Spinners are tea freaks.  Our Drink of the Day is this Carrot Cupcake tea from The Spice and Tea Exchange.  This is a limited edition Spring Fling flavor we believe from the 2012 collection.  We thoroughly enjoyed this tea. This tea is very creamy with a delicate cinnamon flavor, and a delicious vanilla back note. 

We are planning a field trip soon to acquire some more teas to sample for you.  So stick with us.  Please comment and subscribe.

Our First Post, Edible Glitter

Welcome Video

Welcome to our first pin.  Fathers Day Cookies we realize Fathers Day has passed, but what can we say life happens…  Melanie has tried and experimented with a pin about making edible glitter which is posted in the video below.  I (Jenn) am coloring the royal icing in camouflage colors found on The Adventures of Sweet Sugarbelle.

Edible Glitter Video

         I made a huge batch of sugar cookies around Easter.  I planned out the shapes I might be using throughout the year and baked them all up.  I made bunnies for Easter of course, stars for The Fourth of July, and airplanes for Fathers Day.  I stored them in an airtight plastic container in the freezer.  I used the Signature Sugar Cookie Dough, and Royal Icing recipes in, Cookie Swap written by Julia M. Usher.  You can find her at http://www.juliausher.com/.  I also froze my royal icing from Easter.  I felt I had to add some water to thin it out a little as it wasn’t following the ten second rule.  My icing was a little thin as I started to pipe.  I also realized I should have outlined first.

        I kept going with my camo colors.  I did black, moss green, and khaki, and pea green.  Just adding splotches waiting for them to set up and adding more until the space was filled.

               Here is the green sugar (aka glitter) Melanie made in the video.  We wanted to accent the wings of the plane with it.

           This sugar just melted into the royal icing and didn’t really do anything to enhance the cookie. So I used my stand by favorite sanding sugar in black to outline the cookie.

The cookies came out cute, of course they aren’t as beautiful as Sweet Sugarbelle. With this being our first post we realize we have a lot to learn.  So we hope you stick with us and subscribe, and learn from us as we do from you and all of the Pins out there on Pinterest…     As Melanie would say SPIIINNN!!!

Two cake designers on a mission to help troubleshoot Pinterest tutorials.