Homemade Turtles

Everyone loves Turtles... you know those chocolate-y caramel-y pecan-y treats that come in a flat box at Christmas. And you know what's better than the turtles from the store? Turtles made at home of course!

And it helps that they're not too hard to make!

So first you unwrap a whole ton of caramels and put them in a bowl with some milk.
Then you microwave them in 30s-1min intervals stirring in between until they are all melty
Then you throw in a few handfuls of pecans
Then spoon the pecan caramel goo onto a PARCHMENT PAPER lined cookie sheet (not waxed paper, I discovered that using wax paper was a very bad idea)
Then freeze the carmel blobs for an hour or more. While you're doing this microwave some chocolate according to package directions. Finally, take the caramels out of the fridge and drop them in the chocolate.
Cover them in chocolate. If they start to get too soft put the caramels back in the refrigerator. Drop the chocolate covered caramels onto another parchment paper covered cookie sheet and put them back in the freezer.
A few hours later you will have the most amazing homemade turtles, just be sure to let them thaw a bit before you bite in. :)

Colourful Sugar Cookies!

These photos are pretty old... as in from Halloween... which was three months ago-ish. But they are just so fun I had to post them!
We were having a chili dinner for 'All Hollow's Eve' with the church group on campus. So we were expecting a lot of people. And so we made a lot of cookies...
I really mean a lot of cookies. Mostly sugar cookies, and a few shortbread ones.
Then a bunch of friends and I decorated them...
It was a lot of fun and I wish I'd managed to take a picture of every decorated cookie because no two were the same!
It was great, and it gave me a chance to use some of the nearly three dozen cookie cutters I bought in Seattle in October. And it also made me not want to make rolled cookies again for a good long while...

Zambia, Paper Bag Princess and Mario Cakes

So I haven't posted in several months... oops. I was super busy this past semester with school and even when I got a chance to bake I didn't have time to write up a post, and half the time I forgot to even take pictures.

But I'm back at work now so I now have time to both bake and post!

I'm going to start with a few of the cakes I made over the past few months. No new recipes, just my usual standbys.

I made this one just last night, for some friends who are off to Zambia to do their final nursing practicums.

This was one of the ones where the reaction was the best part. I was already super happy with how it turned out and then when I saw how the girls reacted to it, it really made this one of my favourite cakes I've ever made.

This next one I can't take credit for really, my brother's girlfriend did pretty much all of the work on it but I just had to show it.
We made it for a girl who's favourite colour is grey and who was going as the paper bag princess for halloween. And, as an added bonus, inside was a rainbow cake!

And finally, I made this one for my cousin, and I know I have more photos of it but I can't figure out which camera they were on. So I'll probably write another post for it when I find them later.
I was using a new icing recipe which didn't turn out to be very good for piping and decorating, so I did a last minute grocery store run and improvised. Jelly Bellies are a little different to work with than icing, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.